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Can I applaud our US Congress? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, gather your hands for the Democrats and the Republicans! They miraculously met to approve one of the only major bills to become law this year. Unbelievable.
It was a rare moment that the US Senate put the needs of American citizens ahead of party loyalty and overwhelmingly approved a package of bills aimed at mitigating our epidemic of opioid deaths.
What is the importance of the opioid crisis? According to preliminary figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 71,000 Americans died of overdoses in just one year, the majority of heroin and other street drugs containing fentanyl, an insidious synthetic opioid. Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and so deadly that only a few flakes can kill. In the United States, criminals from China and Mexico have generally shipped these products to the United States.
The CDC reports that between March 2017 and March 2018, more of our fellow citizens died of a drug overdose than all Americans dead during the Vietnam War. Or, as a succinct report says, "the increase in overdose figures makes the drug epidemic more lethal than gun violence, car accidents or AIDS, which have never killed so many people in one. year".
And it was not a punctual phenomenon. Drug overdose deaths have been steadily increasing for several years.
So, excuse my French, but what has Congress done so long to react? This Senate bill still needs to be reconciled with the opioid control bill passed by the House and, according to reports, it is expected that a final version will be sent to the President promptly so that he can sign it as soon as possible. as possible.
What can we do about the fact that this rare bipartisan vote in the Senate finally took place a few weeks before the mid-term elections? Anyone thoughtful would wonder if this wave of sudden activity was triggered by a real desire to help reduce the scourge of fentanyl overdose deaths or to want to be attentive to the voters in their country.
Senator Lamar Alexander, the sponsor of the full set of anti-opioid initiatives, proudly announced that it was the work of "more than 70 senators, five committees and countless employees." Have you ever tried to convince 70 people to agree something in a timely manner? Since tens of thousands of Americans are dying, I would like, for one, to see a simpler and faster approach to dealing with this crisis.
Although the series of pending laws is certainly not a panacea, it is considered to include very specific and important objectives. Each year (until 2023), a $ 10 million grant will help staff of state drug recovery centers to help addicts manage weaning, housing, and professional training under medical supervision. . And an inter-agency task force needs to be created to focus on opioid-exposed newborns and traumatized children who may be exposed to future addictions.
Among the most important elements of the plan are the increase of the penalty for fentanyl trafficking and the distribution and financing of the Prevention of Overdose and Synthetic Products Prevention Act, also known as STOP.
STOP will require that the US Postal Service be more vigilant when it accepts international shipments and packages. Currently, private operators, such as FedEx, UPS and DHL, are required to know where the international mail comes from, where it is located and its declared content. If anything seems suspicious, they are forced to call the federal government to verify it. Criminals who illegally ship deadly fentanyl know it about private shipping companies, so they turned to the less vigilant US postal services to make their illegal deliveries.
If the new postal service initiative could stem the tide of this poison in the United States, it could significantly reduce the number of overdose deaths.
Ohio Senator Rob Portman sponsored the part of the STOP Act Act and wrote a recent opinion piece explaining the urgent need to control the epidemic. Last year, he said, US Customs and Border Protection seized about 1,500 pounds of fentanyl. In the first five months of 2018, Customs discovered and confiscated more than 1,000 pounds. According to Portman, 1,000 pounds of fentanyl are enough to kill about 250,000 people.
Think about it, not just for addicts who are ingesting fentanyl; Imagine if fentanyl fell into the hands of potential terrorists, determined to poison the food chain or the country's water supply.
Congress has taken too much time to find sharp solutions and write laws to deal with this growing and formidable calamity. The "leaders" in the Senate have apparently not seen the urgency of putting the package on the agenda before now. In the meantime, tens of thousands of Americans have died. They may have been addicts, but they were human beings who deserved their government's protection. Why did it take so long?
– Diane Dimond is the author of Thinking outside the scope of crime and justice. Contact her at [email protected], follow her on Twitter: @DiDimond, or click here to read the previous columns. The opinions expressed are his.
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