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ABC reporter Meridith McGraw, who covers the White House, recently tweeted:

Inbox: For a payment of $20.20, the Trump campaign says they will send a “faux brick” to Pelosi and Schumer’s offices “with facts about the need for border security and an appeal to “TEXT ‘WALL’ to 88022.”

Brick with writing on it

The brick reads:

TEXT "WALL" TO 88022
2018: FENTANYL AT THE BORDER
ENOUGH ENTERED U.S, TO KILL EVERY AMERICAN

This tweet was notable enough to be picked up by The Week,

Did enough Fentanyl get (illegally?) imported to the US in 2018 to kill every (US) American?

Community
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Mawg says reinstate Monica
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    Based on the "Fentanyl at the border" bit and considering Fentanyl's low median lethal dosage compared to other common opioids (http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2017/March/commission-on-narcotic-drugs-takes-decisive-step-to-help-prevent-deadly-fentanyl-overdoses.html), it would appear to mean "Enough Fentanyl to kill every American." This may help you revise your question to one on whether or not enough Fentanyl has entered the US to kill every American (though whether that specific factoid is meaningful would perhaps be a different question for a different site). – JAB Jan 19 '19 at 00:30
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    I know this is about the claim itself, but even if it's true, I don't see why it really matters. Of course there would be much more supply than immediate demand, so that they wouldn't need to constantly smuggle it into the US. On a comparative note, I'm sure enough aspirin also entered the US to kill every American. – TheWanderer Jan 19 '19 at 01:49
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    Curiosity question: is enough alcoholic beverages imported that, if drunk in one session, would be enough to kill every American? – Andrew Grimm Jan 19 '19 at 09:37
  • BTW, look at the tweet and the comments attached to it. They reflect many of the issues mentioned below. – Daniel R Hicks Jan 19 '19 at 12:59
  • It needs to be noted that the above tweet says "faux brick". This implies that it is a piece of cardboard or some such. – Daniel R Hicks Jan 19 '19 at 17:47
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    @AndrewGrimm: [Here's some UN import statistics](http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=ComTrade&f=_l1Code%3a23%3brtCode%3a842%3byr%3a2017&c=2,3,5,7,8,9,11,12&s=_crEngNameOrderBy:asc,yr:desc,_l2Code:asc&v=1). In particular, it shows about 1.07e9 kg of "undenatured ethyl alcohol > 80% by volume" imported in 2017, so about 8e8 kg of alcohol. With a lethal dose around 300 g, that's about 2.7e9 lethal doses. If you just combine the wine, beer and whiskey and account for their concentration, you get a smaller but still adequate figure. – Nate Eldredge Jan 19 '19 at 18:16
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    There is no need to only look at smuggling and import. The fresh water reserves in the US are large enough to kill roughly 300,000,000,000,000 persons if drunk at once. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Jan 22 '19 at 18:48
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    Do you mean that they all get drunk at once & fall into the fresh water? – Mawg says reinstate Monica Jan 22 '19 at 19:13

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According to Fentanyl seizures at US-Mexico border up 750 percent:

The amount of fentanyl seized by border agents has skyrocketed in recent years, from two pounds in fiscal year 2013 to approximately 1,485 pounds from Oct. 1, 2016, to Sept. 30, 2017

Matthew Barden of the Drug Enforcement Administration is cited as saying:

300 pounds of fentanyl is lethal enough to kill about 100 million people

So enough fentanyl was seized by border agents in FY2017 to kill every American. Plus, obviously not all the fentanyl is interdicted. As long as 2018 amounts are at least as much as FY2017, the claim is defensible.

DavePhD
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  • Which border??? – Daniel R Hicks Jan 19 '19 at 01:03
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    @DanielRHicks the title of the article says "US-Mexico", but it's possible it could include all borders, including oceanic. I'll try to determine. Also, the claim just says "the border", not any particular border :) – DavePhD Jan 19 '19 at 01:06
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    @DanielRHicks It means the entire US border, although it says "most illicit drug smuggling attempts occur along the Southwest border." https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2017-Dec/cbp-border-security-report-fy2017.pdf – DavePhD Jan 19 '19 at 01:12
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    The vast majority of fentanyl is shipped as ordinary freight from China, through the USPS or other international carriers. It isn't smuggled across the Mexican border, as mailing it is much simpler, cheaper, and safer (for the drug baddies). – Daniel R Hicks Jan 19 '19 at 01:14
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    @DanielRHicks As this is Skeptics, do you have a citation? – JAB Jan 19 '19 at 01:32
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    @DanielRHicks according to this senate document, 74% of fentanyl seized by border patrol is in the San Diego sector. https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Combating%20the%20Opioid%20Epidemic%20The%20Interception%20of%20Illicit%20Opioids%20by%20Border%20Patrol.pdf On the other hand, they say that is 210 pounds. So I'm not sure. – DavePhD Jan 19 '19 at 01:33
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    @DanielRHicks This say more fentanyl is seized at the land border than through the mail, but the mailed fentanyl is more pure. https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Speech/2018/180530brown.pdf – DavePhD Jan 19 '19 at 01:42
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    I'm sure there are better references (I've seen the claim several times), but this is one I found: https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/chinese-fentanyl-is-fueling-the-us-opioid-crisis-drug-trade-tensions-escalate – Daniel R Hicks Jan 19 '19 at 01:59
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    @DavePhD - I will note that the government sources in particular appear to conflate fentanyl with other drugs when discussing smuggling operations, making it sound like the southern border is the primary route for fentanyl. There is little argument that large quantities of other drugs are smuggled across the southern border. (But the info in your ice.gov article about smuggling precursors OUT of the US, processing in Mexico, then smuggling back in is a new twist I'd not seen before.) – Daniel R Hicks Jan 19 '19 at 02:06
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    I call BS, for several reasons. (1) 118 pounds of fentanyl killing 26 million people implies the LD50 dose is 1 microgram, or 0.015 mg/kg. (2) The LD50 doses in mice, dogs, and rats are on the order of multiple mg/kg. The rate in monkeys is supposedly 0.03 mg/kg, but that rate is out of line with other mammals. (3) If fentanyl was that deadly, there wouldn't be a drug problem: All opioid addicts would be dead in very short time. Don't take me wrong: Fentanyl is a very, very dangerous drug. But this particular claim by the US government looks like yet another case of overblown reefer madness. – David Hammen Jan 19 '19 at 03:12
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    The LD50 dose in humans is in fact [**unknown**](https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/fentanyl), and that opens the door to overblown claims. – David Hammen Jan 19 '19 at 03:17
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    It'd be great if we could get a better reference for "enough to kill N people" than the Barden quote. He's a law enforcement officer, not a scientist, and he doesn't explain the basis for those numbers. – Nate Eldredge Jan 19 '19 at 17:42
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    @DavidHammen this reference https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20961790.2018.1460063?scroll=top&needAccess=true& says in the known 3 cases where the person died from purely acetylfentanyl (with no other drugs in their system) the concentrations were "170 ng/mL (femoral), 260 ng/mL and 270 ng/mL (heart)" and gives references for each of the 3 cases. – DavePhD Jan 19 '19 at 17:43
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    I guess that's 260 ng per mL of blood? So for a human with blood volume of 5 L and body mass of 70 kg, that's 0.018 mg/kg, which is in line with the number @DavidHammen questioned. – Nate Eldredge Jan 19 '19 at 17:49
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    I think the quote about the lethality of ohmefentanyl is only relevant if we can get corresponding evidence for the amount of that particular derivative (or its precursors) that was imported. – Nate Eldredge Jan 19 '19 at 17:50
  • @NateEldredge ok, I’ll delete that – DavePhD Jan 19 '19 at 18:24
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    Isn't it disingenuous to conflate "enough to kill n people" with "enough to kill n people if they took their allotted portion all in one go"? No-one would seriously make the same claim about, say, table salt. – james Jan 19 '19 at 19:35
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    @james that's how people have expressed toxicity for the last hundred years or so. For example the 1930 Readers Digest says "poison is so powerful that one teaspoonful, properly diluted, would be more than enough to kill every man, woman, and child in the world" about botulism toxin. So it's hype, but standard hype. https://books.google.com/books?id=_3AyAQAAMAAJ&q=%22teaspoonful,+properly+diluted,+would+be+more+than+enough+to+kill+every%22&dq=%22teaspoonful,+properly+diluted,+would+be+more+than+enough+to+kill+every%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjRjNKb2_rfAhVOXK0KHVwrAqsQ6AEwAHoECAAQAg – DavePhD Jan 19 '19 at 20:45