The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is bolstering its effort to combat synthetic opioids through its Fentanyl Free America initiative, highlighting the agency’s commitment to protecting Americans and their communities.
“Fentanyl Free America represents DEA’s unwavering commitment to save American lives and end the fentanyl crisis, we are making significant progress in this fight, and we must continue to intensify efforts to disrupt the fentanyl supply and reduce demand,” DEA Administrator Terrance Cole said in a statement. “DEA is striking harder and evolving faster to dismantle the foreign terrorists fueling this crisis, while empowering all our partners to join the fight to prevent fentanyl-related tragedies. Together, we can achieve a fentanyl free America and create a safer future for generations to come.”
As of December 1, the DEA has seized more than 45 million fentanyl pills and more than 9,000 pounds of fentanyl powder, the agency described. The seizures represent “an estimated 347 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl from our communities.”
The efforts to combat fentanyl’s presence in the United States come as federal agencies are placing “unprecedented pressure on the global fentanyl supply chain, forcing narco-terrorists, like the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG Cartel, to change their business practices,” the DEI added. Such pressure “led to encouraging signs of progress,” according to the agency, as laboratory testing “indicates 29% of fentanyl pills analyzed during fiscal year (FY) 2025 contained a potentially lethal dose, a significant drop from 76% of pills tested just two years prior in FY 2023.”
Earlier this year, lawmakers weighed the formation of a task force addressing the fentanyl crisis. The bill stated that the U.S. is “experiencing a crisis of substance abuse and addiction resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people” in the country. “Most of these deaths involve some form of opioids.”
