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Opioid Drugs

GOP Doctors Caucus Says Fentanyl Problem is Rising


— December 21, 2021

Fentanyl is quickly on the rise in the U.S.


Rep. Greg Murphy (Republican, N.C.) recently headed a group of fellow GOP Doctors Caucus members in sending a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking that he take a closer look at the increasing illicit fentanyl crisis that is plaguing the U.S., especially at the southern border.

Murphy said, “Every city is a border city when it comes to the record amount of dangerous fentanyl flowing into the U.S. from Mexico and China.”  Every city across the country has indeed been impacted by the opioid epidemic and fentanyl is coming into the U.S. at higher rates than ever before, compounding the dangerous of this crisis.

The Caucus members began their letter, “We write to you today as members of the House GOP Doctors Caucus to express our grave concern regarding the fentanyl drug crisis that has engulfed our nation as a result of the crisis at our Southern Border.  Counterfeit fentanyl and fentanyl-laced poisons are flooding across our border in record numbers.  It is our duty and obligation to get this crisis under control as matters of national security and public health.”

Murphy and his cohorts believe that the mainstream media is doing its part, too, to protect the Biden Administration in covering up the ever-increasing catastrophe despite the fact that it is now infiltrating every part of America and becoming more and more of an issue.

GOP Doctors Caucus Says Fentanyl Problem is Rising
Photo by Julie Viken from Pexels

Murphy said the current administration is “very complicit in the death and destruction not only of life but of living for a generation of Americans,” adding, “It affects every community, and the fact that this has been opened up along a very porous border further reiterates the fact that every city in this country is a border city, every street a border street.  The Biden administration continues to ignore this, which is what they’re doing – they’re hoping it will just go away, and that people won’t talk about it – and the mainstream media is not talking about it because again, as usual, they’re protecting the Democratic arm of this government.  And that’s a tragedy.”

He added, however, that the fentanyl problem does not “know any political affiliation” or any “geographic affiliation.”  Moreover, not only is the country dealing with the coronavirus and an addiction problem, these things, in turn, affect mental health.  The three are intricately interrelated.

“This is a drug that kills indiscriminately,” Murphy said. “Addiction itself is a disease that changes the chemistry of the brain, and it changes it irreparably.  So now, we may be facing not only overdose deaths – what we’re doing is we’re creating a mental health and substance abuse problem in a generation that will have to be fought hard for the entire lifetime of that individual and the entire lifetime of a generation, so allowing the circumstances to make it so much easier for this to occur is tragic.”

Even though President Biden issued an executive order this month authorizing sanctions against any foreigner engaged in illicit drug trafficking, Murphy called this “a lot of hot air that will accomplish absolutely nothing.”

The Caucus reported that border agents have seized more than 11,000 pounds of fentanyl thus far this year, which is insurmountable comparable to the 4,776 pounds seized in fiscal year 2020.  Seizures of all other drugs, they reported, have decreased since 2018.

Sources:

Opioid crisis: North Carolina congressman, doctor says ‘every city is a border city’ amid rising overdoses

Murphy, GOP Doc Caucus Pressure Biden Administration on Fentanyl Drug Crisis at Southern Border

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