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Mexican heroin is viewed as of lesser quality than Afghan heroin and is notoriously brown. Mexican cartels and other distributors started to lace heroin with fentanyl, which is a medical narcotic 15 to 20 times stronger than heroin. Because fentanyl can be synthesized, some distributors started to synthesize fentanyl and cut it with white powders found in regular supplement pills. The trick was finding a powder that turned the appropriate color when tested by dealers. This all cut the costs down. Cost cutting did not just affect manufacturers of goods in Ohio towns, but their drug dealers as well. Overdoses, like the latest rash of opiate deaths in Michigan and Ohio, are related to fentanyl-laced heroin. 

Heroin was always there”€”maybe not in large numbers, but it was waiting for Fishtown. With the help of social and economic engineering pushed by the very people who claimed for decades to fight for the little guy, a secular population riddled with broken homes and economic gloom found its perfect escape in the drug.

Politicians, left and right, will roll into Ohio desperate to secure votes. The anointed progressive fighters for the little guy will pay no attention to the end results of their economic and social policies. Our damaged American culture has become such the tolerated norm that not just our inner cities are rotten and decayed, but even little Main Street USA towns have become home to hopeless junkies. While not absolving the addicts and their social circle of responsibility, a step toward fixing the problem is for those leaders”€”progressive and socially conservative alike”€”to admit that their policies are part of the problem.