Ellwood City Ledger - U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey Calls For Crackdown On Chinese Fentanyl

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By J.D. Prose

Chinese-made fentanyl is playing such an increasingly tragic role in overdose deaths nationally and in Pennsylvania that U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey recently demanded that the federal government crackdown on its importation and that China offer more cooperation.

In a May 20 letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, Toomey, R-Lehigh County, urged the Obama administration to pressure the Chinese government to halt the synthetic drug fentanyl and its analogues, or similar designer drugs, from being exported.

Addicts are increasingly buying fentanyl-laced heroin and dying as a result of not knowing that they are using a drug much more powerful than heroin. "They have no idea," said Westmoreland County Coroner Ken Bacha, who has seen 18 fentanyl-related deaths so far this year.

On Thursday, officials in Minnesota said an autopsy revealed that music superstar Prince died from a fentanyl overdose.

Toomey wrote in his letter that Chinese drug makers have also started exporting a fentanyl "look-alike" drug called furanyl fentanyl, "thus underscoring the urgent need for international action."

China has taken some steps to reduce fentanyl's export, but it has not stemmed the flow of the drug into the United States, Toomey wrote. "The State Department must take additional steps to engage the Chinese in high-level discussions on this issue," Toomey told Kerry.

Just two years ago, fentanyl was found in about 350 of the 2,500 drug overdose fatalities, about 14 percent, said a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration intelligence report released last fall. And, those seeing the effects first hand say the problem has only gotten worse.

"It's bad out there," said Beaver County Coroner David Gabauer. "It really is. It's bad."

Although he did not have figures on fentanyl available, Gabauer said he has handled 20 overdose deaths this year in which the victims have had multiple drugs in their systems. Fentanyl is especially dangerous, he said, because heroin addicts "don't know what they are getting."

Bacha reported having just four fentanyl-related deaths in 2014, but that climbed to 27 in 2015 and now stands at 18 less than halfway through 2016. "We're on pace this year to beat last year without any problem," he said.

Citing two cases, Bacha said one 18-year-old man was found surrounded by heroin stamp bags but had enough fentanyl in his system to kill four horses. "He had no idea what hit him," Bacha said.

Another 61-year-old man was discovered with more than 40 times the amount of fentanyl in his system it has taken to kill a person, Bacha said. Addicts, he said, look for the stamp bags of heroin they have previously used, but if they can't find them they buy whatever they can get.

"When they get desperate," Bacha said, "they'll take anything from anybody."

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