Republican senators say solving the opioid epidemic requires more than just fighting fentanyl

WASHINGTON — Officials from Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations came to the U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee Tuesday to answer questions about fentanyl, drug trafficking, and transnational crime.

But when Raw Story caught up to some of the Republican senators, they confessed that fighting fentanyl is a lot easier than solving the drug crisis and the opioid epidemic.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that he's been traveling around schools and observed non-profit groups in Texas teaching kids about how dangerous it is to take a random pill when they don't know what's in it or where it came from. He met a mother that lost her son when he did exactly that, and now Cornyn wears a wristband saying "One Pill Can Kill" to remind him of the cause.

But when it comes to the root cause of the deaths, he acknowledged it's more difficult to solve than simply blocking the border or shutting down drugs from China.

"We should" talk about it, Cornyn said when asked about the opioid crisis that led to many overdose deaths long before fentanyl was being put in heroin, meth and other drugs.

"It seems like that's what we did talk about for a few years is prescription drugs and litigation. That and the pill mills and over-prescribing pain medication, but yeah, I think synthetic opioids, whether they're pharmaceutical or whether they're manufactured by chemical precursors from China, it's the same thing," Cornyn continued.

Cornyn said that he wants a layered approach that looks at not only the opioids that fentanyl is being put in but the fake pills as well.

"Obviously, we know where the fentanyl is coming from, and we need to stop it, and that means border control, which we do not have, but we also need to deal on the demand side, and we also need to provide people opportunities to get well, to get better if they suffer from substance abuse," Cornyn said.

There hasn't been much talk about the "demand" side of the equation, a word that is nothing more than a sanitized euphemism for drug addiction being the reason behind drug sales in the United States.

"The problem is that it may be the hardest issue to solve," Cornyn confessed of the "demand" for drugs. "It's how do you get people to not use those drugs in the first place."

Of the 106,699 overdose deaths in 2021, 80,411 came from opioids.

"You know, so much of it is — especially with the fentanyl —it is part of what looks like a normal pharmaceutical product like Xanax or Percocet (Oxycodone) and like that. And some kid takes it and thinks, 'well, this won't hurt me. It will help me sleep or something only to find out it's a counterfeit pill that is contaminated with fentanyl and they don't wake up."

Percocet is an opioid. The same situation is hitting heroin, meth and cocaine as well. The addicts think that they're using the same things they've been using at the dosage they've been using only have the addition of fentanyl which kills them.

"Kids need to understand if you wouldn't use heroin or cocaine or methamphetamine, but you think, well maybe I will take this pill without knowing that it could actually end your life, I think there's more education that's needed," Cornyn said about the need to do more.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) agreed that opioids are a problem.

"Fentanyl has sort of risen to the top of the heap as the leading cause of death of 18 to 45-year-olds," Graham said, adding that fentanyl has "captured the moment."

When asked why the lawmakers haven't done anything for the past several years, Graham blamed the attention on the flood of fentanyl. "It's so deadly. I think the reason that we're talking so much about fentanyl is that such a small trace amount is lethal. So, you know?"

Graham's solution was to stop the business of producing fentanyl and increase the cost of doing business.

"But, ya know, the opioid crisis is, ya know, it's just, the over-prescribed painkillers is part of it. And, uh, time will tell," Graham said.