Donald Trump spoke about drug use in an interview with podcast host Theo Von posted late Tuesday, in which the ex-president drew attention for his interest in Von’s own past cocaine use—but he also seemed to repeatedly misunderstand that fentanyl, a frequent topic of Trump’s on the campaign trail, is itself an opioid, and not a separate type of drug.
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally on August 17 in Wilkes Barre, ... [+]
Von interviewed Trump for his podcast “This Past Weekend,” in which the podcaster brought up his past struggles with drug and alcohol addiction and asked Trump what he would do as president to curtail the drug crisis and give pharmaceutical companies less influence.
In Trump’s response, the ex-president noted, “The big problem we have is, fentanyl is the biggest. Opioid is bad. Opioid is bad too”—though fentanyl is itself a synthetic opioid.
Trump also appeared confused about fentanyl being an opioid when he asked Von whether he believed alcohol or opioids was a bigger “problem in our country”—Von responded that opioids are “for sure” the larger issue, Trump followed up, asking, “You compare that to fentanyl?”
Trump questioned Von about his drug use, asking what using cocaine is like and if using it gives a “good feeling”—calling it a “down and dirty” drug—and asking Von why people use the drug after the podcaster said it gives him a “miserable” feeling.
The Trump campaign noted to Forbes that the National Institutes of Health categorizes fentanyl separately from traditional opioid products, and campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Trump “has proposed bold, effective solutions to the opioid and addiction crisis that will save American lives and heal our families.”
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“It's obviously a problem and it's a big problem,” Trump told Von about the drug epidemic. “And we were doing things about it, but then we had to get down to other business. We had to solve some, we had a lot of problems with this country.”
“In her time in office, Kamala Harris has done nothing to halt the expanding opioid crisis in America and it is one of the greatest failures of the Harris-Biden Administration,” Leavitt said in a statement to Forbes. “A Trump Administration will be laser focused on securing our nation’s borders, halting the importation of fentanyl and will hold the over-prescribers and drug cartels accountable.”
Trump’s discussion about fentanyl comes as the ex-president has repeatedly made the drug crisis an issue on the campaign trail, claiming his proposed crackdown on undocumented immigration is in part a way to cut down on fentanyl coming from over the border. That has included a number of false claims about fentanyl, claiming more than 300,000 Americans die each year from fentanyl overdoses—the actual number is under 100,000—and claiming undocumented migrants are responsible for the bulk of the U.S.’ fentanyl supply. While the majority of fentanyl in the U.S. has been traced back to Mexican cartels, government data shows 86% of people sentenced for trafficking fentanyl are U.S. citizens. The Republican National Convention also featured speeches by Americans whose lives have been affected by the fentanyl crisis, and Trump took steps against the drug crisis while in office, including declaring the opioid crisis a public health emergency and creating a commission to study the issue. White House materials from the time note that fentanyl is a type of opioid.
107,543. That’s how many Americans died from drug overdoses overall in 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in May, with 74,702 of those deaths attributed to synthetic opioids, including fentanyl. Fentanyl deaths have decreased since 2022, however, when 76,226 Americans died from overdoses of synthetic opioids.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, which the Drug Enforcement Administration notes is approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 more potent than heroin. The drug has government approval for pain relief and as an anesthetic, but the opioid crisis has been fueled by Americans getting addicted to the drug beyond its approved uses. Fentanyl is more potent than prescription opioids that have also fueled the opioid epidemic and can be produced more cheaply, and the rise in overdose deaths has been fueled by drug dealers creating counterfeit pills containing lethal doses of fentanyl or mixing the drug with other substances like heroin or methamphetamines. The DEA reported seizing more than 80 million fake pills laced with fentanyl in 2023, and notes 70% of the pills it has seized contain a lethal dose of the drug.
Donald Trump accused of falsely vilifying migrants for surge in US fentanyl deaths (The Guardian)
In grim milestone, U.S. overdose deaths top 100,000 for third straight year (Washington Post)
Why Is Fentanyl Driving Overdose Deaths? (Yale Medicine)