{"id":1572277,"date":"2022-07-26T18:09:09","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T22:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1572277"},"modified":"2022-07-26T18:21:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T22:21:53","slug":"senators-press-top-biden-admin-official-on-embarrassing-response-to-fentanyl-opioid-epidemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/senators-press-top-biden-admin-official-on-embarrassing-response-to-fentanyl-opioid-epidemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators Press Top Biden Admin Official On \u2018Embarrassing\u2019 Response To Fentanyl, Opioid Epidemic"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsenators-press-top-biden-admin-official-on-embarrassing-response-to-fentanyl-opioid-epidemic%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1572277&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Senators on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee pressed a top Biden administration official on the White House\u2019s strategy to combat the opioid epidemic during a hearing Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>More than 105,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2021, up from 93,000 in 2020, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. More than 1,100 teenagers died of overdoses that year, with experts <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2022\/04\/14\/drug-overdose-deaths-fentanyl-record-opioid-crisis-2021\/\">attributing<\/a> the sharp jump in deaths to the increased prevalence of fentanyl. Several <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/09\/08\/more-relapses-coronavirus-pandemic-worsening-united-states-opioid-epidemic\/\">studies<\/a> showed that overdose deaths <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/11\/17\/drug-overdose-deaths-new-high-2020-pandemic-coronavirus\/\">spiked<\/a> amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with observers arguing that isolation and job loss attributed to the virus and lockdowns caused many drug users to relapse.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDeaths from fentanyl among teenagers tripled from 2019-2021,\u201d Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan said, noting that in many overdose cases, drug users consumed a non-opioid laced with fentanyl. Acting Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy <a href=\"https:\/\/obamawhitehouse.archives.gov\/ondcp\/kemp-chester\">Kemp Chester<\/a> blamed social media use and the dark web for teen overdoses. He added that the U.S. Postal Service would look to better monitor packages that may include drug shipments.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7485906\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7485906\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7485906\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/snapchat-fentanyl-protest-scaled-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/snapchat-fentanyl-protest-scaled-1.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/cdn01.dailycaller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/snapchat-fentanyl-protest-180x120.jpg 180w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/snapchat-fentanyl-protest-620x413-1.jpg 620w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/snapchat-fentanyl-protest-768x512-1.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/snapchat-fentanyl-protest-1536x1024-1.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/snapchat-fentanyl-protest-2048x1365-1.jpg 2048w\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-7485906\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">People opposed to the sale of illegal drugs on Snapchat participate in a rally outside the company\u2019s headquarters to call for tighter restrictions on the popular social media app following fatal overdoses of the powerful opioid fentanyl in Santa Monica, California, June 13, 2022. (Photo by RINGO CHIU\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Senators from both parties expressed concern about the Biden administration\u2019s failure to secure ports of entry. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbp.gov\/newsroom\/stats\/drug-seizure-statistics\">seized<\/a> 8,425 pounds of fentanyl in Fiscal Year 2022, and 504,000 pounds of drugs overall. <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2022\/07\/07\/mexico-drugs-fentanyl-cartels\/\"><strong>(RELATED: \u2018Largest Seizure In History\u2019: Mexican Authorities Seize Enough Fentanyl To Kill Hundreds Of Millions)<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the U.S. wants to be serious about stopping the flow of illicit substances into the U.S., we must remember there\u2019s a southern border and a northern border. And there\u2019s two water borders, and you go down and you remember the Gulf of Mexico with our water ports. Don\u2019t forget about airports,\u201d Democratic New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Lujan said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe screening, or lack thereof, done at our ports should alarm all of us. Five or six percent just improved to ten percent with passenger screening into the southern border is embarrassing,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince 2021, January, 3.2 million migrants have crossed the border illegally. We\u2019ve intercepted 1.2 million pounds of illegal drugs, over 16,000 pounds of fentanyl. That\u2019s approximately 3.7 billion lethal doses coming into the country. Could kill the population ten times over,\u201d Republican Indiana Sen. Mike Braun added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre you confident what we\u2019re doing is aggravating the problem, just encouraging more proportionally from what it was pre-Biden administration. And are we making any headway?\u201d he asked Chester.<\/p>\n<p>Chester admitted that there has \u201cabsolutely been an increase\u201d in drug seizures, but added that those drugs \u201cwill not be in our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat you described very accurately is the results of a global business enterprise that is driven by profits and is focused on finding vulnerabilities and expand their customer base in order to make as much money as they can with a decreased amount of risks,\u201d he responded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;That&#8217;s approximately 3.7 billion lethal doses coming into the country&#8217;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":1890106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1572277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1572277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1890106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1572277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1572277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1572277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}