Your Congressman: China Is Behind America's Fentanyl Problem

HOLMDEL, NJ — Did you know that most of the fentanyl in America today is made in China? The extremely powerful and addictive pain killer, 50 times more powerful than heroin, is created in Chinese laboratories and smuggled here, often times as easily as through the U.S. mail. Fentanyl is what killed beloved musician Prince — and thousands of Americans every year.

On Thursday, local Congressman Chris Smith, a Republican who represents Monmouth and Ocean counties, chaired a hearing before the House Global Health Subcommittee to hold China accountable for the deadly fentanyl that is produced there and illegally exported to the U.S.

“Chinese-made fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is killing Americans — more than 29,000 in 2017 alone,” said Smith at the hearing. “We must hold the Chinese government accountable. China's role in this matter must be brought to light, and Congress must exercise its oversight role to ensure that Beijing doesn't get a free pass in contributing to the problem.”

For the past two years now, U.S. law enforcement has been aware of China's role in the growing fentanyl scourge, which some experts say is worse than the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s.

"Most fentanyl doesn't come from here," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in April of this year, after four Chinese nationals were indicted for trafficking thousands of fentanyl pills into the U.S. "The vast majority is made in China and then shipped here, either through the mail or brought across the porous Southern border."

Prior to Thursday's hearing, last week in Robbinsville Smith spoke at the Mercer County International Overdose Awareness Day sponsored by Prosecutor Angelo Onofri and Robbinsville Mayor David Fried. There, Trenton Police Chief Pedro Medina spoke of the loss of his own son, Petey, to the opiate epidemic, as did fellow New Jersey resident, who also lost his son to an opiate overdose. Adrienne Petta recounted the horrors of her addiction and the impact on her family — she is now a recovery specialist. Petta admitted at one point that fentanyl is so strong she would have "easily" chosen it over her two children at the height of her addiction.

“China is one of the world's top producers of the precursor chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine and fentanyl, as well as the chemicals used to process heroin and cocaine,” testified Paul Knierim, the Deputy Chief of Operations at the Office of Global Enforcement for the DEA.

One of the witnesses who testified yesterday was Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato, who talked about the effects of fentanyl on the opioid crisis in Ocean County.

“Synthetics will become the predominate type of illegal drugs abused within the next five years,” Coronato predicted. "In many instances” it is being sold “right over the Internet."

In 2018, fentanyl-related deaths have jumped to 80 percent in Ocean County.

Coronato did note that a program he created unique to Ocean County that allows drug abusers to voluntarily turn themselves in at a police station — more than 800 since 2017 — without fear of prosecution has likely reduced deaths. Ocean County started doing the Blue HART Program last year.

The opioid epidemic started out with people getting addicted to prescription painkillers such as oxycodone, created by American pharmaceutical companies and often unwittingly prescribed by doctors. Those who became addicted then turned to street-level heroin because it is much cheaper than prescription pain pills, $5 compared to $60 for a bottle of oxy pills. However, when fentanyl entered the market, users found a new drug that was intensely more powerful than both heroin and prescription pills. And much more fatal.

“The crisis was initially fueled by oversupply of prescription painkillers, such as oxycodone and hydrocodone. Yet, in 2017, synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, were involved in approximately 60 percent of all opioid overdose deaths,” testified Bryce Pardo of the RAND Corporation. “Today’s drug overdose crisis now surpasses major public health epidemics of prior generations, including the HIV/AIDS epidemic.”

Two fathers in the audience at the hearing — Don Holman and Eric Bolling — lost their sons to opioid overdoses, including one case involving fentanyl shipped straight from China. Smith insisted that the U.S. Postal Service must start requiring all pertinent information on international shipping; much of the fentanyl shipped from China has missing or incomplete information about its origin.

Smith pressed both the State Department and DEA to do more to hold China accountable for fentanyl in the U.S., asking them, “Are we using existing tools to hold bad actors in China accountable? We have tools, such as the Global Magnitsky Act, which targets corrupt officials and human rights abusers. Perhaps it is time we start thinking outside the box and use something like Global Magnitsky to ensure that corrupt Chinese officials and narco-traffickers are held to account.”

Smith also said he voted for “the Synthetics and Overdose Prevention Act, to require the U.S. Postal Service (as private carriers like UPS and Fed-Ex are currently required to do) to obtain advance electronic data (AED)—detailed info on the shipper and addressee and other data—empowering Customs and Border Protection to target fentanyl and other illegal drug shipments.”

Coronato, in his testimony, made the following recommendations to the Subcommittee:

• Federal law enforcement must develop new partnerships with Chinese law enforcement

• New investigative techniques need to be implemented to counter the “next storm” of ordering illegal drugs on the internet for home delivery

Smith applauded other local initiatives here in New Jersey to address the opioid crisis and the problem of fentanyl, namely Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni’s Opioids Diversion Program, which steers certain low-level non-violent offenders to treatment rather than traditional criminal prosecution, and Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri’s Community Addiction Recovery Effort (CARE) program which emphasizes treatment-first interventions for opioid addicts. Also, the Opioid Overdose Recovery Program at RWJ Barnabas Health has implemented over 2,000 interventions since its launch in 2016.

You can watch Thursday's entire hearing below: