Even as Donald Trump’s war against Iran drags on with no end in sight, let alone any sort of victory for the U.S., there’s another conflict America will definitely never win: the drug war. Even though “war” is somewhat metaphorical here, it has always been waged like one, with military-grade equipment used to police neighborhoods, support clandestine spying operations and aid in the invasion of cities. But given that the main opponent of the Drug Enforcement Administration is, well, drugs, which don’t possess the ability to surrender, there can never be an end to this war, only further escalation.
At the same time, it was announced Wednesday that the DEA is helping to investigate the death of actress Hayden Panettiere earlier this week, apparently as the result of an overdose. No official cause of death has been announced, but Panettiere was open about her struggles with addiction, chronic pain and domestic violence. While her sudden death at the age of 36 is nothing but tragic, I question the DEA’s involvement as a good use of federal resources. Panettiere’s passing wasn’t the result of some high-level cartel assassination or a major drug trafficking operation, it seems to have been a sadly routine accidental poisoning.
But as with the death of actor Matthew Perry in October 2023, which the DEA also jumped on, superstar overdoses are attractive bait for an agency that thrives on celebrity energy and little else. Such a high-profile investigation may lend the DEA a veneer of competence, but its billions in annual funding have done little to stop the tide of deadly overdoses plaguing the U.S., or to make a meaningful dent in the flow of drugs entering the country. The investigation of Perry’s death — which, it must be emphasized, was a result of drowning while on ketamine, not purely an overdose of the drug itself — did ultimately result in several arrests, but it produced no significant reforms for addiction treatment or healthcare access.
The agency is accused of letting drugs “walk,” meaning that fentanyl deliveries were permitted to happen to build bigger cases against drug traffickers.
What’s interesting is that, according to the Associated Press, the DEA is itself being investigated for allegedly allowing the powerful opioid fentanyl to flood into New Mexico between 2023 and 2025 in yet another of their many botched undercover operations. The agency is accused of letting drugs “walk,” meaning that fentanyl deliveries were permitted to happen to build bigger cases against drug traffickers. On Monday, a Justice Department internal watchdog announced a review of this controversial tactic, which may have resulted in overdose deaths and/or injuries, which are exactly what the DEA is supposed to prevent.
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The irony here is extra thick when you recall that the Trump administration designated fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction” last year. Does that make the DEA a terrorist organization, or perhaps “enablers” of terrorism? Imagine if the Department of Homeland Security, using similar methods that the DEA allegedly utilized in New Mexico, allowed white supremacists to blow up a few bridges so they could get a bigger conviction against them.
This underscores the absurdity of labeling fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction in the first place. The drug is used safely every day in virtually every hospital in America, and in fairness, most users who ingest the drug do not die immediately. Many don’t die at all. It’s an opioid, not sarin gas. More importantly, the hysterical label does nothing to help people struggling with addiction or to reduce overdose deaths. It does, however, give cover for Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ongoing campaign to blow up boats in the Caribbean, which has widely been condemned as a war crime.
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Whether it’s spreading myths about “rainbow fentanyl” in kids’ Halloween candy, or promoting the ludicrous lie that simply touching fentanyl can cause an overdose, the DEA is a bigger source of drug misinformation than that kid in your high school who channeled a lot of Joe Rogan. For all the phony celebrity investigations, in more than 50 years the DEA has made little progress in ending the war on drugs, let alone making America healthier. And there’s a reason it will never work: Addiction is a health problem, not a policing problem. It can’t be solved with more cops or more guns. Amid all the talk about abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there are other three-letter agencies that deserve the same fate.
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Hello, my name is Asma E Nur. I am a tech blogger.
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