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1. Deaths by overdose, especially of Fentanyl is through the roof (it has surpassed road accidents, heart attacks, etc.) 2. We have got to do something 3. Thi

1. Deaths by overdose, especially of Fentanyl is through the roof (it has surpassed road accidents, heart attacks, etc.) 2. We have got to do something 3. This is something 4. The president has something to offer as a solution. For everything. (It is unusual to have a president who is so willing to try to solve everything.) 5. No one commenting in the news has enough info of the plan (or of the future) to offer a useful appraisal of this particular something. Whether or not this something is actually a useful and good thing [and whether or not it will lead to other good things, and if those other things will be good...] will definitely be biased by your view of the administration, your policy towards war, and you risk tolerance. As someone who has lost family members to Fentanyl, I at least recognize my bias :/

JKCalhoun 11mo ago
"3. This is something" We don't even know what "this" even is. There are no receipts: no narco captures, no confiscated drug hauls.
- Spooky23 11mo ago
  It’s an opportunity to find out which military officers are good soldiers vs. good men.
- Thorrez 11mo ago
  >Since early September, the United States has carried out at least 14 strikes against alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing 61 people.
  - vel0city 11mo ago
    Alleged drug vessels. Any proof there were drugs on those boats? Do we even know who has been on those boats?
    - mothballed 11mo ago
      Enough evidence to be suspicious. Not enough evidence to be sufficient for what is required to convict and sentence for a crime, that is beyond a reasonable doubt. One would hope the latter is required, before going through with an execution. In reality, most likely these are legit drug traffickers but being used as pawns for geopolitics rather than a meaningful attempt to curb drug use.
      - vel0city 11mo ago
        What evidence? Have any links? Do we even know their names? No? (The government even admitted they don't know who they've killed). Strange, huh. How can we have enough evidence to know these people deserve to die for drug crimes when we don't even know who they are? The few people who survived, we just released them. No charging them with crimes, no courts, just sending them on their way. If they were really hardened drug criminals with enough evidence to murder everyone else around them, how were we not able to charge them with any crime?
      - orwin 11mo ago
        Most likely, these are human traffickers, second most likely, they are gold traffickers, third most likely they are drug traffickers. Or maybe some of them are just fishermen, which is actually more likely than all the previous cases.
        mothballed 11mo ago
        If you take a look at submarines like this one they blew up https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115396632441470075 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1153966324414... They are almost always used as narco trafficking. However, we only know that is usually the case, not that this particular one was used for that purpose. There are a handful of civilian legal use submarines of this form and submersibles used for tourist and science purposes, however if a scientist or tourist rich enough to fund recreational submarines were killed it's likely the family would have come forward by now.
      - 11mo ago
  - JKCalhoun 11mo ago
    Would be simple thing I think for the world's greatest military to capture the vessels and take the occupants alive. Besides being great PR when you reveal the drug haul on the deck of a US ship and show the rap sheet of the smugglers you could probably get a good deal of intel as well.
    - mothballed 11mo ago
      Guess it would depend on your definition of simple. IIRC at least one of the targetted vessels were in Venezuelan waters. Venezuela has F-16 and Su-30. No matter how prepared US is, it's not necessarily a sure thing they could pull that off without death of US personnel. US personnel that had to actually go on the ground were routinely killed in Afghanistan despite absolute force and technology superiority. The conservative argument I've seen is basically it needs to just blow them up from above because in such case US forces are not risked. While I don't agree with the mission, the strategy makes sense.
decremental 11mo ago
[dead]
mothballed 11mo ago
I only see two practical answers to the fentanyl crisis. Legalize it, or total war against the suppliers. Which one you pick will largely come down to personal morals or ethics. The addictive properties of the drug and profits seem to make the responses of more mellow legal incentives -- inelastic. The addict does not give a shit he may go to jail. The high-level supplier does not care he might be risking life, when he is making a gazillion dollars and plans to go out shooting anyway. The low level suppliers, well they fall under the same problem as the 'addict' bucket because you can get as many as you need from that one, no matter the consequences.
- cjbgkagh 11mo ago
  A 100% on the total war must also go after users not just suppliers. Otherwise you’re just making the market more profitable for the remaining suppliers. It’s really hard to stop things that are immensely profitable.
  - mothballed 11mo ago
    If the rate of murder exceeds the rate of entrants for any meaningful number of suppliers, that might not be the case for the purposes of mitigation (which to be clear, is all you're going to get, never eradication). However, what you say may be true, I only cannot say it with certainty.
    - cjbgkagh 11mo ago
      You would probably kill more people that way rather than making it a death penalty for use. The other problem is enterprises that make money like this can easily corrupt the police and politicians. Since users don’t make money from using they’re not able to pay off the police. Any solution that is predicated on uncorruptable police and politicians is not going to work. I wish we didn’t have such corrupted police and politicians so we could have nicer policies but we don’t so we can’t.
- gamerDude 11mo ago
  Legalizing it is also a total war against the suppliers in most cases (just economically instead of with guns). By legalizing, you usually replace the current suppliers with ones you like.
mrbombastic 11mo ago
https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-International-Narcotics-Control-Strategy-Volume-1-Accessible.pdf https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-Intern... The state dept report from 2025 found that fentanyl basically only comes to the US through Mexico and Venezuela is not a major player. I find your point 5 to be particularly anti-democratic to be honest, we don’t know because Trump doesn’t think us nor Congress need to know beyond some tweets on Truth Social. I am sorry for your loss, I have some friends who passed the same way, and it is horrible.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
gausswho 11mo ago
I am sorry to hear you lost someone to Fentanyl. It really is wreaking havoc upon American society. In the majority of cases (not to assume the one you experienced) this is but a new variant of 'slow suicide', alongside excessive drinking, gambling, various forms of risk seeking. It's not enough for me to agree that making a new Vietnan is 'something we've got to do'. The scars of America's war adventures are widely visible and part of the reason we uniquely suffer from these slow suicides. Blowing up other citizens is easy (at first). Not unlike the addicts this purports to protect, this administration thinks this one quick fix they don't want you to know about will cure our ails. Unfortunately the something we can do (must do) is hard. It means addressing why American society is increasingly disenfranchised, lonely, and unhappy.
rubyfan 11mo ago
Is it possible that this something isn’t even about drugs? The administration has signaled aggression and potential military action in the Western hemisphere since I think before the term even started. It almost feels indiscriminate at this point since it started with friends and allies, and now moves to a focus with a more plausible cover of legitimacy.
Vasbarlog 11mo ago
You realise that killing people without even identifying them first, and even going as far as invading a foreign country is not a solution in any shape or form. It’s not a ”something”. If the market for fentanyl is there, the drug will come. And one of the reasons the market became so big because of all the legal opioid drugs being so broadly prescribed.
JackC 11mo ago
> The president has something to offer as a solution. For everything. Unfortunately it is not a coincidence that the solution to all problems is always (a) make a loud noise (b) take your stuff (c) take away your ability to object to taking your stuff. Amoral sadistic narcissist gonna amoral sadistic narcissist. If you think you don't have enough information to predict how that's going to play out as far as family members you care about, ok.
lawn 11mo ago
> This is something I'm sorry that you're being swayed by propaganda as this isn't solving anything and will most likely make it worse.
forgotoldacc 11mo ago
Seems like the problem was the US medical industry getting everyone hooked on opiates. The US even prescribes fentanyl for injuries, a temporary problem, and gets people addicted to the strongest stuff in the world for life. But maybe the hospitals and American drug corps are all covert Venezuelan operations. Probably not, though. This makes as much sense as invading Iraq for a terrorist attack carried out by a rich Saudi Arabian family. You thinking killing some random people thousands of miles away is some sort of step in the right direction is honestly just sad. Imagine Botswana having a problem with lion attacks and their president kills your family on the other side of the earth because the people of Botswana want the president to do something, and killing someone, doesn't matter where, is progress towards a solution. I'm an American, but it's stuff like this that makes me realize that hundreds of years from now, people will hold the US's government and its people in the same regard as King Leopold and colonial Belgians.
password54321 11mo ago
1. We must do something! (moral panic) 2. Does something 3. Un(intended) consequences of doing something (problem is now worse or different) 4. Back to number 1
orwin 11mo ago
No one thinks cartels use fishing boats to transport drugs, especially launching from Venezuela. Venezuela itself only have minor cartels. Target Zodiacs from DR, Jamaica, Haiti or Sinaloa, you'll get a better ROI. Venezuela network traffic Venezuelian first (some of which you probably killed, not unexpected from a bloodthirsty country, but still), gold second, and drugs a far away third. Killing gold traffickers probably help Brazil and France, while most Venezuelian drug is probably still headed to Europe through Dutch vessels.
vel0city 11mo ago
This has practically nothing to do with fentanyl. Practically none of the US supply of fentanyl comes from Venezuela. Other drugs, sure. Not really fentanyl. If the Cheeto in Chief declared war on salad forks, all salad forks are now illegal in the US, death penalty for all those trafficking in salad forks, it'll help stop fentanyl trust me, would you also be for it? After all, it's doing something, and we need to do something. Or would you see it as something unrelated and would make no impact while making most people less safe? > No one commenting in the news has enough info of the plan (or of the future) to offer a useful appraisal of this particular something. Do you not find that incredibly troubling though? That the US government is gearing up to go to war against a country and yet the populace isn't being read in on the slightest in whatever evidence they may have that these boats they're bombing are actually drug boats or that Venezuela actually is a primary source for fentanyl or whatever? Isn't that an immensely troubling thing that we should push back on until they actually tell us good reasons to go to war?
nielsbot 11mo ago
you’re misinformed. this is not about fentanyl. venezuela didn’t export that.
apexalpha 11mo ago
>2. We have got to do something >3. This is something Killing random people extrajudicially is not "doing something". You could use your argument to justify the Holocaust...
mmooss 11mo ago
> 2. We have got to do something That's a mistake. We need to do something with good results. Doing something with bad results is worse than doing nothing. > Whether or not this something is actually a useful and good thing [and whether or not it will lead to other good things, and if those other things will be good...] will definitely be biased by your view of the administration, your policy towards war, and you risk tolerance. You're accusing random people of bias - you don't even know who they are. It's a way to shut down discussion and reason. Whether or not it's good and useful doesn't depend on bias, but on reality. We can talk about reality here, without shutting each other down. From what I understand, fentanyl doesn't come by boat, and few drugs do. > 5. No one commenting in the news has enough info of the plan (or of the future) to offer a useful appraisal of this particular something. If that's true, it's a major problem in democracy, where the people have sovereignty. Their elected representatives in Congress decide on wars, not the White House.

JKCalhoun 11mo ago

"3. This is something" We don't even know what "this" even is. There are no receipts: no narco captures, no confiscated drug hauls.

Spooky23 11mo ago
It’s an opportunity to find out which military officers are good soldiers vs. good men.
Thorrez 11mo ago
>Since early September, the United States has carried out at least 14 strikes against alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing 61 people.
- vel0city 11mo ago
  Alleged drug vessels. Any proof there were drugs on those boats? Do we even know who has been on those boats?
  - mothballed 11mo ago
    Enough evidence to be suspicious. Not enough evidence to be sufficient for what is required to convict and sentence for a crime, that is beyond a reasonable doubt. One would hope the latter is required, before going through with an execution. In reality, most likely these are legit drug traffickers but being used as pawns for geopolitics rather than a meaningful attempt to curb drug use.
    - vel0city 11mo ago
      What evidence? Have any links? Do we even know their names? No? (The government even admitted they don't know who they've killed). Strange, huh. How can we have enough evidence to know these people deserve to die for drug crimes when we don't even know who they are? The few people who survived, we just released them. No charging them with crimes, no courts, just sending them on their way. If they were really hardened drug criminals with enough evidence to murder everyone else around them, how were we not able to charge them with any crime?
    - orwin 11mo ago
      Most likely, these are human traffickers, second most likely, they are gold traffickers, third most likely they are drug traffickers. Or maybe some of them are just fishermen, which is actually more likely than all the previous cases.
      - mothballed 11mo ago
        If you take a look at submarines like this one they blew up https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115396632441470075 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1153966324414... They are almost always used as narco trafficking. However, we only know that is usually the case, not that this particular one was used for that purpose. There are a handful of civilian legal use submarines of this form and submersibles used for tourist and science purposes, however if a scientist or tourist rich enough to fund recreational submarines were killed it's likely the family would have come forward by now.
    - 11mo ago
- JKCalhoun 11mo ago
  Would be simple thing I think for the world's greatest military to capture the vessels and take the occupants alive. Besides being great PR when you reveal the drug haul on the deck of a US ship and show the rap sheet of the smugglers you could probably get a good deal of intel as well.
  - mothballed 11mo ago
    Guess it would depend on your definition of simple. IIRC at least one of the targetted vessels were in Venezuelan waters. Venezuela has F-16 and Su-30. No matter how prepared US is, it's not necessarily a sure thing they could pull that off without death of US personnel. US personnel that had to actually go on the ground were routinely killed in Afghanistan despite absolute force and technology superiority. The conservative argument I've seen is basically it needs to just blow them up from above because in such case US forces are not risked. While I don't agree with the mission, the strategy makes sense.

decremental 11mo ago

[dead]

mothballed 11mo ago

I only see two practical answers to the fentanyl crisis. Legalize it, or total war against the suppliers. Which one you pick will largely come down to personal morals or ethics. The addictive properties of the drug and profits seem to make the responses of more mellow legal incentives -- inelastic. The addict does not give a shit he may go to jail. The high-level supplier does not care he might be risking life, when he is making a gazillion dollars and plans to go out shooting anyway. The low level suppliers, well they fall under the same problem as the 'addict' bucket because you can get as many as you need from that one, no matter the consequences.

cjbgkagh 11mo ago
A 100% on the total war must also go after users not just suppliers. Otherwise you’re just making the market more profitable for the remaining suppliers. It’s really hard to stop things that are immensely profitable.
- mothballed 11mo ago
  If the rate of murder exceeds the rate of entrants for any meaningful number of suppliers, that might not be the case for the purposes of mitigation (which to be clear, is all you're going to get, never eradication). However, what you say may be true, I only cannot say it with certainty.
  - cjbgkagh 11mo ago
    You would probably kill more people that way rather than making it a death penalty for use. The other problem is enterprises that make money like this can easily corrupt the police and politicians. Since users don’t make money from using they’re not able to pay off the police. Any solution that is predicated on uncorruptable police and politicians is not going to work. I wish we didn’t have such corrupted police and politicians so we could have nicer policies but we don’t so we can’t.
gamerDude 11mo ago
Legalizing it is also a total war against the suppliers in most cases (just economically instead of with guns). By legalizing, you usually replace the current suppliers with ones you like.

mrbombastic 11mo ago

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-International-Narcotics-Control-Strategy-Volume-1-Accessible.pdf https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-Intern... The state dept report from 2025 found that fentanyl basically only comes to the US through Mexico and Venezuela is not a major player. I find your point 5 to be particularly anti-democratic to be honest, we don’t know because Trump doesn’t think us nor Congress need to know beyond some tweets on Truth Social. I am sorry for your loss, I have some friends who passed the same way, and it is horrible.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

gausswho 11mo ago

I am sorry to hear you lost someone to Fentanyl. It really is wreaking havoc upon American society. In the majority of cases (not to assume the one you experienced) this is but a new variant of 'slow suicide', alongside excessive drinking, gambling, various forms of risk seeking. It's not enough for me to agree that making a new Vietnan is 'something we've got to do'. The scars of America's war adventures are widely visible and part of the reason we uniquely suffer from these slow suicides. Blowing up other citizens is easy (at first). Not unlike the addicts this purports to protect, this administration thinks this one quick fix they don't want you to know about will cure our ails. Unfortunately the something we can do (must do) is hard. It means addressing why American society is increasingly disenfranchised, lonely, and unhappy.

rubyfan 11mo ago

Is it possible that this something isn’t even about drugs? The administration has signaled aggression and potential military action in the Western hemisphere since I think before the term even started. It almost feels indiscriminate at this point since it started with friends and allies, and now moves to a focus with a more plausible cover of legitimacy.

Vasbarlog 11mo ago

You realise that killing people without even identifying them first, and even going as far as invading a foreign country is not a solution in any shape or form. It’s not a ”something”. If the market for fentanyl is there, the drug will come. And one of the reasons the market became so big because of all the legal opioid drugs being so broadly prescribed.

JackC 11mo ago

> The president has something to offer as a solution. For everything. Unfortunately it is not a coincidence that the solution to all problems is always (a) make a loud noise (b) take your stuff (c) take away your ability to object to taking your stuff. Amoral sadistic narcissist gonna amoral sadistic narcissist. If you think you don't have enough information to predict how that's going to play out as far as family members you care about, ok.

lawn 11mo ago

> This is something I'm sorry that you're being swayed by propaganda as this isn't solving anything and will most likely make it worse.

forgotoldacc 11mo ago

Seems like the problem was the US medical industry getting everyone hooked on opiates. The US even prescribes fentanyl for injuries, a temporary problem, and gets people addicted to the strongest stuff in the world for life. But maybe the hospitals and American drug corps are all covert Venezuelan operations. Probably not, though. This makes as much sense as invading Iraq for a terrorist attack carried out by a rich Saudi Arabian family. You thinking killing some random people thousands of miles away is some sort of step in the right direction is honestly just sad. Imagine Botswana having a problem with lion attacks and their president kills your family on the other side of the earth because the people of Botswana want the president to do something, and killing someone, doesn't matter where, is progress towards a solution. I'm an American, but it's stuff like this that makes me realize that hundreds of years from now, people will hold the US's government and its people in the same regard as King Leopold and colonial Belgians.

password54321 11mo ago

1. We must do something! (moral panic) 2. Does something 3. Un(intended) consequences of doing something (problem is now worse or different) 4. Back to number 1

orwin 11mo ago

No one thinks cartels use fishing boats to transport drugs, especially launching from Venezuela. Venezuela itself only have minor cartels. Target Zodiacs from DR, Jamaica, Haiti or Sinaloa, you'll get a better ROI. Venezuela network traffic Venezuelian first (some of which you probably killed, not unexpected from a bloodthirsty country, but still), gold second, and drugs a far away third. Killing gold traffickers probably help Brazil and France, while most Venezuelian drug is probably still headed to Europe through Dutch vessels.

vel0city 11mo ago

This has practically nothing to do with fentanyl. Practically none of the US supply of fentanyl comes from Venezuela. Other drugs, sure. Not really fentanyl. If the Cheeto in Chief declared war on salad forks, all salad forks are now illegal in the US, death penalty for all those trafficking in salad forks, it'll help stop fentanyl trust me, would you also be for it? After all, it's doing something, and we need to do something. Or would you see it as something unrelated and would make no impact while making most people less safe? > No one commenting in the news has enough info of the plan (or of the future) to offer a useful appraisal of this particular something. Do you not find that incredibly troubling though? That the US government is gearing up to go to war against a country and yet the populace isn't being read in on the slightest in whatever evidence they may have that these boats they're bombing are actually drug boats or that Venezuela actually is a primary source for fentanyl or whatever? Isn't that an immensely troubling thing that we should push back on until they actually tell us good reasons to go to war?

nielsbot 11mo ago

you’re misinformed. this is not about fentanyl. venezuela didn’t export that.

apexalpha 11mo ago

>2. We have got to do something >3. This is something Killing random people extrajudicially is not "doing something". You could use your argument to justify the Holocaust...

mmooss 11mo ago

> 2. We have got to do something That's a mistake. We need to do something with good results. Doing something with bad results is worse than doing nothing. > Whether or not this something is actually a useful and good thing [and whether or not it will lead to other good things, and if those other things will be good...] will definitely be biased by your view of the administration, your policy towards war, and you risk tolerance. You're accusing random people of bias - you don't even know who they are. It's a way to shut down discussion and reason. Whether or not it's good and useful doesn't depend on bias, but on reality. We can talk about reality here, without shutting each other down. From what I understand, fentanyl doesn't come by boat, and few drugs do. > 5. No one commenting in the news has enough info of the plan (or of the future) to offer a useful appraisal of this particular something. If that's true, it's a major problem in democracy, where the people have sovereignty. Their elected representatives in Congress decide on wars, not the White House.