United States Senator Lamar Alexander Thursday said China’s decision to control all forms of fentanyl “will save thousands of American lives.” Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that can be 100 times stronger than opioid prescription pills and is the source of the greatest increase in opioid overdoses in our country.
“When our senior delegation was in China in October, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officials told me that one way or the other almost all of the fentanyl that makes its way into the United States starts in China and that the single most important thing that could be done to reduce the flow of fentanyl in the U.S. was to make every form of it illegal in China,” Senator Alexander said. “According to the letter from the U.S. Ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, to me today, China has announced this will be done on May 1. President Trump deserves great credit for asking the president of China to do this in their meeting in Buenos Aires in December. And the American people should be grateful to President Xi for making that commitment and acting on it so promptly because it should will save thousands of American lives.”
Senator Alexander continued, “In addition, Ambassador Branstad deserves great credit for focusing the attention of the Chinese government and the American government on how to deal with the flow of fentanyl into the United States.”
At the urging of U.S. Ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, Senator Alexander led a delegation of senior members of Congress to Beijing in October to meet with Chinese leaders, including the Premier, with the primary mission of emphasizing to Chinese senior officials the importance of making illegal all forms of fentanyl in China. In December, President Trump and President Xi agreed to designate fentanyl as a controlled substance – meaning that people selling fentanyl to the United States will be subject to China’s maximum penalty under the law – which was the action Senator Alexander’s congressional delegation asked for. President Trump called this “a game changer.”
Senator Alexander was principal sponsor of opioids legislation President Trump signed into law in October that he called “the single largest bill to combat a drug crisis in the history of our country,” and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called “landmark” legislation to fight the opioid crisis. That legislation included proposals from five different Senate committees, including the STOP Act to stop illegal drugs, including fentanyl, at the border.