[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 142 (Tuesday, September 5, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3875-S3876]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Opioid Epidemic

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, over the last few years, we have all 
witnessed a devastating rise in fentanyl overdoses. While I have been 
around Tennessee this month and visiting with so many citizens and 
local elected officials, I have heard a lot about this and about how 
Tennessee has really not escaped this threat.
  In 2021, the latest year for which we have stats, there were over 
4,000 Tennesseans that lost their lives to fentanyl overdose. Equally 
as concerning is the amount of fentanyl that local law enforcement is 
finding. This is something that they see coming up in routine 
investigations.
  They are trying to protect their citizens. They are doing all they 
can. They are distributing and using Narcan, trying to save precious 
lives, and they feel like the fentanyl just keeps coming.
  There have been several significant seizures in Tennessee this year. 
Just last week, police were chasing down a stolen out-of-State car in 
Dyersburg, TN. While they were trying to locate the fleeing suspect 
from that stolen car, they discovered a lunch box that he had dropped. 
When they looked in the lunch box, they found 750 suspected fentanyl 
pills. The street value is over $14,000. That is in rural West 
Tennessee, in Dyersburg, TN.
  Law enforcement officials in Knoxville found thousands of grams of 
fentanyl in one man's possession. They found it in his car, and they 
found it in his house.
  In Bledsoe County, the drug task force recovered a thousand pills 
that were disguised, made to look like oxycodone--again, in rural 
Tennessee. These pills that were manufactured to look like oxycodone 
each contained lethal doses of fentanyl.
  We hear these stories popping up all across the country, but we 
continue to see these massive amounts that are in seizures. Last year, 
the DEA seized more than 58.3 million fentanyl-laced pills and more 
than 13,000 pounds of fentanyl. This constitutes 388 million lethal 
doses of fentanyl.
  This year, border agents intercepted over 22,000 pounds of fentanyl, 
more than double what they seized during the same time period last 
year. That was just what they managed to catch. Think about what is 
coming in with the ``got-aways.'' These are the people the border 
agents can see on surveillance video, but they cannot get to them. The 
stats I have just given you are what they are seizing. But think about 
what they don't apprehend and what is coming in with these cartels and 
coming in with the ``got-aways.''
  We have to realize that fentanyl is so deadly. The equivalent of four 
grains of sand can kill you. That is how deadly it is.
  And as a mom, as a grandmom, to hear these stories, it is just 
absolutely heartbreaking of lives which are lost. Fentanyl is now the 
No. 1 killer of Americans age 18 to 45. This is something that needs 
our attention.
  When I was over in Chattanooga, they were telling me the story about 
a 2-year-old who died, and when the medical examiner was doing the 
report, the autopsy, a lethal amount of fentanyl is what he found in 
this baby's system.
  These parents were charged with murder, and the prosecutor suggested 
the parents knowingly exposed their kids to large amounts of drugs in 
their home--a 2-year-old.
  In August, I had the opportunity to meet with local leaders in 
Fayette County, and they told me another heartbreaking story of a 
mother and her 4-month-old child. This is another rural Tennessee 
county, and when they did the test, the mother and the baby tested 
positive for fentanyl.
  At the Fayette County roundtable, I also learned about new measures 
that the school superintendent and the sheriff's department have 
implemented following the tragic deaths of two teenage girls. They were 
aged 16 and 17, and they were found dead in the school parking lot in 
Somerville, after overdosing from a drug combination believed to 
include fentanyl. Now, there was a third teenager involved in this 
incident. That teen survived. She was found unconscious, and law 
enforcement charged her with both second-degree murder and possession 
of a controlled substance.
  So we see what is happening. We know how this is coming across that 
border, and people are saying we have got to do something about this.
  Now, in Tennessee, local law enforcement agencies, local elected 
officials are stepping up, and Fayette County that I just mentioned, 
Mayor Skip Taylor is starting a new program, Drug Free Fayette, and he 
has based this on a successful model that another county mayor, Mayor 
Huffman over in Tipton County, has started because they have decided if 
that border is going to be left wide open and this is coming in here, 
steps have to be taken to protect their citizens.
  Now, what they are doing is establishing programs that are going into 
the schools, going into elementary school grades, high school, middle 
school, and educating about the dangers of drugs like fentanyl and like 
xylazine. A good example of this was when the new school semester began 
last year, Sheriff Bobby Riles, the Fayette County Sheriff's 
Department, and the Somerville Police Department worked with the 
Fayette County schools, and what they did was to implement a new DARE 
Program so that you have got somebody there in those schools, with 
those kids, establishing that relationship, helping to educate them and 
pushing back on what these kids are seeing on social media, what they 
are hearing from gangs and different individuals, trying to tempt them.
  Now, local law enforcement officers are receiving training that is 
necessary to work with kids and teens in the schools. They are pushing 
forward with that to get their officers trained. And the officers I 
heard from report that kids are beginning to bring some drugs to school 
from the community and from their home.
  This is why the training is important. This is why these programs 
like they are implementing in Fayette and Tipton County are so 
important: educate the kids, make certain the community is aware, make 
certain the officers have the education that is necessary so that we 
are all doing everything we can to save these lives.
  Now, we have talked a good bit about these cartels over the last 
several months, and it was so interesting to me, as I was across the 
State, to hear local law enforcement talk about the cartels and how 
active they are in our State. It is why every State is a border State, 
every town is a border town now.
  And what we see happening is that the cartels have linked up with 
some of the scientists in the labs in China where they create these 
precursor chemicals. Then they are sending it into Mexico. The cartels 
have labs, and this is where you are getting the fentanyl-laced 
gummies, you are getting the pills that are pressed to look like 
oxycodone. All the manufacturing is there.

  I had one sheriff tell me he just assumed everything was laced with 
fentanyl because, he said, you will get marijuana, you will get 
gummies, you will get pills, you will get all these different things, 
but what they really are is laced with fentanyl. All of this is ending 
up in our backyard, but it is also ending up on social media.

[[Page S3876]]

  Now, I found it so interesting, as I was doing some work with our 
counties and focusing on this issue, we found out that as high as 36 
percent of fentanyl cases--think about this number when you think about 
across our country--36 percent of the fentanyl cases are linked to 
social media. This is where kids have met a drug dealer. Maybe it was 
Snapchat or Facebook Messenger or Instagram or TikTok, 36 percent.
  These stats have made a few things very clear: The fentanyl crisis is 
real; it is killing Americans; it is killing Tennesseans; and it is our 
duty, as sworn representatives, to do something about this.
  Here in the Senate, we have already begun this work, and I want to 
encourage my colleagues who have not signed on to a few bills to get on 
board and let's give this crisis the attention that it deserves.
  Now, Tim Scott had a bill--I joined him last June when he introduced 
this--the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, and recently the Senate passed that as 
part of our Defense Authorization Act. This bill takes a very important 
step because it would declare the international fentanyl trafficking 
cartels and the trafficking of fentanyl a national emergency.
  And it also would direct the Treasury Department to target, sanction, 
and block the financial assets of these transnational criminal 
organizations, like those in China and Mexico, that are pushing this 
product forward.
  I also joined Senator Rubio in introducing the Felony Murder for 
Deadly Fentanyl Distribution Act, which would add the distribution of 
fentanyl resulting in death to the list of crimes that are eligible to 
be charged as felony murder.
  But given the significant role that illegal immigration has played in 
the fentanyl epidemic, it is clear that we also need to go right to the 
source. The Fentanyl Public Health Emergency and Overdose Prevention 
Act, a good bill that is just plain common sense, gives the Department 
of Homeland Security authority similar to that under title 42 to 
expedite the removal of illegal immigrants in response to the public 
health emergency that fentanyl poses to our country. If you are going 
to carry this, distribute it, push it, then you are not going to come 
in this country.
  Now, all of these are pieces of legislation that make a difference. 
What we see happening in counties in Tennessee is that local law 
enforcement, local elected officials, local school superintendents, and 
directors of schools are coming together and saying: We have got to get 
to work on this issue. They are all steps.
  What we have to do is have this administration, the Biden 
administration, stop burying their head in the sand on this issue. They 
can no longer ignore the influx of drugs coming into this country over 
that open southern border.
  We have to make certain that the border is secured and the resources 
are there to address the fentanyl crisis.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.