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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