In 2023 fentanyl overdoses ravaged the U.S. and fueled a new culture war fight

Matt Capelouto, whose daughter died from a fentanyl overdose, speaks at a news conference outside the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Tuesday, April 18, 2023. Capelouto is among dozens of protesters who called on the Assembly to hear fentanyl-related bills as tension mounts over how to address the fentanyl crisis. (AP Photo/Tran Nguyen)

Tran Nguyen / Tran Nguyen

When the history of the fentanyl crisis is written, 2023 may be remembered as the year Americans woke up to an unprecedented threat scouring communities – and a deepening cultural divide over what to do about it.

For the first time in U.S. history, fatal overdoses peaked above 112,000 deaths, with young people and people of color among the hardest hit.

Drug policy experts, and people living with addiction, say the magnitude of this calamity now eclipses every previous drug epidemic, from the 1980s to the prescription opioid crisis of the 2000s.