Investigative Group

Fentanyl Street Price Plummets While Country Faces High Prices Under The Biden Administration

Shutterstock image via amenic181

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Font Size:
  • As Americans face some of the highest costs on consumer goods, the price of illicit fentanyl is decreasing on the streets.
  • The potent synthetic narcotic both increased in supply with the drug flowing over the southern border while its street price has decreased, data provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation from law enforcement agencies show.
  • The country is continuing to grapple with an epidemic of drug overdoses, largely fueled by fentanyl entering the country through the southern border.

The street price of illicit fentanyl has nearly dropped by half in some regions of the U.S., while Americans face the highest prices on everyday goods in nearly 40 years, multiple sources told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

As fentanyl continues flowing through the southern border and the price steadily drops, law enforcement officials and public health agencies across the nation warn that the dangerous drug is easier to get ahold of and could worsen the already dire opioid crisis.

There were roughly 100,000 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. during the 12-month period ending in April 2021, according to The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Roughly 75,000 of those deaths were overdoses from synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl. The Drug Enforcement Administration warned in September about the increase in counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl that are being manufactured with chemicals from China in Mexico and distributed across the U.S.

In Ohio, an epicenter for the counterfeit pill epidemic in America, fentanyl has dropped significantly in price. The average price for a kilogram of illicit fentanyl has dropped steadily over the past several years, according to data from Ohio Organized Crime Investigations Commission, part of the state’s attorney general’s office

According to a 2017 report, the average price was $75,000, which then dropped to under $50,000, according to a 2019 report. Then, in 2021, the average price for a kilogram was reported at just under $36,000.

A little over 4,000 people died in the Buckeye state of an unintentional drug overdose in 2019, with 76% of deaths involving fentanyl, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

In a phone interview with the DCNF, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost expressed concern over the lowering price of fentanyl and what it means for his state.

“All those trends are worrying, lower price, more supply, and, of course, fentanyl is much more dangerous than even heroin, it’s much easier to overdose on it, much easier to transport because it’s so much more potent than straight heroin,” Yost said.

Closer to the southern border, where most of the supply of illicit fentanyl is entering the country, the street price is also lowering. In Arizona, officials seized almost 1.7 million pills containing illicit fentanyl in 2021, with 40% of pills containing a lethal dose.

Data from the Arizona Drug and Racketeering Enforcement Section in the attorney general’s criminal department shows that in early 2021, users paid about $10-20 a pill, most often $20. The division’s more recent data shows that the current price is around $5-$10 a pill, most often $5 for one customer.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich told the DCNF that the issue comes down to “supply and demand.” (RELATED: State AG Asks Mayorkas To Stop Letting Illegal Migrants Travel Through US Airports With Arrest Warrants)

“There is more fentanyl and other deadly drugs pouring across our open southern border, making them cheaper for people to buy,” Brnovich said. “Fentanyl pills are very popular for users to create a high net profit for sellers and manufacturers. Producers have increased supply to meet the need with additional margin in order to not be concerned about the impact of seizures.”

According to the Yuma County Sheriff Office’s narcotics task force investigators, the current price of a fentanyl pill is $8, when before it was $10 per pill.

In Arizona’s Cochise County, which borders Mexico, the sheriff’s office’s narcotics unit told the DCNF that they’ve seen a price drop from about $10-$15 a year ago to $7-$10 in 2022.

The sheriff’s office couldn’t say definitively whether the price decrease was a result of the border surge, which has seen record numbers of fentanyl trafficking since 2021.

Brnovich, however, attributed the issue to the Biden administration’s “reckless open border policies that are allowing the drug cartels to flood dangerous drugs into our communities.”

Yost said that the federal government’s priority in fixing the fentanyl issue in America should be to secure the border.

“Number one proposed solution is the federal government has to actually enforce the law at the border and do a better job at controlling the flow of illicit drugs into our country,” he said.

Several local law enforcement agencies and attorneys general offices referred the DCNF to the DEA, which didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

(Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

(Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

Meanwhile, Americans have faced the highest prices in almost 40 years with the consumer price index (CPI), the country’s leading inflation index, surging 7.5% in January on a year over year basis. The Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures the price suppliers charge businesses and other customers, surged 1% in January, and 9.7% on a year over year basis.

The Commerce Department’s personal consumption expenditure index (PCE) soared 5.2% in January, reaching the highest level in 38 years. The PCE is the Federal Reserve’s key inflationary indicator and Friday’s figure will play a significant role in the central banks path to control the near decade high prices.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel