The U.S. opioid crisis is now driven by fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that currently accounts for 90% of all opioid deaths. Fentanyl is smuggled from abroad, with little evidence on how this happens. We show that a substantial amount of fentanyl smuggling occurs via legal trade flows, with a positive relationship between state-level imports and drug overdoses that accounts for 15,000-20,000 deaths per year. This relationship is not explained by geographic differences in “deaths of despair,” general demand for opioids, or job losses from import competition. Our results suggest that fentanyl smuggling via imports is pervasive and a key determinant of opioid problems
That is from a new NBER working paper by Timothy J. Moore, William W. Olney, and Benjamin Hansen. One core lesson seems to be that interdiction is largely a futile endeavor.
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