Many Americans nowadays know someone who died of a fentanyl overdose. The drug is highly potent and is slipped in with other illegal substances. From 2016 to 2021, the number of people in California who have died due to fentanyl-related causes increased from 239 to nearly 6,000.
It’s natural that people are searching for solutions. One is Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Dan Barnes, whose job includes running an office that has to identify the victims of fentanyl-related poisonings and informing their grieving friends and relatives. Unfortunately, he’s reaching too far for an answer, calling for using the U.S. military against the Mexican drug cartels that bring the illicit fentanyl across the border.
In a letter, Barnes endorsed House Joint Resolution 18, by Republican Reps. Dan Crenshaw of Texas and Mike Waltz of Florida. “The drug cartels are flooding American communities with the deadly drug fentanyl and continue to destroy the lives of so many people on both sides of our Southern border,” Barnes wrote.
