This week marked the tip of the primary 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second time period. The administration celebrated the milestone by touting his accomplishments. The Division of Justice (DOJ), nevertheless, used some funky numbers to justify cracking down on opioids.
U.S. Legal professional Common Pam Bondi toured a forensic lab on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) headquarters on April 29. In a post on X to commemorate the go to, Bondi wrote, “In President Trump’s first 100 days we have seized over 22 million fentanyl laced tablets, saving over 119 Million lives.”
At the moment is Fentanyl Consciousness day. In President Trump’s first 100 days we have seized over 22 million fentanyl laced tablets, saving over 119 Million lives.
We’re combating relentlessly for the households of family members misplaced, for these whose lives are in danger, and for the soul of our… pic.twitter.com/nQLnN0nipn
— Legal professional Common Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) April 29, 2025
Fairly an achievement—particularly since Bondi is suggesting that with out federal intervention, greater than one-third of the entire U.S. population would have died of fentanyl poisoning for the reason that third week of January.
Not content material with these unbelievable numbers, Bondi actually doubled down. Throughout a televised Cabinet meeting the next day, she effusively praised Trump for the accomplishments of his first 100 days. “Since you’ve gotten been in workplace,” she gushed, “your DOJ businesses have seized greater than 22 million fentanyl tablets, 3,400 kilos of fentanyl, which saved—are you prepared for this, media?—258 million lives.” That determine quantities to roughly three out of each 4 Individuals, or nearly the complete grownup inhabitants in accordance with the latest U.S. Census.
These are unimaginable numbers—as in, actually not credible. Bondi is enjoying quick and free with statistics to make the administration’s file sound higher. Then once more, authorities businesses routinely body their achievements in the very best mild, irrespective of if it makes any logical sense.
According to the DEA, 2 milligrams of fentanyl “equates to a doubtlessly lethal dose.” Final yr, the company says it “seized greater than 60 million fentanyl-laced faux tablets and practically 8,000 kilos of fentanyl powder,” quantities “equal to greater than 380 million deadly doses of fentanyl.”
How do they arrive at these numbers? A DOJ spokesman told Slate‘s Jim Newell that they multiplied 3,400 kilograms seized by its “present purity stage,” then divided that quantity into 2-milligram doses—yielding simply over 258 million particular person lethal drams.
The DOJ’s solutions spark extra questions, Newell notes: “Is the ‘purity stage’ constant throughout these many kilos? Is that this dose stage ‘deadly’ to all individuals equally? Most vital: How would 258 million deadly doses be distributed, one per particular person, to 258 million individuals, inside 100 days, as would have presumably occurred if Trump weren’t president?”
The latter query, when spelled out, is ridiculous—however Bondi’s declare that seizing fentanyl tablets saved the lives of each single American grownup is equally ludicrous.
Prohibitionists discuss artificial opioids like they’re nuclear weapons that may be detonated in a inhabitants heart and obliterate anybody of their path. In 2019, throughout Trump’s first time period, the Division of Homeland Safety apparently deemed fentanyl a “mass casualty weapon” and thought of classifying it as a weapon of mass destruction.
However that is not how medicine work. “Fentanyl tablets do not fly across the nation searching for individuals’s mouths to enter,” says Jeffery Singer, a Cato Institute senior fellow and working towards doctor. “Individuals CHOOSE to purchase government-prohibited substances on the black market, the place they’ll by no means make certain of their purity or even when they’re what the vendor says they’re.”
Simply because a selected quantity of fentanyl—if divvied up and distributed throughout the complete inhabitants—might theoretically kill each dwelling American grownup, there isn’t any purpose to assume the overwhelming majority of Individuals would ever come into contact with the substance.
In truth, a single bullet might kill somebody; by the federal government’s logic, a field of 100 bullets technically incorporates sufficient firepower to kill 100 individuals. In the identical Cupboard assembly the place she credited the president for saving three out of each 4 Individuals from dying of fentanyl poisoning, Bondi mentioned “DOJ businesses” had additionally “seized 14,500 weapons off the streets” and “651,000 rounds of ammo.” Why not declare this seizure had “saved 651,000 lives?” Presumably, as a result of anybody listening would acknowledge that as a ridiculous declare.
“Bondi’s assertion serves a rhetorical or political function, however [it] is irresponsible and never credible,” Singer cautions. “Bondi overstates the chance in a method that may induce worry somewhat than understanding, and it could possibly undermine belief in public messaging if individuals find out how exaggerated the assumptions are.”
