U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order classifying fentanyl as a ‘weapon of mass destruction.’
Trump signed the order in the Oval Office on
Monday while flanked by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine, White House border czar Tom Homan, and other top
military officials.
Trump says his administration is “formally
classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, which is what it is. No
bomb does what this is doing.”
The order goes beyond calling it a lethal drug
because it can be weaponized to cause "concentrated, large-scale terror
attacks by organized adversaries," according to the order.
"Illicit fentanyl is closer to a chemical
weapon than a narcotic," the order says. "Two milligrams, an almost
undetectable trace amount equivalent to 10 to 15 grains of table salt,
constitutes a lethal dose."
It was not immediately clear how the new
designation would affect administration policy or what the legal implications
would be for those impacted by fentanyl use or drug traffickers.
The term weapon of mass destruction has
typically referred to nuclear, biological, chemical, or kinetic threats capable
of causing overwhelming and lasting damage to a population, infrastructure, or
environment.
Donald Trump has made targeting drug cartels a
top priority in his second administration. On his first day in office, he
classified several drug cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations and
specially designated global terrorists.
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