The Washington Post published an article on May 31, 2025 called: The mysterious drop in fentanyl seizures on the U.S.-Mexico border: The reasons behind the decrease of fentanyl seizures in the U.S. and along the Mexico-U.S. border are complex.
The article has brought the Post some scathing criticism from President Trump supporters, who claim the obvious reason for the decline in seizures is President Trump’s border policy. Both the news stories and the comments section on the article have been brutal.
Washington Post mocked after reporting on ‘mysterious’ decline in fentanyl crossing the border
Liberal news outlet mocked for reporting on ‘mysterious’ drop in fentanyl flowing across border
‘Pathetic’: Washington Post Torn Apart Over ‘Mysterious’ Reporting on Fentanyl Seizures
Here are some comments from the Post comments section:
Are you paid to lie? Let me mansplain this for you. New President. Enforces the border laws. A lot less criminal s and drugs get through
My neighbors dog used to sh8t in my yard. I decided to put up a fence. Now I dont have any dog sh8t in the yard. I wonder why?
The President’s press secretary called the article “ridiculous,” and said, There is no mystery why there’s a decrease of fentanyl coming into the United States. This administration’s strong border policies are the reason there has been a decrease in fentanyl trafficking.”
I thought it was a balanced article. The truth is according to the DEA’s 2025 National Threat Assessment overall fentanyl seizures started decreasing in 2024, the year before Trump became President.
The mystery is why seizures at the border are down so much in 2025. The article points out, “U.S. seizures at the Mexican border are down almost 30 percent for the first half of this fiscal year, compared with the same period in 2024. They have shrunk by even more since the first half of 2023 — from 13,804 pounds to 6,749 pounds. (Those numbers are for the first six months of each fiscal year, which starts in October).“
Are they doing a bad job finding the fentanyl? Is there less fentanyl coming across? Have the cartels found better ways to get the drugs into the country?
In the game of politics, you need to spin the news your way. More seizures means you’re doing a great job confiscating the drugs. Less seizures and you’re doing a great job keeping the drugs from coming in. The only number that truly counts in the end is the death toll.
I don’t think Presidents are able to affect the deaths as much as they think they can.
Deaths dropped dramatically last year across the country. Democrats may claim this is the result of Biden’s policies. Republicans may claim the cartels knew Trump was coming back so they started lowering the fentanyl concentrations to keep the attention off them. When Fentanyl first started truly impacting the death rate in 2015, Obama was president. The death toll rose precipitously during the four years of the first Trump presidency, and continued through the first two years or Biden’s presidency. They started to decline here in Connecticut late in 2021 and in the most of the country by 2023, with the biggest drop as I mentioned in the last six months of 2024.
I think the arc would have been similar no matter who was President.
There have been many reasons speculated for the drop in fatal deaths:
1. Increased Availability of Naloxone
2. Expanded Addiction Treatment
3. Shift from Injecting to Smoking and Other Safer Practices such a as Not Using Alone
4. Impact of Opioid Settlement Dollars
5. Decreased At-risk Population as Many Older Users Die and Fewer Young Users Enter.
6. End of COVID Isolation
7. Fentanyl Test Strips and Harm Reduction Efforts
8. Weaker Fentanyl and Less Toxic Drug Supply
My belief is the dramatic reduction of deaths is due to changes in the drug supply. I believe dealers have been putting more adulterants into the drugs and are using less fentanyl. Connecticut’s death toll started to drop as xylazine’s presence in our drug supply started to rise. Less fentanyl and more xylazine means a mix less liked to stop stop someone from breathing, which is how opioids kills. Why would dealers use less fentanyl? Two reasons
- Economics. Xylazine is way cheaper than fentanyl.
- Supply Chain Problems. The cartels may be having trouble getting the precursor chemicals to produce fentanyl and there may also be conflicts between the cartels that has hindered production.
We do know, according to the DEA 2025 Drug Assessment, that fentanyl purity began declining in 2023.
I fear that that is only temporary. In the 50 years of the War on Drugs, we have never been able to stop the production of drugs and the criminal organizations have only found ways to make the drugs more available and more deadly than ever. A bundle of fentanyl – 10 wax bags goes for $15 in Hartford now. Five years ago it was $35. It might not be as strong as it was then, but it hasn’t gone away. Not by far. Heroin bags still litter the city. Not quite as many as a few years ago, but enough to know fentanyl isn’t hard to come by. The dealers are still easy to find on Park Street.
This week here in Connecticut, we experienced a large spike in overdoses prompting an advisory from the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Overdose Response Strategy group. “Connecticut is experiencing a surge in fatal and non-fatal overdoses across the state,” the advisory said. “Between May 16 and June 6, 2025, there have been 61 suspected fatal overdoses statewide, with noticeable clustering along the I-91 and I-95 corridors, as well as within the cities of New Haven and Hartford.”
Nonfatal overdoses in Connecticut have been rising every month since December 2024, following a precipitous decline in the last six months of 2024. Drug testing suggests that this spike may be caused by stronger concentrations of fentanyl. According to the advisory, “testing conducted on June 3, 2025 in New Haven, showed fentanyl concentrations significantly higher than previously seen within the past 6 to 8 months. These findings suggest that polysubstance combinations and higher concentrations of fentanyl may be contributing factors to the current spike in overdoses.”
I don’t know if this is unique to Connecticut or if this trend is elsewhere. If we are going to continue tracking fatal overdoses based on rolling 12-month data, then a true upsurge may not be visible until this summer. Overdoses in Connecticut through the first five months may be down compared to the first months of 2024, but they are up over the last six months of 2024.
While I hope President Trump is proved right and his policies are keeping fentanyl out of the country and causing fewer deaths, I think he is setting himself up for failure. 2024 showed a huge drop in deaths. Trump’s budget proposes large cuts in many public health programs that have been combating the epidemic. If the decline in deaths is proved to have been caused by a temporary shortage of fentanyl, and if that shortage is corrected, and the deaths go back up, people may point the finger at him, particularly if his health care cuts go through.
That will be hard for him to spin.
The Post should revisit this article a year from now.