Oregon paved the way as the first state to decriminalize drug use in 2020, to instead focus on addiction and recovery. But due to Portland’s growing fentanyl crisis, Gov. Tina Kotek this week declared a 90-day emergency to address the increase in overdose deaths. Adam Yamaguchi has more.
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As per a new law, the Department of Defense will begin tracking overdoses within the United States military in 2024 and begin to provide naloxone to service members beginning in 2025.
Military overdose deaths have historically not been systematically tracked until the release of a report by Rolling Stone in 2022 detailing the steep rise in overdose deaths at Fort Bragg, which has since been renamed to Fort Liberty. The report detailed the shocking increase in deaths from fentanyl, counterfeit prescription pills laced with fentanyl and deaths in otherwise healthy young men from causes typically sustained from long-term drug use that were not labeled as overdoses.
In general, Rolling Stone described shoddy record-keeping and experienced a general lack of transparency from the brass at Fort Liberty regarding drug use, drug-related crimes or overdose by military members. Of the 109 deaths that occurred at Fort Liberty between 2020 and 2021, at least 14 soldiers died directly from overdose, though that number is likely higher if you count deaths from drug-related causes, 21 by Rolling Stone’s count, making accidental overdose the leading cause of death at Fort Liberty behind suicide which claimed the lives of 41 soldiers in the same time period.
After the Rolling Stone report, pressure built on Congress to do something about the issue and Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) along with other congressmen began to push the Pentagon for increased transparency. This request led to an admission by the Pentagon that fentanyl-related deaths roughly doubled among military members between 2017 and 2021, much like the rest of the country experienced. According to a Military.com report, 330 service members died from drug overdose between 2017 and 2022, and 15,000 soldiers experienced non-fatal overdoses in the same time frame.
“Real security means guaranteeing that members of the military and their families can get resources and life-saving treatment necessary to stop the overdose crisis in its tracks,” Senator Markey said in a statement to Military.com.
The law requiring overdose tracking and NARCAN distribution was signed by President Biden in December of 2022 and goes into effect in 2024. According to Military.com, the Department of Defense will be required to submit an annual report on overdose deaths, overdose locations, demographics, whether the service member had previously sought mental health treatment, or if they’d previously been prescribed opioids, benzodiazepines or stimulants.
“It’s really just smart public health,” said Professor Alex Bennett to Military.com. Bennett serves as the director of New York University’s Opioid Overdose Prevention Program. “There’s really a lot of drug naivete amongst military personnel,” Bennett said.
Part of the issue, as is the same with the civilian population, is that fentanyl is often used to make “pressed pills” or fake prescription pills designed to look like pharmaceutical painkillers or benzodiazepines which are often poorly dosed, causing people to unwittingly ingest a lethal dose of fentanyl. The Drug Enforcement Administration has estimated that about 70% of fake prescription pills contain a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl.
“We’ve been working with a lot of veterans who use substances while they’re in the military. Transparency with data tracking like the kind the military is set to begin doing is a step in the right direction,” Bennett said. “Closing your eyes to drug problems doesn’t solve anything,” Bennett said. “It just makes things worse.”
Carole De Nola, whose 23-year-old child died of an overdose while stationed at Fort Liberty, told Military.com that drug education is especially needed among military members as the new law does not require the military to educate service members on the dangers of fentanyl.
“We should be dealing with this before a service member’s about to overdose,” De Nola said.
It was not immediately clear how the military would be distributing naloxone, commonly known as NARCAN, which is a life-saving medication that can halt an opioid overdose in its tracks. Many NARCAN distribution programs have been established at the level of local cities and townships but nothing has been established federally, or by military leadership until the new law was passed. The new law requires that naloxone be made available to all troops by the year 2025. The law also requires all the naloxone distributed by tracked, which could discourage some military members from seeking it out.
Jelly Roll, a rapper-turned-country singer who is one of the biggest rising stars in the music industry, gave powerful and emotion-filled testimony about the U.S. fentanyl crisis on Thursday, sharing that he wants to be “part of the solution” for the opioid crisis.
The 39-year-old singer, whose real name is Jason DeFord, spoke during the Senate’s banking, housing and urban affairs committee hearing in Washington, D.C.
The “Stopping the Flow of Fentanyl: Public Awareness and Legislative Solutions” hearing addressed the rising number of deaths caused by fentanyl and other drug overdoses.
“At every concert I perform, I witness the heartbreaking impact of fentanyl. I see fans grappling with this tragedy in the form of music … that they seek solace in music and hope that their experiences won’t befall others,” he said. “These are the people I’m here to speak for, y’all. These people crave reassurance that their elected officials actually care more about human life than they do about ideology and partisanship.”
— Senate Banking and Housing Democrats (@SenateBanking) January 11, 2024
Jelly Roll, who from the age of 14 spent a decade in and out of detention facilities for drug dealing and other crimes, admitted that he was a part of the problem in the past.
He served time in prison for charges including aggravated robbery and possession with intent to sell, according to the New York Times.
“I brought my community down. I hurt people,” he testified. “I was the uneducated man in the kitchen playing chemist with drugs I knew absolutely nothing about, just like these drug dealers are doing right now when they’re mixing every drug on the market with fentanyl. And they’re killing the people we love.
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“I was a part of the problem. I am here now standing as a man that wants to be a part of the solution.”
Jelly Roll performs during New Year’s Eve in Times Square on Dec. 31, 2023 in New York City.
Taylor Hill / WireImage
He said the U.S. has largely ignored the rising drug issue in the country because of the way people view and judge drug addiction, pointing out that, on average, 190 people who overdose and die every day in the States is the equivalent of a 737 aircraft packed full of people crashing each day.
“Could you imagine the national media attention it would get if they were reporting that a plane was crashing every single day and killing 190 people? But because it’s 190 drug addicts, we don’t feel that way,” he said. “Because America has been known to bully and shame drug addicts, instead of dealing and trying to understand what the actual root of the problem is with that.”
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Committee chair Sherrod Brown commended Jelly Roll Thursday for his words.
“I’m guessing most of you didn’t have ‘Jelly Roll testifies at Senate banking committee’ on your ’24 bingo card,” he said.
“But few speak and sing as eloquently, as openly, as — shall we say — viscerally about addiction as Mr. DeFord,” he continued. “There’s a reason why Americans flock to his music and his concerts. He has a connection with people based on shared pain, shared challenges, shared hope.”
The FEND Off Fentanyl Act passed the Senate last July but has yet to make it through the House. Jelly Roll called on lawmakers to help it cross the finish line.
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“I think it’s important for me to tell you all that I’m not here to defend the use of illegal drugs, and I also understand the paradox of my history as a drug dealer standing in front of this committee,” DeFord said.
“But equally, I think that’s what makes me perfect to talk about this.”
Jelly Roll also warned that fentanyl is no longer just an issue for those with drug addictions and that the era of experimenting with drugs “is over.” He said fentanyl is becoming an increasing danger because it’s creeping into households through other drugs, including legal ones.
“I think that the biggest misconception about this is that if it hasn’t already ended up in your home and you’re listening to this thinking that it never will, you are wrong. It is on its way to your living room.”
In Canada, since surveillance began in 2016 for opioid-related deaths, there were a total of 40,642 apparent opioid toxicity deaths between January 2016 and June 2023, according to figures from the Canadian government.
Between January and June 2023, an average of 22 people across the country lost their lives to accidental opioid overdose per day. Of all the deaths in that time, 84 per cent involved fentanyl.
Manitoba dad hopes awareness walk will help others say, ‘No thanks, I’m good’ to drugs
Custom: Screenshots – Forbes Breaking News and CBS Evening News YouTube Videos
Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) went on the offensive as an Associated Press reporter pressed him repeatedly on comments made by Donald Trump that illegal immigration is “poisoning the blood” of the nation.
“What do you have to say to the former President’s comments over the weekend about immigrants and saying that they’re ‘poisoning the blood of America?’” a reporter asks in audio obtained by the Daily Caller.
Vance quickly noted that the journalist had opted not to use the accurate term – “illegal” immigration.
“First of all, he didn’t say immigrants were poisoning the blood of this country,” he shot back. “He said illegal immigrants were poisoning the blood of the country, which is objectively and obviously true to anybody who looks at the statistics about fentanyl overdoses.”
Vance added, “And I think just one observation about the press as an organization: You guys seem far more upset about the guy who criticized the problem than you did about Joe Biden who’s causing the problem.”
LISTEN: Sen. J.D. Vance destroys an AP reporter who asks about Trump’s “poisoning the blood of our country” remarks.
Thinking she had stumbled upon a solid point, the Associated Press reporter continued to note that Trump’s “poisoning the blood” remarks were “language that we heard … during World War II.”
“You just framed your question implicitly assuming that Donald Trump is talking about Adolf Hitler. It’s absurd. It is absurd,” Vance quickly replied.
“Why do you think that Donald Trump’s language is targeted at the blood of the immigrants and not at the blood of the American citizens who are being poisoned by the fentanyl problem?” he asked.
When the reporter questioned his belief that the former President was actually talking about the drug crisis at the border, Vance steered her more toward reality.
“If you watch the speech in context and you look at what’s going on, it is obvious that he was talking about the very clear fact that the blood of Americans is being poisoned by a drug epidemic,” he insisted. “To take that comment and then to immediately assume that he’s talking about immigrants as Adolf Hitler talked about Jews is preposterous!”
“You guys need to wake up and actually do some journalism,” he continued.
Supporters of Donald Trump have seen an uptick in the media’s standby of accusing the former President of using “Nazi rhetoric” in recent weeks. The poll numbers must be dictating the effort.
We saw it when Trump recently used the word “vermin” to describe his political opponents.
Spokesman denies that Trump rhetoric echoes that of dictators like Hitler and Mussolini and declares that those who say it does will find “their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.” @marianne_levine https://t.co/yYLZbxNnv6
“What you’re doing is not speaking truth to power,” Vance said to the reporter, though it could be applied to the media as a whole.
“You’re trying to police the guy who’s criticizing the problem so that Americans don’t pay attention to the guy who caused the problem,” he claimed.
What do you think about this? Let us know in the comments section.
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Rusty Weiss has been covering politics for over 15 years. His writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, Fox News, Breitbart, and many more.
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The year isn’t over, but San Francisco has already hit a grim milestone: 2023 is the deadliest on record for fatal drug overdoses.
More than 750 people died in accidental drug overdoses during the first 11 months of 2023, according to a report released this week from the city and county office of the chief medical examiner. That surpassed the 726 seen during the last recorded high, in 2020 — which was a horrific rise from the year before.
“We have seen record numbers of deaths due to overdose in San Francisco in 2023, or are likely to,” Hillary Kunins, director of behavioral and mental health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said at a press conference Thursday.
More than 80% of the overdose deaths in 2023 involved fentanyl, the data show. Black San Franciscans continued to make up a disproportionate share of the victims.
Even as state and local leaders have shifted their response to the growing drug crisis, focusing in recent months on increased law enforcement crackdowns, health officials remain dedicated to a multifaceted approach to saving lives.
This week, city officials announced a partnership with the National Institute of Drug Abuse that will test wastewater for certain drugs, including fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine, as well as naloxone, the opioid reversal medication most commonly known by its brand name, Narcan.
“In an era when fentanyl is claiming lives at an unprecedented rate, we need all information available to us to give us a more complete picture and guide our response,” said Jeffrey Hom, director of population behavior health for the Public Health Department. He is hopeful the data will provide “a more complete picture of the trends in drug use … allowing us to act faster when emerging substances,like xylazine, are increasing in the local drug supply.”
Xylazine, commonly known as “tranq,” has become a new concern for health officials and will be tested in wastewater under the program. The flesh-rotting drug has been linked to fatal overdoses in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and has sparked concerns that it could worsen the overdose crisis.
San Francisco officials reported that 30 of the overdose deaths so far in 2023 involved xylazine.
But fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin, continues to drive overdose deaths in San Francisco, a trend mirrored in Los Angeles and across the nation, in big cities and smaller metro areas.
In San Francisco, Black people and those experiencing homelessness died at the highest rates from drug overdoses, the report found. Almost a third of the people who died of overdose this year were Black, although Black people make up only about 7% of the city’s population.
Similarly, almost 30% of those who died of overdose in San Francisco did not have a fixed address, the report found. Of those who did have an address, the highest percentage — 21% — lived in the Tenderloin, the neighborhood that has become ground zero for the city’s exploding homelessness crisis.
The 2023 spike comes after drug overdoses in San Francisco fell slightly in the previous two years. Analysis from the San Francisco Chronicle, which tracks the city’s overdoses, found that if current trends continue, another 68 deaths could be added to the count by the end of the year.
Public health officials say they plan to continue working to expand treatment options for people with substance-use disorders, including medication-assisted treatment, increased awareness and supplies of naloxone and exploration of innovative solutions, such as contingency management programs, to help people get — and stay — off deadly drugs.
During the fourth Republican Party debate on Wednesday night, the candidates present in Alabama were asked how they would address “the crisis on the southern border.”
National polls show immigration and migrants entering the United States illegally as among the top issues in the country. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie wasn’t able to answer the question when it was posed by the moderators, but Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, ex-South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy discussed the topic at length.
DeSantis spoke passionately about going after those who bring fentanyl into the country.
“The drug cartels are invading our country and they are killing our citizens,” DeSantis said.
GOP presidential candidates former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, left, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, right, on Wednesday participate in the Republican primary debate in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The candidates were asked what they would do about the “crisis at the southern border.” (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The Florida lawmaker went on about the dangers of fentanyl in the U.S., relating a story about the drug’s residue being on the floor of an Airbnb rental, which he said resulted in the death of a baby.
“Is this acceptable in this country? I know the elites in D.C., they don’t care. They don’t care that fentanyl is ravaging your community. They don’t care that illegal aliens are ravaging our community and overwhelming our community,” DeSantis said. “The commander-in-chief not only has a right, you have a responsibility to fight back against these people. And it means you’re going to categorize them as foreign terrorist organizations.”
He then advocated for continuing construction of a wall along the southern border.
“Here’s the thing: If we had a wall across the southern border, which I support, this would not have happened. We need to build a wall across the southern border. I’ll get it done,” DeSantis told the audience, as he parroted Trump’s promise from years ago by saying that he’d make Mexico pay for it.
Before Haley discussed the issue, she was asked about comments she made regarding catching and deporting illegal migrants. Haley clarified that she would at first deport “all of the seven or eight million illegals that have come [into the U.S.] under [President Joe] Biden’s watch.”
“We have to stop the incentive of what’s bringing them over here in the first place,” she added, noting temporary protective status given to Venezuelans.
Haley said migrants who have been in the country longer should be examined if they’ve been “vetted” and “paid taxes.”
Regarding illegal drugs, she called for “special operations” to deal with cartels. Haley also said China should be punished for producing fentanyl.
“Look at where fentanyl came from. Let’s go to the heart of the matter. It came from China. That’s why we need to end all normal trade relations with China until they stop murdering Americans with fentanyl,” she said. “I promise you they need our economy. They will immediately stop that.”
Ramaswamy said, “The easy part is talking about how we’re going to use our military to secure the border. I will, and I believe that everybody else wants to do the same thing.”
He also supported action against China but said the “harder part” is addressing the “mental health epidemic raging across this country like wildfire” rather than hitting the “the demand side of it.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
A day after President Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Northern California in an effort to ease growing tensions between the two superpowers, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS News that China represents “one of the most consequential relationships” the U.S. has with any nation.
“This is one of the most consequential relationships we have,” Blinken told “CBS News Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell Thursday. “One of the most consequential relationships between any two countries in the world. And we have an obligation to try to responsibly manage that relationship.”
Among the most important results to come out of Wednesday’s meeting near San Francisco was the two leaders agreeing that the U.S. and China would resume direct military-to-military communications.
“Yesterday, we agreed that our militaries would start talking again, at the most senior levels, and at the operational level,” Blinken told CBS News. “And this is a very important way of trying to avoid a miscalculation, a mistake that could lead to a conflict.”
Mr. Biden also said that Xi had agreed to cooperate with the U.S. on tackling the opioid crisis through counternarcotics efforts. In recent years, the U.S. has been working to halt the flow of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl that are illegally trafficked to the U.S. from China.
“In terms of actually making a difference in the lives of the American people, the number one killer of Americans aged 18-to-49 is fentanyl,” Blinken said. “Not car accidents, not guns, not cancer, it’s fentanyl.”
The chemical precursors, Blinken said, “have been coming from China, going to the Western Hemisphere, turned into fentanyl, and then coming into the U.S. We now have an agreement with China to take concrete action against the companies that are engaged in this practice.”
A senior administration official told CBS News on Wednesday that the U.S. is working with the Chinese on a plan to have China use a number of procedures to go after specific companies that make those precursors. The official said the Chinese have already acted against several of the companies for which the U.S. has provided information. The official also said that China is taking a number of steps intended to curtail supplies used to make the chemicals.
“As the president said yesterday, ‘trust but verify,’ and that’s what we’re doing,” Blinken said when asked if the U.S. can trust that China will follow through on the crackdown.
In his solo news conference following Wednesday’s meeting, Mr. Biden for the second time this year referred to Xi as a “dictator” in response to a reporter’s question.
“Well look, he is,” Mr. Biden said. “I mean, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country.”
In June, Biden also called his Chinese counterpart a dictator while speaking to supporters during a private fundraising event in Northern California.
Cameras captured Blinken’s uncomfortable response to Mr. Biden’s remarks during Wednesday’s news conference. A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry called the remarks “wrong” and “irresponsible.”
When pressed by O’Donnell on whether Mr. Biden’s comments were the position of the U.S. government, Blinken responded that the president “speaks for all of us.”
“Well, it’s not exactly a secret that we have two very different systems,” Blinken said. “And the president always speaks candidly, and he speaks for all of us.”
“It’s clear that we will continue to say things and continue to do things that China doesn’t like, just as I assume that they will continue to do and say things that we don’t like,” Blinken continued. “But what’s so important about the meeting yesterday, about all the work we have been doing over the last six months to make sure that we’re engaged diplomatically with them, is precisely to make sure, for the things that really matter: Pursuing this competition in a way that doesn’t become conflict, managing our differences, and also looking for areas of cooperation.”
Faris Tanyos is a news editor for CBSNews.com, where he writes and edits stories and tracks breaking news. He previously worked as a digital news producer at several local news stations up and down the West Coast.
President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met Wednesday outside San Francisco for the first U.S.-China summit in over a year. Biden and Xi agreed to crack down on illegal fentanyl production and restart military communication amid rising tensions. CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang reports.
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John Dickerson reports on suspicious fentanyl-laced letters sent to election offices, Israel agreeing to daily four-hour pauses in Gaza fighting, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s meeting with her Chinese counterpart.
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More than a dozen letters containing a suspicious white powder, including some that tested positive for fentanyl, were sent to election offices in at least five states, local and federal authorities confirmed. Workers in several offices in Washington state were evacuated. Jeff Pegues has more.
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An East Boston man is facing a slew of drug charges after police found a stockpile of fentanyl, cocaine, marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms and thousands of dollars in his home, Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden announced Sunday.
“Fentanyl is a death drug, plain and simple,” Hayden said in a release. “The amount seized here — 240 grams of fentanyl, plus sizeable quantities of other drugs — represents a tremendous amount of potential human devastation.”
After months of investigating, police executed a search warrant for the apartment of Robert Ciampi, 63, on Orleans Street in East Boston on Nov. 1, according to the release.
“Right now it’s illegal for me to take clippings from the protected Mexican wildlife, but if I enlisted, passed boot camp in record time, was immediately deployed to the front lines, somehow survived, and went AWOL, I could probably sneak a few rare varieties of saguaro back, which would finally impress the other guys in my local cactus-growing group.”
… researchers are now exploring cannabidiol (CBD), a component of marijuana, … of cannabis called cannabidiol (CBD) could possibly help. But … with naloxone, they found CBD accelerated the medication’s … tissue samples showed the CBD component reversed fentanyl’s …
A bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators will travel to China next week. The visit comes amid a time of persistent disagreement over policies concerning Taiwan, the South China Sea and what the U.S. calls genocide of the country’s Uyghur population. Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, joins CBS News to discuss what’s at stake for the visit.
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The death of a 1-year-old boy at a day care in New York City’s Bronx neighborhood earlier this month was caused by a fentanyl overdose, an autopsy has determined.
Nicholas Dominici’s cause of death was acute fentanyl intoxication, the New York City medical examiner’s office announced Friday. His manner of death was deemed a homicide.
Nicholas Dominici
Photo provided
On the afternoon Sept. 15, Dominici and three other children at the day care were rushed to a hospital after being reported unresponsive. Three of the children were administered Narcan, federal prosecutors said.
NYPD investigators later determined that the children had been exposed to fentanyl, and said the day care was being used as a fentanyl mill.
Prosecutors said a kilogram of fentanyl, along with multiple fentanyl presses used to process the drugs, were found in a closet of the day care. Officers executing a search warrant later also discovered a trap door with a secret compartment that contained more than five kilograms of fentanyl and other drugs, police said.
Her husband, Felix Herrera-Garcia, was captured Tuesday in Mexico after fleeing New York City. According to a criminal complaint, Mendez called her husband before calling 911 when the children began to show signs of an overdose.
Outside the day care in New York City’s Bronx neighborhood where a 1-year-old boy died of a fentanyl overdose. September 17, 2023.
Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News via Getty Images
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A suspect accused of running a drug mill out of a Bronx apartment was arrested Tuesday after authorities said he rode on the New York City subway with 40 pounds of fentanyl. Lilia Luciano has more.
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The husband of the owner of a New York City day care where a 1-year-old died after allegedly being exposed to fentanyl has been arrested. Felix Herrera-Garcia, the fourth person arrested in the case, was taken into custody in Mexico. Jericka Duncan reports.
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Washington — Law enforcement agencies have so far seized over 55 million pills of fentanyl this year and more than 9,000 pounds of powder containing the deadly drug, Attorney General Merrick Garland told dozens of families whose loved ones died after ingesting fentanyl. And the Drug Enforcement Administration is on pace to seize more fentanyl in 2023 than in any previous year, a yield that continues to grow annually, according to DEA Administrator Ann Milgram.
“Violent drug cartels are manufacturing and moving fake pills designed to look exactly like brand name drugs and instead, they contain deadly fentanyl,” Garland said, highlighting what he said are the dangers posed by the work of the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels in Mexico.
Attorney General Merrick Garland accompanied by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram, looks at photographs of people who had died from drugs during the Second Annual Family Summit on Fentanyl at DEA Headquarters in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023.
Jose Luis Magana / AP
“They are fueling this epidemic,” the attorney general alleged, “The Justice Department is attacking every aspect of the cartels’ operations.”
Fentanyl, a strong opioid about 50 times more powerful than heroin, has become increasingly present in the U.S. drug supply and has caused a wave of overdose deaths among people who consume it or use drugs they didn’t realize were tainted with the substance.
Garland, Milgram and approximately 150 individuals affected by the growing proliferation of fentanyl on America’s streets gathered at DEA headquarters outside of Washington, D.C., Tuesday for the second annual Family Summit on Fentanyl.
In 2022, 110,757 Americans lost their lives to fentanyl, Milgram said.
The event coincided with recent attempts by law enforcement and Justice Department officials to tackle the opioid and fentanyl problem facing the U.S. and pressure transnational organizations that fund and traffic deadly drugs.
López and other sons of El Chapo were charged in April, along with nearly two dozen members and associates of the Sinaloa Cartel for allegedly orchestrating a transnational fentanyl trafficking operation into the U.S.
Investigators said the defendants — part of the “Chapitos” network — facilitated the purchase of the precursor chemicals of fentanyl from China, manufactured the deadly drug in Mexico, and then smuggled it into the U.S., where it was sold on the street.
Garland’s mention of López’s arrest prompted applause from the families of fentanyl victims gathered at DEA Headquarters on Tuesday. He has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that include allegations of drug trafficking and money laundering.
Federal investigators also charged four Chinese nationals with supplying the Mexican cartels with the precursor chemicals that make up the fentanyl drug in April, a prosecution that is the first of its kind. The charges allege the four sold the chemicals to the cartels — fully aware that the chemicals would be used to concoct the deadly substance.
Milgram said the challenge for the DEA is not just combating those who sell the chemicals and smuggle the drugs into the U.S. Law enforcement must also fight what she characterized Tuesday as the “last mile,” which targets individuals are selling fentanyl to victims, some of whom may not be aware that the drugs they’re buying contain fentanyl.
In the last year, the DEA administrator said over 3,000 individuals were charged with trafficking and selling drugs for the cartels inside the U.S. Currently, according to the DEA, there are 600 active investigations into the deaths of people who died of fentanyl overdoses, a number Milgram conceded Tuesday is not enough, but continues to expand.
“We are facing and confronting a threat that is ever-growing. It has never been more deadly or dangerous,” Milgram warned. “We are talking about billions of dollars that are crossing the globe today that profit from fentanyl.”
Two people were arrested earlier this month and charged in connection to the suspected opioid death of a 1-year-old boy at a Bronx home-based daycare center where three other children were found possibly exposed to drugs.
To boost education and awareness around fentanyl and curb purchases of the drug, Garland announced the Justice Department is dedicating $345 million in grants in the coming year for training, increasing access to treatment medications and focusing on those who are at risk for drug abuse.
“No one, especially no young person, should have to face this threat alone,” the attorney general said.
Just outside the auditorium where the U.S. officials addressed the victims’ families, pictures of Americans who had lost their lives to fentanyl and opioids covered the walls, creatinga growing memorial and a reminder of the dangers the drugs pose.
NEW YORK — A third arrest has been made in the suspected drug overdose death of 1-year-old Nicholas Dominici at a Bronx day care.
Renny Antonio Parra Paredes was arraigned in federal court Monday morning. He’s charged with conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death.
Police are still searching for the day care owner’s husband, who they believe may have fled to his native Dominican Republic, sources told CBS New York. The NYPD has notified national police in the Dominican Republic, sources said.
In addition to Dominici’s death, three babies were hospitalized after being exposed to fentanyl on Sept. 15 at Divino Nino Day Care, police said.
The Drug Enforcement Administration alleges Paredes, nicknamed “El Gallo,” or “The Rooster,” played an instrumental role in the drug distribution operation.
During a search of Paredes’ apartment, investigators claim they found tools and instruments used to prepare and distribute narcotics, including strainers, tape, a grinder, plastic bags and digital scales.
Law enforcement also said they found what appeared to be two clear bags filled with a grayish powder and a rectangular brick-shaped package, which appeared to contain drugs.
The indictment against Paredes alleges officials found glassine envelopes with the same red stamp reading “Red Dawn” that was found at the day care.
If found guilty, Paredes faces 20 years to life in prison.
Ali Bauman joined CBS2 News as a general assignment reporter in 2016. Ali is a proud millennial who embraces social media for storytelling to bring news to a new generation of viewers.
The NYPD announced Thursday that investigators have found a trap door with a secret compartment in the playroom of a New York City day care where a toddler died and several more children were sickened after being exposed to fentanyl last week. Two people, including the woman who ran the day care, have been arrested in the case.
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