The United States cannot defeat the drug epidemic solely through enforcement and attacks on cartels, as education and mental health services for young people are equally critical, former DEA official Derek Maltz told Newsmax on Sunday.
“They’re all on social media,” Maltz said on Newsmax’s “Sunday Agenda.” “So why are we not training them and educating them in school and on social media? That has to change. Yes, I’m fully in support of this, decimating the cartels, and we’re doing a good job right now. But we have to educate the kids in this country.”
Maltz also praised President Donald Trump’s aggressive actions against drug cartels, calling the current approach a proactive, whole-of-government campaign.
“Thank God President Trump and this administration, without being political, are attacking the enemy,” he said. “They are attacking the terrorists. They are actually taking a full-blown proactive response. They are all over these bad guys.”
Pointing to recent enforcement actions, including the seizure of “300,000 kilos of chemicals in Houston as part of the Homeland Security Investigations’ major operation against the Chinese chemicals,” he noted that more is being done now than ever, but added that the scope of the drug crisis is unprecedented.
“We’ve never seen a threat like this in the history of this country,” he said, describing the surge of fentanyl and synthetic drugs as a “chemical attack on the country.”
“No terrorist organization has done this to our future generation,” Maltz added.
As of Sept. 4, the DEA reported seizing 32.5 million fake pills and 6,600 pounds of fentanyl, and Maltz said the numbers underscore the scale of the danger.
“That means the cartels are still producing massive amounts of chemical substances that are killing our kids. That means we have to be more aggressive,” he said.
The former official credited the Trump administration with disrupting cartel revenue by securing the border and reducing profits from human smuggling, but cautioned that traffickers are adapting.
“They’re starting to send the drugs around the world, so they’re taking advantage of cocaine addiction all throughout Europe and other countries,” he said. “They’re still making a lot of money.”
Maltz reiterated that cutting off supply chains alone is not sufficient, saying, “We’ve got to work harder on the chemical flow, the money flow, and of course, the education of our kids.”
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