Federal authorities seized 110 pounds of the synthetic opioid fentanyl at a Philadelphia port last week. The drug was found in a shipment arriving from China, and officials estimate that the stockpile is worth a street value of approximately $1.7 million. This occured only one month after Nebraska state troopers confiscated 118 pounds of fentanyl — apparently, enough to kill more than 26 million people — during a routine traffic stop. The seizure is believed to be the largest in Nebraska history and one of the largest in U.S. history.
These massive seizures can be attributed to the fact that fentanyl has become a driving force behind the opioid epidemic over the past few years. A recent study found that fentanyl is actually killing more Americans than either heroin or prescribed painkillers: Of the 42,000 overdose deaths reported in 2016, approximately 19,000 were related to fentanyl, while 15,469 were related to heroin and 17,087 to prescribed opioids.