[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 71 (Thursday, April 27, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1407-S1408]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Opioid Epidemic

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, as everyone in America knows, fentanyl 
is ravaging communities across the country. It is killing more than 
70,000 people a year in the United States alone, making it the leading 
cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 49.
  The fentanyl epidemic does not discriminate. It kills old people, 
young people, rich people, poor people, people from major urban areas, 
and people from the countryside. One of the most alarming trends of 
what we are seeing is the rise of fentanyl-related deaths among 
teenagers. In 2021, 77 percent of all teenage overdose deaths involved 
fentanyl, the synthetic opioid.
  We continue to hear and read of heartbreaking stories of teens who 
overdosed in their bedrooms or in a car or at school. Sadly, this is a 
recurring nightmare in communities across Texas which have experienced 
a wave of overdoses among teens.
  Last fall, I sat down with a number of people in Dallas to learn more 
about the community-wide effort to fight fentanyl. I heard from parents 
who lost their children, as well as law enforcement officials, local 
elected leaders, healthcare professionals, and school administrators.
  I learned that most of the time, these teenagers think they are 
buying something that is relatively innocuous--Xanax or Percocet--only 
to find out that it is a counterfeit pill made to look like a 
prescription drug that is laced with a deadly dose of fentanyl.
  And it doesn't take much. If you look at the end of your pencil, the 
piece of lead sticking out of the end of your pencil, that amount of 
fentanyl can kill you.
  People will frequently refer to these not necessarily as overdoses 
but poisonings, because in most cases, the victims have no idea that 
they are taking a lethal dose of fentanyl. That was the case for 
Patricia Hammad's daughter, Cassandra, who died from a fentanyl 
overdose 2 years ago. Patricia told me that Cassandra took the pill 
because she thought it was a Xanax, but, actually, it contained a 
lethal dose of fentanyl.
  I heard a similar story from parents in Hays County when I visited 
there in February at a high school. Darren and Shannon McConville lost 
their son Kevin to fentanyl last summer. Darren told me that Kevin took 
a pill to help him sleep at night, and that that pill cost him his 
life.
  Earlier this week, I heard more heartbreaking stories from folks in 
Carrollton, TX, outside of Dallas. Lilia Astudillo told me about her 
14-year-old son Jose, who loved playing sports and spending time with 
his brothers and sisters. One night, Jose took a pill that he thought 
would help him calm down before he went to bed. When Lilia went to wake 
her son up for school the next morning, it was too late. Her happy and 
talented son had died.
  I also heard from another brave parent, Ryan Vaughn, who told me 
about his 16-year-old daughter Sienna. She was a cheerleader at Plano 
High School, and she loved going to concerts and thrift shopping. 
Sienna's father told me that he talked to her about the danger of drugs 
many times. Had she been offered fentanyl, he knows she would have said 
no. But when her friend came over for a family get-together and gave 
her what seemed to be an innocuous pill, she had no idea and she said 
yes. Later that evening, the Vaughns found their daughter and her 
friend overdosing. They were able to save her friend using Narcan. But 
for Sienna, it was too late.
  These families in their communities have experienced every emotion in 
the book, including shock, fear, devastation, and anger; and they have 
channeled their grief and fury into action.
  On Monday, I was at R.L. Turner High School and heard from Saniyah 
Rodriguez, who heard the telltale noise of somebody overdosing in the 
bathroom and saved that student's life using the lessons she learned on 
a video at school.
  She said it took weeks before she could even go back into that 
bathroom having witnessed what she did--the gurgling noise of a fellow 
classmate overdosing was emblazoned upon her memory. Despite being 
traumatized by her experience, she was adamant that students cannot 
keep quiet about fentanyl. They must speak out and they must get help 
when a classmate needs it.
  All around the school, in bathrooms and the hallways, there were 
signs in English and Spanish about the dangers of fentanyl. Communities 
across Texas are doing the best they can to fight fentanyl head-on, and 
I am grateful for the work they have done to protect and educate our 
children. But that is only one piece of the puzzle.
  Law enforcement works around the block to take deadly drugs like 
fentanyl off the streets. And, fortunately, those responsible for 
dealing fentanyl-laced pills to students in Carrollton-Farmers Branch 
ISD have been arrested and charged. But, again, this is just one other 
piece of the puzzle.
  When I spoke with the grieving parents in Hays County, which is in 
San Marcos right outside of Austin, TX, where I live, they stressed the 
importance of securing the border and preventing fentanyl from ever 
getting across the border into their communities in the first place.
  Shannon McConville, who lost her son Kevin, was especially adamant 
about the need to do more to stop fentanyl from getting into the 
country in the first place. She said, when it comes to the border, the 
Biden administration is failing.

  I completely agree.
  The Biden administration has simply abdicated its responsibility at 
the border in the name of a humane response to the border crisis, but 
there is nothing humane about what is happening. We are losing more 
than 70,000 Americans a year to fentanyl, and given the rate that 
fentanyl is coming into the country, I fear the worst is still to come.
  The most crucial step at this moment is to stop the poison from 
coming into the country in the first place, but it is all about money. 
The cartels continue to get rich. They care nothing about the deaths of 
these parents' children, and they care nothing about the devastation 
that they are bringing to our communities across Texas and across the 
country.
  The most crucial step is to stop it before it gets here. Until that 
happens, the situation will only get worse. More fentanyl will come 
across the border and seep into our communities. More of our children, 
more of our neighbors, more of our friends, more of our loved ones will 
die from fentanyl poisoning, and the cartels and criminal organizations 
will continue to get rich from the suffering that they cause because 
they don't care about our suffering. They don't care about our 
grieving. They don't care about the deaths of these young people and 
the potential that has been snuffed out at an early age. All they care 
about is the money.
  I appreciate everyone who joined me in Carrollton, on Monday, to talk 
about this crisis. I am especially grateful, as I said, to Saniyah 
Rodriguez and the families of Jose and Sienna, who had the courage to 
tell their stories. It has got to be incredibly painful to tell the 
stories about your sons or daughters losing their lives to this drug. 
This is not something that they look forward to doing, but they are 
driven to do it by the conviction that maybe, just maybe, the losses of 
their children's lives will not be in vain; that the Federal Government 
will step up and do its job to stop the poison from entering the 
country in the first place; and that maybe, as a result of their 
telling their stories and getting visibility on this issue, that it 
will save another life.
  There is nothing that can prepare you for the pain a parent feels 
from losing a child, especially in such a cruel, unexpected, and 
unnecessary way. These are, admittedly, emotional and difficult 
conversations, but they

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are important. As Jose's mother told me, we cannot let overdose deaths 
become faceless statistics.
  People need to remember that these are not just data points. These 
are bright, young, loving people who were stolen from their families 
and from this world. They are our children, our grandchildren, 
brothers, sisters, friends, and classmates.
  Until the Biden administration steps up and does its duty to secure 
the border and takes action to stop this fentanyl from entering the 
southern border in the first place, there will continue to be more and 
more victims and more and more grieving parents and families and 
friends like I heard from at the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent 
School District this last week.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

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