Kids pay for our mistakes. Foreign Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs) are poised to take America out – rural states first, like Maine – long before Iranian terrorists, Russian hypersonic missiles, or a Chinese virus. Stunningly, most crime goes back to drug trafficking and addiction, most robberies, assaults, burglaries, homicides, and domestic abuse. We are at the end stage. Act now, or regret.

At the national level, numbers are staggering; trends make you sick if you read them.  Illegal aliens contribute, but aggressive, ruthless DTOs – Mexican, Colombian, Dominican, Asian – are making their move on America, reinforced by gangs, Venezuelan, El Salvadorean, Crips, Bloods, and others.

In 2023, nearly 80 million fentanyl pills were seized by the DEA three times in 2021. A veterinary drug, xylazine now shows up in 30 percent of fentanyl as new synthetics accelerate, and – in a shock – we see major upticks in methamphetamines, cocaine, and heroin, all foreign sources.

The trends show no sign of slowing. In Maine, arrests mount, but law enforcement – as across the country – are often frustrated.  Prosecutors balk, slow-rolling and cherry-picking cases for politics, letting felons walk or find themselves in need of resources. Unchecked, drug crime grows.

On the prevention and treatment sides, which historically were valued and kept demand down, abuse and addiction in check, during the late 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, the con has been lost, pro-legalization, pro-drug abuse forces driving higher potency, trafficker penetration, overdoses.

Numbers, when corroborated by other numbers, do not lie. Maine’s drug-related homicides jumped by 40 percent in one year alone, 2023. That year, Maine – largely rural – had the 8th-highest overdose rate in the nation. Even in 2022, Maine had 700 to 900 overdoses a month, 40 to 76 a month dead.

Between 2010 and 2022, not counting 2023 or 2024, Maine suffered 4,600 kids dead to overdoses. This is happening in what has historically been a Norman Rockwell, healthy, outdoor state, where in my growing up years, we might have had one or two dead from an overdose in a year. No more.

Now, think about the downstream crimes from DTO penetration of rural America. Law enforcement, every state, every level, will tell you that north of 80 percent of crime goes to drugs. In Maine, the annual Crime Victimization report shows one in three Mainers is affected and one in 20 a victim.

Now think harder, and try to process this number: In Maine, 68 percent of crime is unreported. So, how are DTOs affecting quality of life? Enormously. Parents often fear letting kids run, play, and cycle in many areas. Homeless encampments host drug traffickers, Dominicans, and other DTOs. Needles pollute street corners where kids walk to school. Maine gives out 20,000 naloxone units a month.

In places where public safety used to be assumed, where drug abuse, addiction, overdoses, drug crime, and deaths were minimal, cared for individually, they are now outsized, DTO-driven. My home growing up, where hard drugs were virtually non-existent, Kennebec County now leads the state in death by overdose, along with Cumberland and Penobscot.

But here is the unspoken truth:  None of this is inevitable. End-stage DTO penetration of this beautiful, family-loving, God-fearing, otherwise peaceful place – like much of America – can be reversed if we act now, close ranks within and between party leaders, and focus.

What is needed in places like Maine and the Nation? A concerted effort to put the DTOs out of business, restart effective prevention, widen access to effective treatment, and up-fund law enforcement while insisting prosecutors prosecute enough cases – high level, high operational tempo, no exceptions – to reintroduce meaningful deterrence. Do that, we all win.

The best news is that we know how to beat the DTOs, how to deter, disrupt, dismantle, and put an end to major trafficker penetration here and elsewhere, with cooperative prevention, treatment, and law enforcement cooperation, interagency intelligence sharing, prosecutors who prosecute.

The missing ingredient at federal and state levels, Washington to Augusta, is singlemindedness, resolve to make public safety a priority one, take risks, bring cases, put politics aside – and affirmatively create a safer, healthier, stronger state and nation, devoid of crime’s big feeder.

The drug trafficking industry kills millions each year, hundreds of thousands of young Americans, ending their lives. The DTOs can and must be stopped. Elevating counternarcotics, and remembering how we stay safe, is a start. Kids pay for our mistakes. They should not have to.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.