WASHINGTON—Hundreds of the surviving relatives of those who have died because of illicit fentanyl gathered in Washington on July 13 to demand that the federal government take action on the issue.
“Hey, hey, ho, ho, fentanyl has got to go,” hundreds of attendees shouted.
It’s the fourth such annual gathering in Washington.
The human consequences were put on full display during the rally, where the photos of hundreds upon hundreds of fentanyl victims were displayed.
One of those victims was 22-year-old Benjamin Michael, who died after taking a drug laced with fentanyl that he believed to be Xanax.
His mother, Dawn Allen, told The Epoch Times that her son had struggled with drug dependence since being prescribed opioids after a traumatic car crash when he was 17.
After doctors discontinued his prescription amid the push to stop overprescribing opioids, doctors “didn’t really create a whole lot of alternative treatment for him,” Ms. Allen said.
Instead, he turned to street drugs.
Eventually, though, he decided it was time for a change and booked himself into rehab.
Five days after he got out, “he succumbed,” Ms. Allen said, and reached out to buy what he thought was Xanax.
Toxicology reports after his death showed that the pill contained enough fentanyl to kill eight or nine men.
For some families, it has claimed more than one victim.
During the rally, several such families were brought on stage for special recognition of the consequences fentanyl has had on their lives.
Rebecca Kiessling, from Detroit, was one of those. She lost two sons—Kyler, 18, and Caleb, 20—to fentanyl in July 2020. They died, along with a 17-year-old named Sophia, after taking a drug they believed to be Percocet.
The dealer who sold it to them also took the laced drugs, but his life was saved by Narcan. He was later convicted and sentenced to eight to 15 years in prison for the three deaths.
“None of us should be here,” Ms. Kiessling told NTD News. “This is so wrong. This is not how the world should be.”
China and the Border
Many attendees at the rally said they feel that Congress and the federal government more broadly have failed to combat fentanyl effectively.“It seems like nobody cares at the federal level,” Sheriff Sam Page of Rockingham County, North Carolina, told The Epoch Times.
Kimberly Glas, a speaker with the National Council of Textile Organizations, said that government officials “haven’t done enough fast enough” to fight the fentanyl epidemic.
An omnipresent issue when discussing fentanyl is the border—the port of entry for much of the substance—and China, which plays a crucial role in the manufacturing of fentanyl.
Members of Congress, both right and left, have been pointing out the problem for years: in China, precursor chemicals needed to make fentanyl in large quantities are manufactured and shipped to Mexico. From there, Mexican drug cartels produce the drug in huge quantities, lacing it into many drugs meant to resemble another drug.
Lt. Chris Oliverez, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, told The Epoch Times that Texas alone has seized more than a half-billion lethal doses of fentanyl—more than enough to kill the entire population of the United States.
They’ve found the substance coming in both at ports of entry and between ports of entry, concealed in cars, and hidden in stash houses.
With the massive influx of illegal immigrants across the border, it’s become increasingly challenging for law enforcement to prevent a corollary influx of fentanyl.
Lt. Oliverez insisted that the issue of illegal immigration can’t be divorced from the fentanyl issue.
“When you have a surge of illegal immigration, it’s gonna tie up [law enforcement] resources,” Lt. Oliverez said. “They’re tied up, now that exposes more vulnerabilities at the border.”
Mr. Page said, “The people in Washington need to travel to the border and listen to the people there about what’s going on.”
Several attendees called on the Mexican drug cartels, who traffic the majority of fentanyl into the United States, to be classified as terrorist organizations by the federal government.
In addition, attendees said that some policies need to come at the state level.
Most notably, many called for drug trafficking that causes a death to be considered a homicide under the law. Twenty-five states currently have such laws.
But the CCP was also blamed by many at the rally for the problem.
“China + Fentanyl = Death,” read a sign waved by many during the rally.
Ms. Glas highlighted a less well-known aspect of U.S. policy that’s also contributed to the opioid epidemic to the advantage of the CCP: the “de minimis loophole.” Under the de minimis rule, items with a value of less than $800 aren’t subject to customs or routine inspections.Ms. Glas said that the rule was regularly exploited by bad actors who under-report the value of their goods—harming U.S. industries—and to ship illicit goods such as fentanyl into the country undetected.
“The lack of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) inspection of small packages entering our country ... is a contributing factor to the fentanyl crisis that is killing Americans and tearing families apart,” the senators wrote.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, China is the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related products in the United States, often through “international mail and express consignment operations” that take advantage of the de minimis loophole.
Many at the event were critical of President Joe Biden’s policies and what they perceive as federal inaction on the issue more broadly, which they blamed as a factor in the movement of much of the illicit fentanyl that’s entered the country.
But most everyone present also insisted that combatting fentanyl isn’t—and shouldn’t be—a political issue.
