The Weapon of Mass Destruction Nobody Is Talking About

Peacekeeper missile testing — courtesy Wikipedia

On April 26, 2018, around 10:30 am two men in a semi truck were stopped for erratic driving near Kearney, NE on I-80. They were acting suspicious, so the truck was searched, revealing secret compartments containing 118 pounds of fentanyl.

Authorities estimated there was enough fentanyl to kill approximately twenty-seven million people, nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population.

This isn’t the first time such a large amount of fentanyl has been seized. One hundred pounds was seized in New Jersey in January of 2018. The two men involved are now in jail.

Let us look at what could have happened that day in late April in Kearney, Nebraska. What if the men in the truck decided to run for it, thinking they could lure the police car along side and run it off the road. A high speed chase evolves with the perpetrators getting on state highway 44 going south off of I-80 towards the Platte River. They lose control of the truck going over the Platte River bridge, vault the guard rail, and slam into the shallow river. The trailer bursts into pieces allowing 43 packages of fentanyl to go into the Platte River.

Paper bags take 5 X the water to make and 7 X the fuel to transport than plastic bags 

The packages release their deadly contents as they float along the Platte River to the Missouri River. Omaha, Kansas City, St. Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and the Gulf of Mexico are all downstream from Kearney. Nearly three million people in those cities are at risk. Thousands more living along the rivers could die. Farmers could use it on crops, endangering millions of people eating those crops. Millions of birds, including half a million sand hill cranes could die. Billions of fish, including those in the Gulf of Mexico, could be wiped out.

Imagine the Mexican cartels have decided to bring in fentanyl over the southern border of the U.S. I can’t imagine they haven’t thought about it or done it already. They are using a small plane flying low over the Arizona border. It crashes in a wind storm, part of a dry cool front moving west, near I-10. The hundred pound bag of fentanyl breaks open and powdered fentanyl is carried across Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, killing thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, before it disperses enough to not be deadly.

Now imagine if that plane were carrying carfentanil, elephant tranquilizer, a drug 100 times more potent than fentanyl. The winds could be deadly all the way to the East Coast, causing approximately 100 million people to overdose on opioids. That 118 pound seizure in Kearney, Nebraska would be able to kill 2.7 billion people, one third of the population of the world, if it were carfentanil.

In fact, the routine check of a carbon monoxide alarm guided Canadian authorities to 92 pounds of carfentanil in the basement of a Pickering, Canada home. More sleuthing uncovered a shipment of printer cartridges from China shipped to Vancouver that contained 2.2 of pounds of carfentanil so pure it would have yielded 50 million fatal doses. That’s enough to kill every one in Canada and 14 million Americans to boot.

Great way to carry your groceries; + trash, dirty clothes, food prep waste, garden clippings, used cat litter, etc. 

Real, actual weapons of mass destruction, more deadly than dozens of nuclear weapons, are reaching the shores of the United States; and nobody talks about it. While 4 ounces of gunpowder in a sealed pipe is considered a weapon of mass destruction, it seems silly that nobody is talking about the megadeath this drug represents. Why aren’t alarm bells going off? Does our government even realize the danger these drugs represent? If it does, nothing is being said about it. I’m sure the local law enforcement is proud to have made these interceptions, but no higher government authority has mentioned the implications of such huge quantities of a drug. It has been compared to nerve gas agents in its lethality per volume. We bombed Syria for using such a substance on its own people.

It’s bad enough if the drug is distributed. It will kill hundreds, maybe thousands, from overdose. The accidental dispersal of such large amounts needs to be given some thought because it could kill millions of innocent people. Victims will just sit or lie down and go to sleep forever. The dosages could be such that no amount of naloxone will bring them back.

Eastern Seaboard — courtesy Wikimedia

You can’t stop there. what if this drug is deliberately used as a terror weapon? Carfentanil costs about $2,700 per kilo from China. A small plane can be rigged to fly like a drone with off-the-shelf technology. A simple device to stir up the powder and release it gradually is attached to the underside of the wings on each side. Total cargo weight is about 100 pounds of drug and distribution equipment and 100 pounds of drone automation. When the wind is blowing gently onto shore, it starts flying north and east of Boston, down the coast and includes Manhattan Island, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. It crashes after about 600 miles by running out of fuel or getting shot down, but not before millions are dead. The drugs and plane would cost less than $250,000.

This is an existential threat, not only to the U.S., but to the world. Someone needs to start talking about how to deal with it.

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Drugs of Choice: You Know the Keyword Here

We live in an innovative, demanding, and increasingly stressful society. America is home to some of the greatest entrepreneurs on the planet. They constantly create products and employ the latest technologies of Madison Avenue to hawk their wares. From clothing to cars to cosmetics to housing to services, we are bombarded with propaganda telling us how deficient we are by not having these things. We can't watch TV, surf the internet, flip through a magazine, listen to the radio, or even take a drive without this encroachment on our senses.

Some of us are more susceptible than others. Some are unaware of the forces tugging at their attention, while others have completely immersed themselves in the culture of possessions and the supposed status they bequeath. A cult of materialism is more prevalent in the U.S. than other places on our planet. 

Joe Cragganoski bought a $300,000 house in the suburbs. It's worth slightly less now. He backs his BMW out of the garage to get pampers from the grocer for his kid. He owes student loans and his credit cards are well on their way to being maxed out. Some guy runs a red light and t-bones Joe's car.

The doctor tells Joe to go easy on that broken leg and let him know if he gets dizziness from the concussion. "Oh, and here's some pills for the pain. You're gonna need that. Take one every four hours, two for breakthrough pain."

image courtesy of Wikimedia

Four weeks later Joe is still getting pain meds because he claims his leg still hurts. It doesn't. He's pretty much healed up, but the reprieve from stress the pills provide is something he can't do without. He didn't realize, probably still doesn't, how stressful his life was and how much more stressful it is going to be.

Years later, after therapy and rehab, Joe is clean and sober. Unfortunately, he is divorced and lost the house to bankruptcy. Now, an undiagnosed cracked vertebra from his car accident develops a growth that impinges on his spinal cord. The pain is severe. The doctor recommends surgery. Joe requests the surgery be done without anesthetic because he is afraid of getting hooked again. The doctor refuses. It would be impossible to do without Joe being completely immobile. Joe gets the surgery. Upon release several days later, "Oh, and here's some pills for the pain. You're gonna need that. Take one every four hours, two for breakthrough pain."

image courtesy of Wikimedia

The invisible forces surrounding Joe are powerful and persuasive. Very smart people get trapped just like Joe did. The circumstances may be different, but the effect is the same.

The moral of the story is this. Joe wanting to take little vacations from his stressful life was not wrong, but he did make the wrong choice of how to do that. If you find yourself in a situation like this, stop and take a minute, or a month, to think about it. You are about to abuse a drug that can act as a tool against acute chronic pain, making your life more tolerable. You don't know when or if you will be involved in a terrible accident or acquire a painful illness. Taking one of the most effective means of managing this pain off the table is very irresponsible. Always keep in mind it is one of the most addictive substances in the world. It is only slightly modified heroin. Wars have been fought over it. It has brought down whole civilizations. Treat it with the respect it deserves; the same as you would a diamondback rattlesnake. On the flip side, don't be so afraid of it, you can't use it against acute, long-lasting pain. 

image courtesy of Wikimedia

Keeping up with the Joneses is not the only stressful thing in our environment. Relationships can sour or be overly demanding of our energy and attention. Performance requirements at work or a toxic boss can create severe stress on a daily basis. 

Recognize stress and deal with it another way. Drink alcohol (responsibly) or smoke marijuana (legally). Go for a run. Work out at the gym. Read a book. Make fun of advertisements trying to sell you expensive crap you don't need. Get relationship therapy. Change jobs. Be more aware of the forces and influences demanding you keep up with peers or perceived peers and consciously choose to ignore them. Live a simpler life. Do just about anything but choose opiates to relieve that stress. You may be destroying a valuable tool to deal with acute, chronic pain later in life. Here's hoping you never need it.

Now the pendulum has swung back to the situation of doctors not giving out pain meds because they are afraid of their patients becoming addicted. So, not only are people screwing up their own lives and those around them by abusing these pain meds, but also the lives of people they've never met. People that actually need the drug can't get it. People sitting watching TV but not able to enjoy it because pain consumes most of their consciousness. People not interacting with their children because it's too painful. People that could have done wonderful, beautiful things if they weren't so exhausted from dealing with the pain. But that's not the worst part. Even worse are the desperate thoughts that it will never get better than this. They try to get treatment and are denied. They are condemned to live a hell on earth because doctors are afraid the DEA will take their license for prescribing pain meds. Hope is quashed, and depression and misery are all that's left. If you have any feelings for the suffering of others, keep that in mind if you're tempted to use opiate pain medication to get high.

Here is a simple, short video to explain why so many people are getting in trouble with drugs today. You will be amazed!