Pete Ricketts: “I rise today to join my colleagues who are continuing to sound the alarm about the ongoing drug crisis we have here in…”

“I rise today to join my colleagues who are continuing to sound the alarm about the ongoing drug crisis we have here in our country. I will reiterate what my colleague said with regard to the fact that the leading cause of death of Americans age 18 to 45 today is fentanyl. In 2021, 106,000 Americans died of a drug overdose, 70,000 because of fentanyl. Now, let's think about if a terrorist attacked our country and killed 106,000 Americans. We would be up in arms. We would be mobilizing the country. Yet we do not see that response out of the Biden administration. Fentanyl is a drug that is coming to us from across the border. The precursors of it are manufactured in China and shipped to Mexico, where the cartels then, in illegal labs, create the fentanyl that they ship across the border. When it comes across the border, it does not stay there; it goes all across our country. The last 2 years I was Governor--the first 2 years of the Biden administration--we saw the increase in the drugs the Nebraska State Patrol was confiscating go up dramatically. We saw twice the amount of methamphetamine confiscated, 3 times the amount of fentanyl, and 10 times the amount of cocaine. In 2019, Nebraska law enforcement confiscated 46 pills--46. In the first 6 months of 2021, that number had grown to 151,000 pills confiscated--unbelievable. It is killing people in my State, as it is across the country.…”