Some of these deaths were due to poor care in the rehabilitation processes.
Photo: US Navy/Getty Images
The trafficking and consumption of fentanyl in the United States continues to wreak havoc and the problem has escalated so much that it is already affecting the country’s Armed Forces, including elite elements, as revealed by Defense Department statistics.
And it is that, according to a Pentagon report published this year and consulted by Univision News, between 2017 and 2022 a total of 332 soldiers lost their lives due to drug overdoses and, in 174 of these cases, fentanyl was determined to be the cause of the deaths.
The document also reveals that the military base fort liberty Located in North Carolina and where elite soldiers known as Green Berets train, it is where the most casualties from overdoses of the powerful synthetic drug have been recorded, with 31 cases.
“Every drug overdose is a preventable loss of life and we must work to make it better,” Gilbert Cisneros, an assistant secretary of the State Department, wrote in a letter he sent to lawmakers in February.
“Addressing drug abuse and preventing overdose deaths in our Armed Forces is a high priority for the Department of Defense,” he added.
These figures show the alarming situation of fentanyl within the US military, something that was also addressed by the Washington Post, noting that, during the last eight years, military deaths from this drug doubled the number of deaths in Afghanistan in the same period.
According to the newspaper, some of these deaths were due to poor care in the rehabilitation processes, as was the case of 23-year-old Ari McGuire, who enlisted in 2016 and was induced by a sergeant to consume fentanyl. .
When the young man confessed to his superiors that he was addicted to this drug, he did not receive adequate help.as senior officers at Fort Liberty put him on a waiting list for treatment and ordered two sergeants to watch him closely.
However, McGuire left the base apparently to buy fentanyl in a ride-share company car. Upon returning, the driver realized that the boy was unconscious. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital, an Army investigation cited by the Post concluded.
Keep reading:
– Seizures of fentanyl at the US-Mexico border increased 300% in four years.
– Black fentanyl: There is an alert in the US and Mexico for the presence of this much more dangerous drug.
