Most Americans say US is losing ground on illegal drug problem
- Most adults (52%) say the U.S. is "losing ground" on the illegal drug issue
- Republicans are far more pessimistic about progress than Democrats
- Overall, most people view the country's drug problem as serious
FILE – A bag of 4-fluoro isobutyryl fentanyl which was seized in a drug raid is displayed at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Testing and Research Laboratory in Sterling, Va., on Aug. 9, 2016. China on Friday, July 7, 2023, insisted it is up to the U.S. to “create necessary conditions” for anti-drugs cooperation, following complaints from Washington that Beijing has ignored its calls for a crackdown on precursor chemicals for the highly addictive painkiller fentanyl. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
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(NewsNation) — Americans are growing increasingly pessimistic about the nation’s progress when it comes to the illegal drug problem, according to a new survey.
More than half of respondents (52%) in a recent Gallup poll said the U.S. has lost ground in addressing the problem of illegal drugs. It’s the first time since the polling organization started asking the question in 1972 that more than half of those surveyed felt that way.
“Amid news of an alarming spike in the number of U.S. adults succumbing to overdoses of opioids and other dangerous drugs, Americans generally see little progress in addressing the illegal drug problem in the nation,” Gallup senior editor Jeffrey Jones wrote.
As recently as 2019, more Americans felt progress was being made (41%) than lost (30%).
When it comes to illegal drugs, Republicans are significantly more pessimistic today than Democrats, with 75% saying the U.S. has lost ground.
The concern within the GOP marks a significant increase from just four years ago, when just 20% felt the same way. At that point, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to say the U.S. was going backward on illegal drugs.
More than half of independents surveyed (52%) are pessimistic now, up from 33% in 2019.
Overall, 74% of U.S. adults describe the country’s current drug problem as either “extremely” or “very serious,” up 10 points from 2021. That majority concern was consistent across the political spectrum.
U.S. border officials seized about 550,000 pounds of drugs this fiscal year. Of that, 27,000 pounds was fentanyl, just two milligrams of which is considered potentially lethal.
In 2021, drug overdose deaths in the U.S. topped 106,000, and roughly 75% of those were due to synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
