Anne Milgram, a former New Jersey attorney general and current Administrator at the Drug Enforcement Agency, went on CBS’s “Face the Nation” yesterday, revealing that “for the first time,” transnational drug cartels, namely the Sinaloa and Jalisco syndicates, were trafficking fentanyl under the guise of prescription medication. Per Milgram, via a report at Newsmax:

‘[F]or the first time, the cartels are hiding fentanyl in other drugs.

‘They’re making them look like real prescription medicines, which are all fentanyl and filler. And so this is just a dramatically changed landscape that we’ve now pivoted to address and take head on.

…

‘[T]his is the cheapest drug we have ever faced. And the only limit on the amount of drugs that can be made are the chemicals that are being sourced by the cartels from China and essentially the reproduction, which again, costs pennies for these two cartels to make,’ she said.

Milgram’s revelation comes on the heels of the news that the state of California recently seized “2.2 million illicit cannabis packages” all with a forged state seal, and marketed in packaging that “resembled popular food and candy brands that could appeal to children,” like Twinkies and Sweet Tarts; according to the press release from Gavin Newsom’s office, the seizure is part of a mission to “deprive … transnational criminal organizations of illicit revenue” like those south of the border and beyond. For reference, much of the illicit imported marijuana in the U.S. comes from Mexico, and “Chinese criminal networks” are often behind illicit domestic growers.

Too bad we’ve got Chinese Communist Party friendlies in the White House instead of our tough-on-China guy!

But I digress—within the medication supply chain, between pharmaceutical company and pharmacy, there are “distributors” who act as “intermediaries,” negotiating drug sales to get the product to the customer. This is not to imply any criminality on behalf of these middlemen at this moment in time, but to simply identify that there is an extra layer in the chain of custody, and therefore another point of vulnerability.

How can we trust that this “distributor” industry maintains integrity in its products? Who’s to say that bad actors don’t infiltrate, and deliver fentanyl-laced products to pharmacies? How do we exclude ignorance from the equation, especially if the fraudulent drugs look identical to the legitimate products? There are a lot of concerns, all exacerbated by a non-existent border which facilitates the trafficking of drugs north, and soft-on-China policies from the executive and legislative branches (both state and federal).

American institutions and society are so decayed under progressive rule and policy—in this case the de facto elimination of a southern boundary and a blind eye to foreign adversaries—that we can’t even trust a pharmacy anymore, or state seals, or even packaged treats!

Image generated by AI.