That's bullshit. The illicit use of fentanyl was first noticed in 2011. It did increase during Trump's presidency, but that was a period of time when states were decriminalizing marijuana. The Mexican government had also decriminalized pretty much all drugs as well, the the cartels started ramping up their production of fentanyl.
https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Fentanyl-2020_0.pdf
President Trump knew of the problem, and began construction of a border wall to stop the flow of drugs and illegals. Of course, you idiots blocked him every step of the way with lawsuits and legislators constantly trying to halt the funding of the wall.
Lord give me strength...
Want someone/something to blame?
Blame Nelson Rockefeller and Richard Nixon and their War on Drugs
Blame them for the fentanyl and the violence in the streets.
1960s heroine was a problem...for old people.
It wasn't generally used by young people and young addicts were rare.
Then came the War On Drugs which happened to exclude kids under 18 from the draconian punishments
Drug related deaths at the time were relatively rare
But the big dealers being smart recognized they could use kids as street level dealers with little risk
But who do kids know?
That's right, other kids. So the customers and dealers went from people in their 30s and 40s to kids in high school and below.
But these young dealers didn't understand or care about respecting locations and customers and the bodies started dropping.
Violence which was rare in the drug trade became to go to reaction to any perceived threat or disrespect.
In the 2000s there was a big heroin upswing that coincided with the US war inn Afghanistan.
So the DEA cracked down, local LE cracked down and the supply dried up.
BUT
As dealers and fiends always do, they found an alternative. Fentanyl.
A drug generally used for surgery.
Unfortunately there is no safe level of this drug that can be used outside a surgical setting.
So the crackdown on heroin was extended to other opioids especially prescription opioids.
To the point where people living in extreme pain could not get prescribed medications.
And with little heroin to be had, sales of fentanyl increased along with deaths.
The point is, folks, when you do the same thing for 50 years and that thing has consistently produced failure, DO SOMETHING ELSE!
Fentanyl is not the drug of choice for any addict.
But what if heroin were decriminalized?
What if physicians could legitimately prescribe pain medications without fear of going to prison?
What if an addict could go to a doctor and pick up a heroin prescription and to a pharmacy to pick it up?
Yeah, sounds crazy. But maybe less crazy than doin what we're doing now.