OP / ED
Hundreds of counties across America are enduring a prolonged fentanyl epidemic and getting richer off it.
Police departments in poor regions of the South and Southwest increasingly use addiction as a source of revenue: property seizures, fines and contracts for “rehabilitation” services with private prisons. While overdose deaths soar, the fight against the crisis quietly turns into monetizing human suffering.
The civil asset forfeiture (nacdl.org/Landing/Asse t-Forfeiture) process lets police seize cars, phones and other property without court orders or proven guilt, based only on suspicion. This practice is especially common in drug-related cases.
Research from the Asset Forfeiture Oversight Advisory by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission (2023) shows a steady revenue stream of about $600,000. Local examples confirm this trend: departments in poor areas rake in huge sums just from seizures. In some cases, seizure revenue exceeds 20% of a department’s budget, creating a budget supplanting mechanism.
Charges of fentanyl possession often don’t lead to treatment but to paid alternatives — mandatory programs with supervised drug tests, paid for by the accused. In some areas, this creates a shadow economy, replacing real punishment with steady income for contractors. In Texas, for example, GEO Group has signed contracts worth hundreds of millions with counties seeing rising fentanyl addiction, which was reported in the 2024 Newsweek article titled Texas Prison Profits Surge as Immigration Spikes by Alexander Fabino. Police effectively act as suppliers — more arrests mean bigger profits.
Fentanyl is destroying lives nationwide, but poor and marginalized communities are the main victims of these harsh measures. Many cannot afford lawyers or even initial fines. They end up in probation systems with monthly fees and mandatory programs, where any violation can land them in jail. For them, fentanyl is not just a drug but a trap — a system designed to profit rather than healing.
In the South, fentanyl is more than a crisis; it’s raw material. The police patrol has become an accounting office, the court a cash register and the addicted a valuable asset. It’s a market where the system profits off addiction, leaving thousands without treatment.
This system is doomed, leaving us with a cyclical reality that mirrors the myth of Sisyphus — the man condemned to endlessly roll a boulder uphill, only for it to roll back down.
