Fentanyl doesn’t come from Venezuela and other truths in front of your nose

The first video was grainy. A boat raced across the water, the wake trailing behind. And then a flash of light. Smoke. Fire.

The U.S. Navy blew up a boat, killing the 11 people on board.

In a message on Truth Social, President Donald Trump wrote, “Please let this serve as notice to anyone even thinking of bringing drugs into the United States of America.”

He said the boat carried members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. So far there has been no evidence that there were drugs on board.

The narrative begins to form.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “We are going to wage combat against drug cartels that are flooding America’s streets and killing Americans.” Rubio called the people on that boat narco-terrorists and acted as though the extrajudicial killings, by a country that claims the rule of law, were justified.

The Washington Post reported that family members said the 11 men killed in that attack were fishermen who smuggled cocaine and marijuana destined for Trinidad. They didn’t work for the criminal organization Tren de Aragua, they said. They were just trying to make money.

Since that first strike on Sept. 2, the Trump administration has ordered eight more attacks, killing at least 26 more people on boats that authorities claim without evidence are carrying drugs to be trafficked to the United States. (Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced two more strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Wednesday.)

Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that “killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.”

But U.S. officials saying fentanyl comes from Venezuela doesn’t make it so.

The fentanyl that fueled the overdose crisis in America did not arrive on boats that depart from Venezuela. It was mostly manufactured in Mexico and trafficked across the border by U.S. citizens. In 2024, according to a Cato Institute analysis, 80 percent of drug traffickers were U.S. Citizens. 

Researchers, the DEA, Gov. Mike DeWine, and the U.S. Treasury know this. And yet, the overdose crisis is being exploited as a cynical geopolitical tool.

These extrajudicial killings are not going to prevent overdoses or help people who have a substance use disorder, nor will they stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States. The administration is wasting resources that would be better spent on harm reduction and support for addiction recovery to save lives in Ohio and Alaska and Arizona.

Instead, we watch violence accumulate on video – much in the way we saw with the drone attacks of the Obama era. Now as then, it almost feels unreal.

In his 1946 essay, “In Front of Your Nose,” George Orwell wrote that in an unstable world where it is hard to decipher political truth from political fiction, we have to ground ourselves in that which exists right in front of us.  

The current administration is trying hard to lead the public away from what is under their noses. 

Orwell writes: “The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.”

He then goes on to note the “all-prevailing schizophrenia of democratic societies, the lies that have to be told for vote-catching purposes, the silence about major issues, the distortions of the press.” It is, Orwell continues, “the avoidance of reality” that carries its own crass consequences.

What is under our noses is that 80,000 deaths from overdose in 2024 are still too many. What is under our noses is that the overdose crisis is a health care crisis. What is under our noses is that the very idea of universal health care is abhorrent to those who don’t value the rule of law and the rights of a community, let alone of the individual.

Look at what’s in front of your nose. Orwell writes that to do so is a “constant struggle.” He also offers the advice that we must record and document all that we see. And that record is accumulating across America.

I have been mesmerized by other videos, as well. The ones out of Chicago where ICE rolls up and seizes people off the streets. Americans jump into action. Blowing whistles. Shouting. Demanding law enforcement follow the law. These people see democracy crumbling in front of their noses and they are calling it out.

When I see these local uprisings in front of my nose, I see democracy arching its back, rearing its head, pushing forward.