Not So Obvious

On the "New Rules" segment of  Real Time with Bill Maher Friday night, the host praised the decline in Fetanyl use and death from the drug, attributing it to action taken by each party.  He commended President Trump for closing the border and then-President Biden and other Democrats for "fast-tracking" Narcan and Republicans for "closing the border and deporting gang bangers and disrupting supply." There is some truth to that. However, the drop in both supply and demand has many causes.

 

Trump’s border policies are SAVING LIVES! Fentanyl deaths are down 55%, meth down 34%, and heroin down 89%. Even Bill Maher had to admit that closing the border, deporting gangbangers, and disrupting drug cartels worked!
Secure the border, protect the kids! 🇺🇸…

— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) September 27, 2026

 

Supply declined beginning in early 2024 because, as this news organization explained

Both the first Trump administration and the administration of former U.S. president Biden had pressured the Beijing government to attack the illegal precursor trade, leading to a formal agreement in November 2023. Many experts initially doubted China’s ability to corral thousands of precursor producers. Now, some theorize its government may have decided that disciplining such manufacturers— a tiny part of its economy—could have outsized benefits in its relations with the United States....

Cartel conflicts in Mexico could also be contributing to the fentanyl shortfall. The U.S. government had regarded the Sinaloa cartel as the number one producer of the highly addictive opioid. For the past 19 months, though, the group has been locked in a bloody civil war, weakening its operations and at times cutting off transit routes to the U.S. border. Both Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum have boasted of the results of their aggressive drug policies. Sheinbaum has broken with the more hands-off approach of her predecessor and mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and reported surging arrests and seizures.

And demand declined as

Fentanyl killed off many of its customers. Meanwhile, young people in their 20s don’t appear to be taking up fentanyl the way older Americans did. They may be more aware of its dangers, highlighted in news reports and public-health campaigns.

Sometimes an enforcement action yields benefits years after it occurs. Starting in the 1990s, pharmaceutical companies introduced painkillers like OxyContin that addicted millions of Americans. When authorities tightened access to those pills a few years later, they inadvertently triggered a new round of the crisis, as desperate users turned to other opioids—first heroin, then fentanyl. But the stricter controls on prescription drugs ultimately had another effect. Many people didn’t even start using them, and so never got to fentanyl. “Fewer people have been exposed to prescription opioids in recent years, potentially curbing the development of opioid use disorder,” said a recent analysis in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, a medical journal, by drug specialists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.      

Researchers point to other possible factors in declining demand. Fentanyl vendors have increasingly adulterated the opioid with less lethal substances, such as the animal tranquilizer Xylazine. That reduces overdoses but also demand: Xylazine puts users to sleep, keeping them from injecting as often. Public-health initiatives also ramped up in recent years, with the Biden administration increasing federal funding for addiction treatment by tens of billions of dollars. Federal and local governments, as well as local harm-reduction groups, have widely distributed the medication naloxone, which quickly reverses overdoses.

And then there are the factors which are speculative. Evidently

Scientists and law-enforcement officials acknowledge there’s still a lot they don’t know. One senior U.S. drug enforcement official said fentanyl seizures may have fallen, in part, because the Trump administration has reassigned thousands of FBI, DEA and Homeland Security Investigations agents from narcotics work to arresting immigrants in the country illegally. “Yeah, seizures are down,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “But we’re not looking anymore.”

This is a far cry from President Trump claiming full credit. Maher noted the decline in deaths from other illicit drugs- cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine- and accurately remarked

Part of it is reasons beyond politics.... But mostly, it's because Democrats did some things and Republicans did other things.  And by not actually working together, they stumbled upon positive change or as Trump put it, "it was all me".

Circumstances for a plunge, though more intentional than serendipitous, amounted to a reversal of a perfect storm.  The Chinese recognized their self-interest and negotiated a deal with the Biden Administration; Mexican cartels turning their attention inward; stricter controls on legal drugs; adulteration of opioids by Fetanyl vendors; increased spending by the Biden Administration for drug treatment; shutting down the border by the Trump Administration.  These are reasons both of "politics" and beyond politics, and may continue well into the future. Or not.

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