US President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring fentanyl, a drug that has wreaked havoc on the American population in recent years, “a weapon of mass destruction.”
“Today I am taking another step to protect Americans from the deadly scourge of fentanyl that is flooding our country.
With this historic executive order that I will sign today, we will formally classify fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, which is what it truly is,” Trump declared at an event held at the White House.
“If this were a war, it would be one of the worst wars; I believe that in the last five or six years, between 200,000 and 300,000 people have died annually (from fentanyl).” “They’re talking about 100,000, which is a lot of people, but the number is much higher,” he added.
“They want to kill Americans,” the president claims.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 250,000 people died between 2021 and 2023 alone from overdoses related to synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl.
Trump announced the signing of the executive order at an event held to honor military personnel for their work defending the border with Mexico.
The president declared that “there is no doubt that America’s adversaries are trafficking fentanyl into the United States, in part because they want to kill Americans.”
