[Trending News] What is Fentanil, Damn Trump quoted when taxing Mexico, Canada and China?

The lethal dose of fentanil is only two milligrams, which represents just less than a pencil tip. Carfentanil, derived from the fentanyl nicknamed “elephant anesthetic”, is deadly in a tiny amount of 0.02 mg, equivalent to a few salt grains. There are records of at least 1,400 fentanil analogs in the scientific literature, according to the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), division of the American Society of Chemistry.

When ingested, the fentanil and its derivatives cause symptoms such as euphoria, nausea, drowsiness, dizziness, confusion, sedation and pain relief. Fentanyl oversode occurs through the state of hypoxia – absence/insufficiency in tissues that can cause lesions and cell death.

Fentanil was developed for pharmaceutical use in 1960 and spread from the 1960s, being used as analgesic and anesthetic to treat chronic or acute pain.

For Renato Filev, researcher at UNIFESP and coordinator of the Brazilian Drug Policy Platform, there are ways of safe use of Fentanil for pharmacological purposes, provided that it is guided by an anesthesiologist:

“It is a prescribed drug, used in a daily way within hospitals. In surgical intervention that requires an anesthetic or analgesic picture you can use the fentanil, so it is not an exclusively villain substance. ”

He highlights the association between substance and midazolan, a sleeping sleeping: “The person does not receive the euphoric effects of the opioid, they will only be anesthetized by him.”

The cost is also a factor to consider in the popularization of fentanyl in hospitals: “Because it is a cheap, low cost of production and totally synthetic product, it is not expensive compared to the challenge of natural morphine extraction, for example, which It needs poppy production, which with little milligramgem, can reach an anesthetic induction state in the patient, ”explains the researcher.

In the US, the use of the illicit version of the substance grew exponentially from the second half of the last decade, reaching a peak in 2022, with almost 74,000 overdose deaths in the country were attributed to Fentanil and its derivatives.

Between August 2023 and July 2024, the US reported 61,800 overdose deaths caused by synthetic opioids, according to data from the US Disease Control and Prevention Center.

Filev points out that the greatest risk of Fentanil and its derivatives is the unintentional use, that is, when the individual does not know that he is consuming, giving an example of the case occurred in 2022 in Argentina, when more than 20 people died when using mixed cocaine to the fentanil.

For its low production cost, below $ 1,000 per kilo, and high market value – ranging from $ 50 to 110,000, fentanyl trade is an extremely profitable practice, especially due to the ease with which this substance is agglutinated to Other drugs such as methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin in order to enhance its effects.

Fentanil was quoted for the threat of a 25% import tariff by President Donald Trump's management against his neighbors Canada and Mexico and 10% against China. Without evidence, Trump said Mexico is a Fentanil entrance route and other opioids from China.

However, according to an article published in December 2024 at Congressional Research Service, a US Congress Research Institute, Mexico is regarded as a “key collaborator” in drug control policy in the country.

According to the article, since 2019 Mexico has replaced China as the main source of illicit fentanyl supply and its United States derivatives. In early 2023, Canada, USA and Mexico formed the trilateral Fentanyl Committee to discuss measures to combat synthetic drugs.