WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – The FEND Off Fentanyl Act, passed by the House and the Senate, is designed to help combat the ongoing opioid crisis by targeting the fentanyl supply chain.
The new law was part of the bipartisan national security package.
Law enforcement says Fentanyl is one of the deadliest drugs on the market.
Gary Wolske, president of the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police, says the manufacturing and use of the drug is growing.
“People are dying at a rapid rate,” Wolske said. “It itself is being laced in heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana.”
And contact with a dose smaller than the size of a penny can kill.
To help combat the ongoing fentanyl crisis, Wolske is praising lawmakers for passing the Fend Off Fentanyl Act.
“We’ve taken a huge step, I believe, in protecting not only the citizens of the community, but also law enforcement officers as well,” Wolske said.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) co-sponsored the bill.
“It’s a public health crisis and we need all hands on deck,” Scott said.
The new law will crack down on criminal organizations from chemical suppliers in China to the Mexican cartels.
“President Biden, today, can do a better job of bringing both Mexico and China to the table to solve the problem that is devastating,” Scott said.
Brown says this new law targets manufacturers’ financial assets.
“We attack where this starts being made by going after their profits,” Brown said.
Government data shows 80,000 Americans died last year of an opioid overdose and many of them were fentanyl related.
Specifically, the legislation will:
- Declare that the international trafficking of fentanyl is a national emergency.
- Require the President to sanction transnational criminal organizations and drug cartels’ key members engaged in international fentanyl trafficking.
- Enable the President to use proceeds of forfeited, sanctioned property of fentanyl traffickers to further law enforcement efforts.
- Enhance the ability to enforce sanctions violations thereby making it more likely that people who defy U.S. law will be caught and prosecuted.
- Require the administration to report to Congress on actions the U.S. government is taking to reduce the international trafficking of fentanyl and related opioids.
- Allow the Treasury Department to utilize special measures to combat fentanyl-related money laundering.
- Require the Treasury Department to prioritize fentanyl-related suspicious transactions and include descriptions of drug cartels’ financing actions in Suspicious Activity Reports.
- Scott says there are things President Biden could do now to enhance the law.