Marco Rubio warns Biden he must crack down on southern border to extinguish fentanyl supply
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio clapped back at President Biden for saying MAGA Republicans ‘threaten’ the republic and said instead it’s Biden’s porous southern border that threatens the nation.
‘It’s a sign of how out of touch this administration is with the lives of people who don’t spend all day on Twitter,’ the Florida Republican, who is locked in a heated reelection race, wrote in an op-ed for Fox News. ‘The greatest source of lawlessness in America isn’t Republicans — it’s the southern border, where the president’s failed policies are allowing drug dealers to feed the worst overdose crisis in our country’s history.’
Biden in a Labor Day speech in Philadelphia said ‘represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.’
As Rubio points out, the U.S. faced more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths last year, many of which came from a rise in popularity of the mega-potent fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for those aged 18-45.
Much of the fentanyl is manufactured in China then slipped into the U.S. through the southern border. Rubio said the epidemic will intensify since China recently suspended counter-narcotics cooperation with the U.S. after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
‘The most obvious instance of this trend is the pills of ‘rainbow fentanyl’ that the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels are smuggling across the border, which law officers have seized in 18 states just this month,’ Rubio wrote.
‘Rainbow fentanyl’ is pictured above in a shot released by the Drug Enforcement Administration
Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for those aged 18-45
He continued: ”Little children think … that they may be candy-like SweeTARTS or Skittles,’ explained one sheriff in a sobering interview. ‘They’re simply going to die from ingesting these pills.”
On Sunday, a 13-year-old Bakersfield middle school student in California was arrested after a school supervisor suffered an overdose from drugs seized from the student.
The Bakersfield Police Department responded to Chipman Junior High School on Friday when the school reported a boy was in possession of about 150 fentanyl pills disguised as Percocet, BakersfieldNow reported.
When the supervisor confiscated the pills, they inadvertently overdosed not by ingesting but simply by taking a whiff of the drugs. A local school police officer administered Narcan and the administrator was hospitalized.
The student was also found to be in possession of $300, but it’s unclear whether he sold any pills to students.
Border agents have seized record amounts of both fentanyl and meth in recent days.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio clapped back at President Biden for saying MAGA Republicans ‘threaten’ the republic and said instead it’s the White House porous southern border that threatens the nation
Fentanyl often makes its way into the U.S. through the southern border
In just five separate inspections ahead of Labor Day weekend, for example, officers seized 625,000 pills in Nogales, Arizona, which borders Sonora, Mexico, Michael Humphries, CBP Director of the Nogales Port of Entry, said, according to the Center Square.
Among them, officers seized 12,000 rainbow-colored fentanyl pills, four pounds of fentanyl in powder form, 34 pounds of methamphetamine and five pounds of marijuana.
Just two milligrams of fentanyl is considered a lethal dose.
‘Even as things get worse, Biden has not given the situation the attention it deserves,’ Rubio wrote.
The senator called for the passing of his own bill, the ‘Domain Reform for Unlawful Drug Sellers’ or DRUGS Act, which would allow the Department of Justice and other entities to suspend website facilitating the sale of illicit drugs. He said the government should heighten legal penalties for drug sales and pressure Beijing to do more to crack down on fentanyl production.