John Thune: “later today our friends in the House will be voting on the HALT Fentanyl Act. This is important legislation, and I am…”

“later today our friends in the House will be voting on the HALT Fentanyl Act. This is important legislation, and I am glad that it will soon be on its way to the President's desk. I don't need to tell anybody about the terrible impact of drug overdoses in this country--many of them caused by fentanyl. More Americans die of drug overdoses each year than the number of Americans who died in the entirety of the Vietnam war. Just 3 years ago, the New England Journal of Medicine estimated we were losing 22 teenagers every week to drug overdoses. Twenty-two teenagers every week, that is like losing an entire high school classroom week after week, and no part of this country has been spared from the influx of fentanyl. We certainly have seen it in my home State of South Dakota. Enough fentanyl was seized in Sioux Falls, SD, last year to kill 2.5 million people. Law enforcement reports that the cartels have a presence in our area, and the price of a single pill has dropped from $40 a few years ago to just $5 per pill today, largely due to the growing supply. As bad as this situation is today, it was much worse a few years ago.”