The number of people dying from using fentanyl remains "unacceptably high" despite a recent drop, the White House said on Tuesday.  

"Under President [Joe] Biden’s leadership, overdose deaths and poisonings have decreased for five months in a row, but these deaths remain unacceptably high and are primarily caused by fentanyl," the White House said in a news release.  

Biden plans to announce in his upcoming State of the Union speech later on Tuesday possible key measures to tackle this issue, the release said.

Some of the measures involve disrupting the trafficking, distribution, and sale of fentanyl, the release said.

"In just the last year, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has seized a historic 260,000 pounds of illicit drugs primarily at ports of entry on our border, including nearly 15,000 pounds of fentanyl," the release said.

Moreover, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized more than 26,000 pounds of fentanyl in the fiscal year 2022, the release added.

Earlier in January, the North American summit, dubbed the "three amigos" summit discussed the heavy flow of fentanyl across the US border which killed more than 100,000 people in 2021 alone.

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