Today, President Biden hosted a Summit of the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats, which the President directed Secretary of State Antony Blinken to launch in June 2023, in order to mobilize international action to tackle the synthetic drug crisis. In just over a year, the Global Coalition has grown to include 159 countries and 15 international organizations working together to disrupt the supply chain for fentanyl and other synthetic drugs; detect emerging drug threats; and prevent and treat through effective public health interventions.
With the Summit as a motivating force, 11 core Coalition countries announced new initiatives that will advance the work of the Coalition, including efforts to disrupt the supply chain of fentanyl and enhance public health interventions. These international commitments complement intensive work being done domestically, including an increased focus on coordinated disruption of drug trafficking networks and concerted efforts to make the opioid overdose reversal medication, naloxone, widely available over-the-counter.
As a result of these efforts, we are starting to see the largest drop in overdose deaths in recorded history. When President Biden and Vice President Harris came into office, the number of drug overdose deaths was increasing by more than 30% year over year. Now, the latest provisional data released from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics show an unprecedented decline in overdose deaths of 10% in the 12 months ending April 2024.
These aren't just numbers - these are lives.
Background on the Global Coalition
The 159 countries and 15 international organizations that are now part of the Coalition are working together on three key lines of effort:
- Disrupt the supply chain for fentanyl and other synthetic drugs;
- Detect emerging drug threats; and
- Prevent and treat through effective public health interventions.
For the past year, three working groups and seven sub-working groups have met monthly to create detailed plans of action. These working groups have made tangible progress, including implementing new efforts to increase seizures of synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals at ports of entry, sharing best practices with respect to the identification of emerging drug threats, and taking actions to schedule an increasing number of synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals, thus subjecting these drugs and chemicals to increased controls.
New Initiatives Being Announced
At today's Summit, 11 core countries announced new initiatives that will move the work of each of the Coalition's core lines of effort even further:
- Australia, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom will lead new efforts to disrupt the supply of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs. These efforts include the development of regional coalitions to disrupt the transit routes for illicit drugs, precursor chemicals, and associated equipment, protect against the diversion of chemicals for illicit use, and improve the detection and disruption of production sites.
- Italy and Ghana will lead new initiatives to detect emerging drug trends, to include Italy helping other Coalition countries to develop early warning systems to identify emerging drug patterns.
- Canada and the United Arab Emirates will work to prevent and treat the overdose epidemic, including by expanding public health interventions and making life-saving medications widely available.
Core Coalition countries also signed a Coalition Pledge agreeing to take additional actions to regulate all relevant drugs and precursor chemicals, take needed steps to fill gaps in their own domestic authorities, expand public-private partnerships to more effectively combat the supply chain for illicit fentanyl, develop mechanisms to monitor real-time data on trends in illicit drug use, and expand access to treatment. At the Summit, President Biden called on all other Coalition countries to likewise sign this pledge.
Domestic Actions to Fight Fentanyl and Other Synthetic Opioids
Since day one, the Biden-Harris Administration has made disrupting the supply of illicit fentanyl and other synthetic drugs a core priority. As part of their Unity Agenda for the Nation, President Biden and Vice President Harris have made it a priority to invest in public health and to tackle both the supply and demand for drugs. And those efforts have paid off:
- Border officials have stopped more illicit fentanyl at ports of entry in the past two fiscal years than in the previous five fiscal years combined. In the past 11 months, over 974 million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl were seized at U.S. ports of entry.
- The Biden-Harris Administration deployed cutting-edge drug detection technology across our southwest border, adding dozens of new inspection systems, with dozens more coming online in the next few years.
- The Biden-Harris Administration has made naloxone, a life-saving opioid overdose reversal medication, widely available over the counter, and has invested over $82 billion in treatment - 40 percent more than the previous Administration.
- In 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order targeting foreign persons engaged in the global illicit drug trade, and the Administration has since sanctioned over 300 persons and entities under this authority, thereby cutting them off from the United States' financial system.
- The Biden-Harris Administration has prosecuted dozens of high-level Mexican cartel leaders, drug traffickers, and money launderers, including Chapitos leader Nestor Isidro "El Nini" Perez Salas, and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación's top chemical brokers-placing dangerous drug traffickers behind bars. Just last week, the son of a fugitive Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación boss, Ruben "El Menchito" Oseguera, was convicted for his violent acts, including the deadly downing of a military helicopter in Mexico, in support of his father's drug trafficking organization.
In July, President Biden issued a new National Security Memorandum (NSM) calling on all relevant Federal departments and agencies to do even more to stop the supply of illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids in our country. The NSM directs increased intelligence collection, more intensive coordination and cooperation across departments and agencies, and additional actions to disrupt the production and distribution of illicit fentanyl. And the Biden-Harris Administration has called on Congress to pass the Administration's "Detect and Defeat" counter-fentanyl legislative proposal to increase penalties on those who bring deadly drugs into our communities and to close loopholes that drug traffickers exploit.
As stated above, these measures are having an effect.
Provisional CDC data show a 10% drop in overdose deaths in the 12 months leading up to April 2024 - the largest drop in overdose deaths in recorded history.
Other International Engagements
Under the leadership of President Biden and Vice President Harris, the United States has engaged around the world - both as part of the Coalition and in numerous bilateral and multilateral engagements - to spur global action in the fight against synthetic opioids.
In early 2023, President Biden, together with the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada, directed the establishment a Trilateral Fentanyl Committee, and the Biden-Harris Administration engages regularly with both countries to tackle the supply chain for fentanyl.
In November 2023, President Biden negotiated the resumption of counternarcotics cooperation with the People's Republic of China (PRC), spurring the creation of a U.S. - PRC Counternarcotics Working Group that has led to increased cooperation on law enforcement actions and ongoing efforts to shut down companies that fuel illicit fentanyl and synthetic drug trafficking and cause deaths in the United States.
The United States and India have worked together to increase counternarcotics cooperation, including by signing a new Memorandum of Understanding and Framework for ongoing work to disrupt the supply of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs just this past week.
The Biden-Harris Administration has worked extensively with law enforcement partners across the globe to hold drug traffickers to account. These partnerships pay dividends - including by generating support for extraditions that have enabled the United States to put dozens of cartel leaders, drug traffickers, and money launderers behind bars.
