Drug abuse, drug trafficking, and drug overdoses – are poised to become a major issue in the presidential election, because they are now affecting the public health and safety of nearly every community in America. Only … Joe Biden does not seem to get it.

Last week, discussing an explosive rise in fentanyl deaths, part of a far larger national problem, President Biden seemed to miss a synapse, or miss the enormity of the issue.

Commenting on congressional hearings in which a mother testified to the loss of two children to fentanyl, he first said this was all on Trump’s watch, he indulged laughter.

Out of touch does not begin to describe this kind of callous, disconnected behavior. The Biden-Harris Administration does not understand what is happening across America, how the drug issue – paired with other policy failures – is exploding.

The average American now lives in a place with a markedly higher risk of drug-related health and crime issues, drug-related domestic abuse, addiction, and homelessness than two years ago, let alone two decades ago.

Objectively, illegal drug trafficking, crime, abuse, addiction, and overdoses – leading to unintended death – are on a rip, rising on an exponential curve, shallow to vertical. The threat to public health and safety is significant.

Yet here we have a president who laughs while discussing a family’s loss of two children because he is more concerned to disparage a Republican congresswomen than address facts.

We have a vice president who – charged with border protection – is unwilling to engage in serious dialogue and giggles discussing it, as if lives affected are not her concern.

Reality has a way of shifting the focus. Democrats are in for a rude awakening. As Biden misjudged Russia, China, how much Americans care about the value of their dollar, debt, inflation, interest, energy, and freedoms – they care about their kids and stopping drug deaths.

The popular misconception – one pushed by Biden – is that the problem is not big, has little to do with a porous border, driven by abuse of legal opioids, can be solved with legalization, decriminalization, and giving away needles.

These are all falsehoods. The problem is so big that total deaths – long at a prevention-driven, treatment-driven, law enforcement-driven manageable level – are now exploding.

From 91,000 dead kids in 2020, we suffered 108,000 in 2021 from overdoses, many expecting 130,000 in 2022 and more in 2023. In the first two years of Biden, experts see a 30 percent jump in drug deaths, despite quick-fix ideas like Narcan, not treatment but resuscitation.

Why has this happened? Because drug traffickers are not stupid. They recognize Biden’s invitation to more trafficking, lower chances of getting caught, higher profits, and a once-in-forever chance to create mass dependence.

Assisting them are other Biden policies like defunding, demoralizing, and delegitimizing police, allowing felons to escape prison with reduced penalties, no bail, excusing recidivism, and legalizing narcotics.

On the question of what drugs are responsible, the answer is not what you hear from Biden.

The White House says doctors are responsible, and entry drugs – like THC – irrelevant.

Data says the opposite. Even the Administration’s data shows synthetic opioids, of which the leading is fentanyl from China and Mexico, kill more than any other drug – and most of those are illegal, not legal.  Even more shocking, abuse of psychostimulants (like meth) and cocaine are on a tear, rising rapidly. Doctors have nothing to do with those.

On the marijuana front, collective denial, hope for votes, and the fiction that promoting drug dependence is no worse than water-based alcohol dependence or remedied by offering treatment are all responsible for major adverse health spikes.

Even the Biden SAMHSA office confides “one in six” marijuana users get addicted before age 18, while the drug can produce “permanent IQ loss,” and “studies link use to depression, anxiety, suicide planning, and psychotic episodes,” with other impacts.

On the crime front, data consistently links elevated personal and property crime to drug use, some studies indicating six times more crime by those on drugs than those seeking money for drugs. Archival data shows 80 percent of those selling drugs use them, more than 65 percent of robberies and burglaries are done on drugs, for males, 48 percent of homicides, females, 65 percent, and more than half of assaults and two-fifths of all domestic crimes – are on drugs.

What does that tell you? The more drug use we promote, the more dependence, addiction and crime we will have to contend with. For Biden to laugh that away – is unconscionable.

Last, remember that as law enforcement deters crime, disparaging law enforcement encourages it. We now have reports of a new drug type – worse than fentanyl – called “nitazene compounds,” next level for addiction and death. These have been discovered in 34 states.

Right now, today would be a good time for the president and vice president to stand up, take notice this is real, and start caring about American families – and kids – not laughing at those who do.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.

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