How Can You Focus on Rights of Criminals, Not Children? Grieving Mom Asks Lawmakers

Erin Rachwal testifies before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance in Washington on March 1, 2023 Screen Capture, courtesy House Judiciary Committee

“How can you focus on the theoretical rights of criminals over the rights of our children?” Erin Rachwal, whose 19-year-old son died of a fentanyl overdose in 2021, asked members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance.

“This could happen to your family,” she said. “Fentanyl does not discriminate. It is a poison.”

Rachwal’s emotional testimony highlighted the scope of the fentanyl problem in the United States, where the powerful opioid drug accounted for more than 100,000 deaths in 2021.

The narcotic is so potent that the lethal dose is just two milligrams, approximately equal to five grains of sand. Increasingly, fentanyl is placed in tablet form and made to resemble other drugs like Percocet and Xanax, then sold to unwitting customers like Rachwal’s son, Logan.

The fentanyl trade is big business, witnesses testified, with component elements being manufactured in China and India, then shipped to Mexico for manufacture and eventual distribution in the United States by drug cartels.

More than 13,000 pounds of fentanyl was seized last year at U.S. ports of entry.

Mock sizing of a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl, on April 1, 2022. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Last month alone, border patrol agents in the Tucson, Arizona, sector seized about 700 pounds of fentanyl, which is enough to kill everyone in Arizona 21 times or half the population of the United States, said Committee Chair Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.).

According to some estimates, border agents seize only 10 to 15 percent of the fentanyl illegally entering the country.

All members of the subcommittee agreed that fentanyl poses a serious threat to the nation which has reached crisis proportions.

Members strongly disagreed on the best approach to eliminating the problem, with Republicans advocating primarily for interdiction and law enforcement efforts and Democrats stressing the need for increased public education and treatment for drug users.

Drug Scheduling

Witnesses, including Rachwal, stressed the need for laws and law enforcement in combatting the fentanyl threat. She urged members to permanently place fentanyl related substances (FRS) on the list of Schedule I drugs, which are illegal to produce or sell.

“The temporary scheduling of FRS has shown to deter the creation of new FRSs, which is one clear way in protecting our country. Therefore, we know permanent scheduling of these substances is a solid shield. We have to fight the fentanyl crisis,” Rachwal said.

Timothy Westlake, an emergency physician from Wisconsin, agreed. “I urge you to permanently close the spigot of FRSs,” he said.

“The fact is you can’t die from ingesting something that was never created, nor can you be incarcerated for trafficking something that does not exist. That is the beauty and simplicity of FRS scheduling.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) speaks at a House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee hearing “The Fentanyl Crisis in America: Inaction Is No Longer an Option” in Washington on March 1, 2023, in a still from video. House Judiciary Committee YouTube/Screenshot via NTD

Not everyone agreed.

The illegality of the drug and related components is precisely what makes it so deadly according to Jeffrey A. Singer, senior fellow in health policy studies, CATO Institute.

“The influx of fentanyl is a response to market demand,” Singer said.

“More crucially, fentanyl is just the latest manifestation of what drug policy analysts call the Iron Law of Prohibition,” he said, which means that the harder law enforcement tries to stamp out a drug the public wants, the more incentive drug traffickers have to make the drug more potent. That makes it smaller and easier to smuggle but also more lethal.

Singer spoke in favor of offering supervised support for drug users to prevent overdoses.

The Border

Committee Republicans stressed the need to close off the supply of fentanyl at the border.

Biggs showed surveillance video of a group of men carrying backpacks in a remote area.

“Those backpacks are not because they’re gonna go camping in the desert. They’re bringing in illicit drugs,” he said, calling the situation at the border a crisis.

Former law enforcement officer Rep. Troy Nehls (D-Texas) said, “I will do everything in my power to secure our southern border to support our law enforcement, to make America first, to make America great again, and stop this deadly drug from making its way into our communities.”

Border Patrol agents take into custody several illegal immigrants who were being smuggled from the U.S.–Mexico border to San Antonio, in Brackettville, Texas, on Aug. 26, 2022. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) warned against treating the problem only from a law enforcement perspective.

“We must learn from the failures of our past and treat the fentanyl crisis not as a crime problem but as a public health problem,” he said.

“We must get to the root causes of addiction and substance abuse or we will end this war only to have another war with the next, even deadlier, drug.”

Democrats touted their accomplishments in that regard, such as passing the Rural Opioid Abuse Prevention Act to reduce deaths by overdose and authorizing two state department programs to combat global drug trafficking, and efforts to provide Naloxone, a drug that reduces the effects of an opioid overdose, to communities.

Rachwal seemed to be the long voice saying that all approaches should be vigorously pursued.

“I believe that everything needs to be done to help this problem, and we have to hit it at all angles,” Rachwal said. “United we stand; divided we fall.”

“If individual members of a group work on their own instead of together, they are doomed to fail. And we all will be defeated.”