John Cornyn: “as everyone in America knows, fentanyl is ravaging communities across the country. It is killing more than 70,000 people…”

“as everyone in America knows, fentanyl is ravaging communities across the country. It is killing more than 70,000 people a year in the United States alone, making it the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 49. The fentanyl epidemic does not discriminate. It kills old people, young people, rich people, poor people, people from major urban areas, and people from the countryside. One of the most alarming trends of what we are seeing is the rise of fentanyl-related deaths among teenagers. In 2021, 77 percent of all teenage overdose deaths involved fentanyl, the synthetic opioid. We continue to hear and read of heartbreaking stories of teens who overdosed in their bedrooms or in a car or at school. Sadly, this is a recurring nightmare in communities across Texas which have experienced a wave of overdoses among teens. Last fall, I sat down with a number of people in Dallas to learn more about the community-wide effort to fight fentanyl. I heard from parents who lost their children, as well as law enforcement officials, local elected leaders, healthcare professionals, and school administrators. I learned that most of the time, these teenagers think they are buying something that is relatively innocuous--Xanax or Percocet--only to find out that it is a counterfeit pill made to look like a prescription drug that is laced with a deadly dose of fentanyl. And it doesn't take much.…”