Fentanyl Killed His Brother. Now He Works in Congress to Protect Other Families From Same Pain

Adversaries of the U.S. could launch a nuclear weapon at America, or they can achieve the same goal by flooding the nation with fentanyl, says Rep. Addison McDowell, R-N.C., who has introduced a bill cracking down on fentanyl imports.  

Over the past decade, roughly 500,000 U.S. lives have been lost to synthetic opioid overdoses, mainly fentanyl, according to the National Institutes of Health. 

 McDowell on Wednesday introduced a bill aimed at blocking drug traffickers from bringing a tool called a pill press into the U.S.  The process of fentanyl entering the U.S. is “coordinated,” McDowell explains.

China, for example, “will ship a pill presser” to a drug dealer in the U.S. to cut “pure fentanyl, ... pressing it down into ... something that looks like a pill,” he said.

The Preventing Rogue Equipment for Synthetic Substances, or PRESS, Act, criminalizes the “intentional importation of unlisted precursor chemicals and related equipment, including tableting machines, encapsulating machines, press punches, die systems, and gelatin capsules, that will be used to manufacture controlled substances,” according to the congressman’s office. 

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