Mr. President, I rise to speak again today about the epidemic of deadly, illicit fentanyl plaguing our Nation and how, through bipartisan legislation I have introduced today, we can help to stop this…
Mr. President, I rise to speak again today about the epidemic of deadly, illicit fentanyl plaguing our Nation and how, through bipartisan legislation I have introduced today, we can help to stop this dangerous opioid from flowing into our country from abroad.
I want to start by providing some basic information about fentanyl. What
is fentanyl? Well, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine. Although pharmaceutical fentanyl can be misused, the current fentanyl epidemic in our country is being fueled by illicitly manufactured fentanyl and illicit versions of chemically similar compounds known as fentanyl analogs.
Fentanyl, in its powder form, is often mixed with other illegal drugs like heroin or it is disguised in pill form to resemble an opioid painkiller like OxyContin. Many drug users overdose on fentanyl because they have no idea it is cut into whatever substance they are injecting or whatever pills they are swallowing. They simply do not realize just how deadly fentanyl is.
In fact, just a few salt-size grains of fentanyl can kill an adult. Where does illicit fentanyl come from? According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Mexico is the primary source for illicit fentanyl trafficked into the United States. Distributors in China are the principal source of the precursor chemicals, the chemical building blocks used to manufacture fentanyl in Mexico and elsewhere.
China is also a source of finished product illicit fentanyl coming into the United States. Why is illicit fentanyl trafficking increasing? Well, we are in the midst of an opioid epidemic that has begun with the overprescription and resulting abuse of prescription opioids like OxyContin. When users found those pills too expensive to sustain their addiction, they turned to cheaper heroin.
Now they are turning to even cheaper and more powerful fentanyl, which has become an extremely lucrative product for drug dealers and drug cartels. According to the DEA, a kilogram of heroin can be purchased from Colombia for about $6,000 and then sold on the wholesale drug market for $80,000--purchased for 6,000, sold for $80,000. By comparison, a kilogram of pure fentanyl can be purchased from China for less than $5,000 and then sold on the market for $80,000 as well.
Because it is so potent that 1 kilogram of fentanyl can be cut with agents like talcum powder or caffeine, resulting in 24 kilograms of product to be sold, that means that one $5,000 kilogram of fentanyl actually reaps a whopping profit in the neighborhood of $1.6 million.
What has been the impact of the fentanyl epidemic on the United States? Well, the DEA is so concerned about fentanyl that in March of 2015, it issued a nationwide alert that highlighted the drug as a threat to health and public safety. Between 2014 and 2015, overdose deaths in the United States from synthetic opioids, principally illicit fentanyl, increased 72 percent.
In 2015, there were more than 9,500 such overdose deaths in the United States. Last year, it is estimated that my home State of Massachusetts suffered more than 2,000 opioid-related overdose deaths, largely fueled by the deadly rise of illicit fentanyl. In fact, Massachusetts ranked second notionally per capita in synthetic opioid deaths, which includes fentanyl, with the number of deaths between 2014 and 2015 increasing by 109 percent.
Massachusetts authorities are now finding fentanyl in 74 percent of the State's opioid overdose deaths. If those figures hold up, that means last year there will have been roughly 1,500 fentanyl-related deaths in Massachusetts in 2016. If the fentanyl epidemic were to hit the entire Nation as hard as it is hitting Massachusetts, the country would lose almost 75,000 people each year to fentanyl. Think about that. Those are more deaths than the United States suffered in the entire Vietnam war.
Fentanyl is the Godzilla of opioids. It will overrun communities and lay them to waste, unless we take action now to stop it. So how do we stop it? There is no easy solution to a crisis caused by a drug that is so small, so powerful, so profitable that those who traffic in it just want to make money, but we know we must act.
First, we need to raise awareness of the dire threat fentanyl poses to our Nation. We need to educate the public about it. We need to elevate the issues to the highest levels of our government and the governments of the countries from which it comes. To help with that effort, last week, the Senate adopted a bipartisan sense of the Senate resolution on fentanyl trafficking that I introduced with Senator Rubio from Florida. I thank him for his partnership on that resolution. I thank Senators Toomey, Shaheen, King, Johnson, and Nelson for adding their support.
The resolution calls on our government to use its broad diplomatic and law enforcement resources in partnership with Mexico and China to disrupt the trafficking of fentanyl. We are seeing the signs of some progress. In October of 2015, China added 116 synthetic chemicals, including 6 fentanyl products, to its list of controlled chemical substances. In February of 2017, China agreed to make carfentanil, a powerful fentanyl analogue, and three other fentanyl analogues illegal.
Earlier this month, I led a group of 10 Senators in urging Secretary of State Tillerson to secure the votes of the 53 member nations of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs in favor of the scheduling of the fentanyl precursors. Last week, the Commission voted unanimously in favor of controlling these substances. This international cooperation is expected to yield meaningful dividends in the fight against illicit fentanyl.
Fentanyl will require us to build bridges to our international partners, not walls. Indeed, I recently visited Mexico, where I met with law enforcement officials at the border, on the front lines of the smuggling and trafficking of narcotics into the United States. That is why today, Senators Rubio, Brown, Capito, and I introduced legislation to help this front line of drug detection at the border. It is called the INTERDICT Act. It provides badly needed high-tech equipment and other resources to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to help it detect and interdict illicit fentanyl being trafficked into the United States.
Here is how it works. There are two principal ways drugs like fentanyl are trafficked into the United States. First, coming from Mexico, they are smuggled across the southwest border of the United States. They are hidden in vehicles, beneath false floors, behind hidden compartments, and elsewhere. The drugs are also carried into the United States by people, sometimes hidden in the hollowed-out heels of their shoes.
Second, illegal fentanyl is also purchased online from overseas vendors in China and elsewhere--often on the dark web--and then shipped to Mexico or directly to the United States through the mail or express consignment carriers.
Fentanyl shipped this way is often concealed inside legitimate goods, with fentanyl suppliers using various methods to mislabel shipments. For example, some conceal the powder in those small silica packages that say ``do not eat'' placed alongside everyday items. Others gift wrap shipments or label them as household products like laundry detergent to avoid detection.
Customs and Border Protection has many different methods it uses to find contraband being smuggled into the United States at the border or through the mail. These include drug-sniffing dogs, various kinds of scanners, fiber-optic scopes, and physical searches. When Customs and Border Protection finds a suspicious substance using those and other methods, it has had success identifying it as an illicit drug like fentanyl with the help of high-tech, handheld chemical screening devices.
So anytime Customs and Border Protection finds a suspicious powder, pill, or liquid, it can use a handheld device--really something that looks and feels like a Nintendo Game Boy--to conduct a test, in the field, with real-time results. That means narcotics like illicit fentanyl can be detected, identified, and seized quickly and on the spot. Those rapid results provide vital information for law enforcement officers to continue their investigation and, if appropriate, proceed with seizure and arrest. Not only does the use of this technology disrupt the flow of the drugs into the country, it protects the health and safety of law enforcement officials from exposure to dangerous substances like illicit fentanyl.
Often, Border Patrol agents don't know what the powdery substance they have uncovered is and whether it poses a threat to them. That is especially alarming with illicit fentanyl, given its strength.
Exposure to a small amount by contact with the skin or through inhalation can be fatal. Increased use of these high-tech devices will provide important protections for our law enforcement officers on the front lines. The INTERDICT Act also provides for additional equipment back in Customs and Border Protection laboratories, including more scientists who analyze and interpret test results.
The INTERDICT Act ensures that Customs and Border Patrol will have hundreds of additional portable chemical screening devices available at international ports of entry and mail and express consignment facilities and additional equipment and personnel available in their laboratories so that they can provide support during all operational hours.
Again, I thank Senator Rubio, Senator Brown, and Senator Capito for working together on a bipartisan basis so we can give these additional tools to fight this fentanyl epidemic. I urge all my colleagues to support this bill to fight the scourge of illicit drugs. It knows no political, geographic, or socioeconomic boundaries. It is the epidemic of our time.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
