CHUCK TODD:
This Sunday: America’s fentanyl crisis. The highly addictive synthetic opioid -- 50 times more potent than heroin -- is at the center of the deadliest drug epidemic in American history.
PRES. JOE BIDEN:
Fentanyl is killing more than 70,000 Americans a year.
CROWD:
[Boos] It’s your fault.
GOV. GREG ABBOTT:
Texas law enforcement alone have seized enough deadly fentanyl to kill every man, woman and child in the entire United States of America.
CHUCK TODD:
A new war on drugs emerging as a key 2024 campaign issue.
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
Joe Biden will never solve the drug overdose crisis because he is actively destroying our border.
GOV. RON DeSANTIS:
This stuff just flooding in, it’s affecting communities all across the country.
CHUCK TODD:
What will it take to stop the flow of drugs into the United States?
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY:
This is a red alert moment.
CHUCK TODD:
Is punishing the drug itself really effective?
SEN. CORY BOOKER:
What we need to do is solve this crisis in America and come together in a bipartisan way.
CHUCK TODD:
What is the best approach to the growing public health crisis? My guests this morning: DEA Administrator Anne Milgram; the entire Ohio U.S. Senate delegation, Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Sherrod Brown; and a panel of experts on the frontlines of the crisis: former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, former Huntington, West Virginia Fire Chief Jan Rader and Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the director of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University. Welcome to Sunday and a special edition of Meet the Press.
ANNOUNCER:
From NBC News in Washington, the longest-running show in television history, this is a special edition of Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.
CHUCK TODD:
And a good Sunday morning. It is 100 times more powerful than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin. The DEA calls fentanyl “the single deadliest drug threat our nation has ever encountered.” What was once an obscure drug to treat pain in end-stage cancer patients has become the leading cause of death for American adults under the age of 50. When President Richard Nixon launched America’s “war on drugs" 52 years ago, annual overdose deaths stood at 6,771. Last year, overdose deaths rose to more than 110,000. That's almost half the number of Americans who died simply from Covid. And deaths from synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, accounted for nearly 70% of those overdose deaths. The opioid overuse epidemic began in the late ‘90s, driven then by the over-prescribing of opioids to treat pain, while drug manufacturers like Purdue Pharma – which has recently paid an $8.3 billion federal settlement in 2020 – profited from this problem. By 2010, heroin deaths began rapidly increasing, and then beginning in 2013 it was overdose deaths increasingly involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Fentanyl precursor chemicals are made in China, and to a lesser extent also in India, and they’re shipped to Mexico, where they’re then pressed into pills to look like prescription drugs. And it’s primarily being done by two powerful cartels: Sinaloa and the Jalisco New Generation cartel. China and Mexico are not willing partners with the United States. China formally severed any counter-narcotics collaboration after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island of Taiwan in 2022. And then last week the Justice Department filed the first-ever charges against Chinese companies they believe are responsible for manufacturing precursor chemicals.
[START TAPE]
ATTORNEY GENERAL MERRICK GARLAND:
Stopping the Chinese chemical companies that are supplying the cartels with the building blocks they need to manufacture deadly fentanyl. We are targeting every step of the movement, manufacturing and sale of fentanyl from start to finish.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
And U.S.-Mexico cooperation on drug trafficking has collapsed under this current Mexican President López Obrador, known as AMLO, who has denied that fentanyl is even produced in Mexico. And then he lashed out at the United States for "spying" and "interference" after 28 members of the Sinaloa cartel were charged in April. Last year, the DEA seized over 370 million – 379 million deadly doses of fentanyl. It’s more than double the amount it seized in 2021, and that’s enough to supply a lethal dose to every single American. But officials estimate they are capturing maybe just 5 to 10% of the fentanyl that is crossing in from Mexico, and they acknowledge it could even be less than that. The drug is often found in “fake pills.” It’s made to resemble prescription drugs like Oxycodone, Xanax and Adderall, and it’s sent through the mail, marketed on the internet and social media, including to children and teens. This is a crisis that the United States has struggled to combat in any meaningful way. Since President Biden took office, his administration has launched a public health campaign known as "One Pill Can Kill," warning about the fentanyl threat, and they’re introducing new scanning technology at border crossings. In theory, the fentanyl issue should be way above politics, but with Republican opponents hoping to use the issue as a wedge to blame Biden for border policies, the president has said very little publicly about the crisis.
[START TAPE]
PRES. JOE BIDEN:
Fentanyl is killing more than 70,000 Americans a year.
CROWD:
Close the border.
PRES. JOE BIDEN:
You got it.
CROWD:
It's your fault.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Obviously, that was from the State of the Union. The reality is that more than 90% of fentanyl seizures along the border this year have been at the legal U.S. ports of entry. And most of those involved with sneaking fentanyl across the border? U.S. citizens. Even the scope of the addiction crisis is not yet clear. More than 9 million Americans “misused opioids” in 2021, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. And yet, the agency has not tracked the rise of fentanyl and does not know how many Americans are even using it. What's clear is that fentanyl is touching every part American life and every demographic group.
[START TAPE]
CHRISTINA PEÑA:
An ex-friend of the family who sold drugs, you know, gave her what she thought was an oxy and took half of it and never woke up. There's no second chances most of the time for fentanyl. You're either gonna die or you're gonna get addicted. That's just it.
ANTOINETTE TURNER:
If you know something, you need to say something. And if you can’t say it, take care of it.
DEBBIE PETERSEN:
He had bought some of the blue oxy pills and taken a half of one and died within one minute.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
And joining me now is Anne Milgram, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, obviously more well-known as the DEA. Administrator Milgram, welcome to Meet the Press.
ANNE MILGRAM:
Thank you for having me.
CHUCK TODD:
Before we get into some specifics and what's been done over the last week, when it comes to some specific charges that you and the Justice Department were able to file, let's talk big picture here. We've had a drug problem in this country for 50 years. What makes fentanyl so much worse right now than any of these other crises that we've had over our 50-year war on drugs?
ANNE MILGRAM:
So thank you for having me and giving me the opportunity to talk about what I think is the most critical issue in the United States today, which is the fentanyl crisis, where the CDC has just reported that last year over 110,000 Americans have died from fentanyl and methamphetamine poisoning. About 200 Americans are dying every day from fentanyl. What I say all the time right now is that this not a war on drugs. This is a fight to save lives. We are losing Americans in every single community from coast to coast, and every single place in between. Fentanyl is now – one of the things that’s really different about this – a few things. First, it is the deadliest drug we've ever seen widespread. It is 50 times more powerful than heroin, and so, if someone does –
CHUCK TODD:
Even the legalized version of this drug that was FDA approved is 50 more times deadly?
ANNE MILGRAM:
What we're talking about now is the elicit or criminal –
CHUCK TODD:
Right, I understand that. But this was originally a legal drug?
ANNE MILGRAM:
Yes. And just to make sure, to be clear on this, it is tightly controlled as a lawful drug, given in hospitals, often for cancer patients and end of life as patches or put under someone's tongue. What we're talking about is totally different. What we're talking about started in Mexico in 2014, 2015, where the criminal cartels, and in particular the Sinaloa Cartel, realized that they could take chemicals and make drugs. And so one of the ways that this is so different than any other threat we've ever seen is that these are man-made, or chemical drugs, unlike heroin or cocaine that are grown, you know--
CHUCK TODD:
You still need a crop? Right.
ANNE MILGRAM:
You need a crop.
CHUCK TODD:
And you could find the crop, maybe even eradicate a crop?
ANNE MILGRAM:
Yes. This is totally different. This is chemicals. And what's terrifying about this in so many ways is that the only limit of the amount of fentanyl that could be made is the amount of precursor chemicals that can be purchased. And so these are the chemicals that can be used to make fentanyl. The other reason why I think this is so different, and it is really worth staying on this just for a minute, is that fentanyl, tiny quantities are so highly addictive and potentially deadly, that what we see the cartel doing is they're hiding that fentanyl powder in other drugs, like cocaine, like heroin, like methamphetamine. And they're pressing it into these fake pills made to look exactly like oxycodone or percocet or or adderall, when it's just fentanyl and filler. So tens of thousands of Americans are dying without having any idea that they're taking fentanyl.
CHUCK TODD:
So it seems as if this almost feels as if it's an impossible task. The metaphor is: you've got a hole in the boat, you're shoveling out water. You're seizing more fentanyl than ever before, and the deaths continue to grow. What does victory over this fentanyl scourge and saving lives look like in the next year or two?
ANNE MILGRAM:
Yeah. So to me, the core thing that we have to be focused on is Americans who are dying, right? So we can talk about as much as we seize. We seized enough fentanyl last year for 110 million doses. That is enough deadly doses to kill every single American.
CHUCK TODD:
And yet, how much do you think got through? We don't know how much got through, right?
ANNE MILGRAM:
We don't know the exact amount that got through. We brought thousands of cases against individuals across the country – we announced them in April – that are associates of the cartel. And they're selling the pills on social media. They're selling it on streets. So we know some is getting through. So first of all, we have to save lives. We have to do everything we can to push that number down. The second piece, which I think is really important, is we have changed the way we work. Our mission right now is to save lives by defeating these two cartels that are responsible for almost all of the fentanyl in the United States, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel. And we have to stop the fentanyl from being made.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. You're talking about wanting to save lives. But in essence, your job's to deal with supply, not necessarily the demand side, is it?
ANNE MILGRAM:
Thinking about the supply side, I agree. Our core task right now is to attack every single part of that supply chain. And this is one way in which we're working differently than we have worked before. So for many years, we've been focused on the high value target or the leader of an organization. That can be an effective way to deal with drug trafficking. But we are now talking about vast global criminal enterprises, with thousands of people in more than 45 countries around the world.
CHUCK TODD:
So multinational corporation, the equivalent of, right?
ANNE MILGRAM:
It's the criminal equivalent of, based in Mexico, starting with precursor chemicals being purchased mostly in the People's Republic of China, but money laundering and global drug trafficking happening across the globe. So we have to go after every single part of that network. And you see us doing that. We announced charges today against four Chinese chemical companies, eight Chinese nationals, two of whom are now in custody. Starting there, with the precursor chemicals.
CHUCK TODD:
Right. Is the Chinese government going to cooperate with us on this?
ANNE MILGRAM:
So we have had recent conversations with Chinese authorities, both in Beijing and in Washington, talking about improving law enforcement cooperation. And what I would say to you, Chuck, is that DEA stands ready to work with anyone who will work with us.
CHUCK TODD:
Is it true that your cooperation has basically disappeared in the last couple of years?
ANNE MILGRAM:
So for about the past year, we have not had the cooperation that we want to have. And, of course, we have offices in the People's Republic of China and all over Asia. We have 334 offices around the world. So the recent conversations, I think, are very important. And now, we have to see if we can turn this into law enforcement cooperation.
CHUCK TODD:
When it comes to your ability to choke the supply, we have two countries that are not doing business with the United States in an honest basis. One is China, and I'd argue the other is Mexico. And I'd ask you this: these cartels, who's in charge of Mexico? Is it the government, or is the government afraid of these cartels?
ANNE MILGRAM:
So what I would say is our relentless focus right now is on these two cartels. And while there are two countries that are the major – obviously, Mexico is where Sinaloa and Jalisco are based, and the vast majority of precursor chemicals are coming from China. We are now tracking these two cartels in more than 45 countries, many of whom are good partners to the United States. And so as we look at this as a global supply chain issue, we are able to do work that we have never done before.
CHUCK TODD:
I understand that, but the Mexican president basically denied that. "Oh, we don't make fentanyl here." I mean he is totally, at least in public, does not seem like he accepts the premise that this fentanyl issue is a problem in Mexico.
ANNE MILGRAM:
One of the things that we did in April, we announced charges against the Sinaloa Cartel. I would argue to you that they're the leaders right now in fentanyl trafficking to the United States.
CHUCK TODD:
And what has the Mexican government done to help us with this?
ANNE MILGRAM:
But just to go back to your initial question, what we showed in those charges, and that case is still pending, but what we showed is that there's no question that fentanyl, as alleged in the indictment, is being synthesized in Mexico. So there are many things that we are doing and investigating through our cases that I think are critically important.
CHUCK TODD:
Right. But are you getting cooperation from the Mexican government on this?
ANNE MILGRAM:
I think where we are right now is first the United States is now taking an across-government approach. And so in the past six months, 12 months, we have sat with Treasury. We have sat with State. We have sat with other federal law enforcement agencies. And the Deputy Attorney General has been to Mexico, as has the President's Homeland Security Advisor. And they're all delivering the message of how important and critical this is. So what we are seeing is we are seeing some increased cooperation with Mexican law enforcement and the military. Now, what I would say to you, I think it couldn't be said enough: we cannot allow 110,000 Americans to die.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me ask you about the cartels. Would your job be easier if they were designated as foreign terrorist organizations?
ANNE MILGRAM:
So DEA has vast authorities. We have the ability to prosecute cases under the 959 Statute, globally. If there was a foreign terrorist organization designation, that would not change our current authorities.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you think border politics, because it's so polarizing – and frankly it can be used as a way to try to hijack the fentanyl issue, maybe positive or negative – makes it harder for this Democratic administration to talk about it, because they don't want to talk about the border issues?
ANNE MILGRAM:
What I've seen over the last two years is a fundamental shift in people's willingness to talk about it. And including just walking into a room, I almost do not walk into a room right now where someone hasn't lost a loved one or someone in their community. And that has changed over the last two years.
CHUCK TODD:
So you feel like there's a shift over the last couple years?
ANNE MILGRAM:
I feel like there's a shift. Do I think we're where we need to be yet? No. I think way too many Americans still don't understand that, on social media, where your kid might be, that pill is potentially deadly, and there are no second chances. And so I think we have to continue to increase awareness.
CHUCK TODD:
Is our fentanyl issue a bigger problem at the border or a bigger problem on social media?
ANNE MILGRAM:
So the border's an important part of this conversation because most of the fentanyl that we see coming into the United States is coming in through the southwest border. In the indictments we announced in April, what we've charged is that the fentanyl's coming in through every way possible, by air, by land, by sea, by underground tunnels.
CHUCK TODD:
Usually by Americans?
ANNE MILGRAM:
By both. By both. But essentially, coming in at very high rates through the southwest border, often in trucks or cars. But yes, coming in through the border. It's an important part of the conversation. Social media is also a vital part of the conversation. It is what I call the last mile. Because what the cartels need – they're selling the deadliest poison we've ever seen – they need that to get –
CHUCK TODD:
They need a platform to advertise?
ANNE MILGRAM:
Exactly. To be able to expand and sell more, they need to be able to reach people at massive rates. And that's what social media's doing.
CHUCK TODD:
Is social media companies at all cooperating on this?
ANNE MILGRAM:
We've been in conversations with the social media companies. The Deputy Attorney General convened all of us in April of this year and made it very clear, number one, that the companies have to comply with their own terms of service, which say, "This is illegal. You cannot be selling fake pills. You cannot be selling drugs on social media websites." Number two, law enforcement needs to get information from the social media companies. We have not, until recently, gotten nearly as much cooperation as we need. And finally, this is an outright emergency. So they need to be doing absolutely everything they can to get the deadly drugs off their platform.
CHUCK TODD:
Is there one thing you don't have that Congress could give you that you think could help right now that you don't have?
ANNE MILGRAM:
So we talk a lot with Congress about social media. We talk a lot about the need for these platforms – essentially, one of the main ways we see Americans dying right now is through social media, the purchase of pills, fake pills on social media. So, again, if we're after, how do we stop 110,000 Americans from dying?
CHUCK TODD:
That's a place to start?
ANNE MILGRAM:
That's a place to start.
CHUCK TODD:
Anne Milgram, Administrator for the DEA, thank you for coming on and sharing your experience.
ANNE MILGRAM:
Thank you so much.
CHUCK TODD:
Now, the one takeaway, of course, was Mexico and what comes over the border. The other one in that interview should be the problem with social media. When we come back, Republican Senator J.D. Vance and Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. The two senators from Ohio, one of the states hardest hit by this addiction crisis.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. Ohio has become one of the epicenters for this addiction crisis, and now the fight against fentanyl. Accidental overdose deaths increased by more than 1,000% from 467 deaths in 1999 to more than 5,000 deaths in Ohio in 2021. Opioids were involved in 80% of Ohio’s unintentional drug overdose deaths that year. It’s the fifth-highest number of overdose deaths of any state. And joining me now is Republican Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio. Senator Vance, welcome to Meet the Press.
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
Thanks for having me.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me start with why do you think your home state of Ohio has had – has been impacted so hard by these overdose deaths?
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
Yeah, so if you look just historically, we've always had more substance abuse problems in the Midwest of the country and if you look at sort of where deindustrialization, right, a lot of these manufacturing jobs went to China, Mexico, and so forth. I think that obviously was a mistake, but now we're dealing with the consequences of that fact. And what happens when people lose their jobs, when they lose their livelihood, their sense of financial stability? Sometimes that does lead to an increase in demand for drugs and alcohol. Now what’s different about this maybe then 30 years ago is – now look, alcoholism's a serious problem; I don't mean to minimize it. But if you take a person who is addicted to alcohol 30 years ago and you make that fentanyl now, all of the things that we worked towards, giving people a second chance, getting them into treatment, it's so much harder with fentanyl because it's so deadly and it's so addictive.
CHUCK TODD:
So, the demand side. It's one thing to try to kill at the supply side of things. Obviously we have to stop the demand side. You’ve – addiction has touched your life. You've written about it extensively. What are some things government can do?
SEN J.D. VANCE:
There are a few different things, right? So, number one is people who have stable lives, stable families, who grew up in not necessarily wealthy households, but at least comfortable households, financially stable households, they're much less likely to be addicted. That doesn't mean fentanyl doesn't affect people from upper middle class backgrounds. Of course it does, but it's much more concentrated in people who are struggling financially. There is a very direct line between job losses to China, especially in the '80s and '90s, and the heroin and now the fentanyl problem today is a very, very direct line. So, number 1 we have to rebuild the middle class in this country and ensure that people don't want to do drugs in the first place. The second thing here is that of course we want to prevent people from getting addicted, but once they are addicted treatment is a major source of the story here.
CHUCK TODD:
Look, 30 years ago we went almost all stick, and we didn't go carrot when we were dealing with the cocaine and crack epidemic here. How do we – right now a lot of the proposals are more sticks than carrots. Are we sure these sticks are going to work?
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
I think that the carrots and the sticks, again, both of these things really, really matter. We can't overstate how different this is from crack, from cocaine, from alcohol. It's so much more addictive and so much more deadly. The most heartbreaking thing that I've experienced, I'd say, in the last couple years because of this fentanyl problem is, you go into NA meetings, right? Narcotics Anonymous, where people are sort of taking the first, second, and third step to recovery. You go and talk to people and you always hear the story. You hear a story about an 18-year-old girl who got addicted, got caught up in the wrong stuff, but was a year clean, was two years clean, was working, was thinking about getting custody of her kids back, doing all the things that we want people to be able to do in a country of second chances. But one relapse, and because it was fentanyl instead of heroin or crack, that's it.
CHUCK TODD:
Much deeper relapse.
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
Not even just much deeper relapse; they're dead, right? And so many times you hear the story of people who are doing the right thing. I mean, even in my own family I've seen people relapse multiple times. I've seen relatives who get back on the horse the seventh or eighth time, and that's what did it, right? They're ten years clean now, we're proud of them, we're happy, of course that's a good story for our family. But if you take this incredibly deadly substance you don't get seven or eight relapses; you maybe get one or two if you're lucky. That's why you have to work on the supply and the demand problem.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, let's talk about the supply side. Because we have two countries that we know, it's China and Mexico, basically. They're not cooperating with us, okay?
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
That's right –
CHUCK TODD:
The Chinese are actively not cooperating with us anymore, and the Mexicans lie to us. AMLO, his bullets whatever – “hugs, not bullets” has been a failure. So we're kind of hamstrung, are we not?
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
Well, we're hamstrung if we assume good faith from everybody that we're working with. But I think if we actually have some real American leadership we can make some good progress here.
CHUCK TODD:
You want to make these cartels terrorists organizations?
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
I want –
CHUCK TODD:
I mean, right now we're treating them as international criminal syndicates, so one step away.
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
I want to empower the president of the United States, whether that's a Democrat or Republican, to use the power of the U.S. military to go after these drug cartels. Here's the real problem with –
CHUCK TODD:
Similar to what we did in Colombia?
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
If we have to, absolutely. Here's the real problem with Mexico here. It's sort of two-fold, right? On the one hand, you have the cartels, which are arguably the best-funded criminal terrorist organization in the entire world. Because the amount of money –
CHUCK TODD:
They're multinational corporations at this point –
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
Oh, absolutely.
CHUCK TODD:
They have investments that are – we can’t – we wish it was only drugs they were only making money off of.
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
Exactly. And by the way, I've talked to DEA agents who think that the amount they're bringing in, their revenue per year has gone up 14-fold just in the last couple of years. That shows you what, I think, bad border policies can do. But the second thing, Chuck, is we have to recognize the Mexican government is being, in a lot of ways, destabilized by the constant flow of fentanyl.
You mentioned Colombia, right? The Colombian drug cartels were so powerful that Colombia became a failed state. You think the fentanyl problem is bad now, what about three years from now when the Mexican drug cartels are more powerful than the Mexican state itself?
CHUCK TODD:
Well, it's interesting you said – we just saw an example of that. They do not govern northern Mexico.
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
Absolutely not.
CHUCK TODD:
All right, the Mexican government basically had to get permission to help and find those people that killed those Americans there.
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
Correct.
CHUCK TODD:
Let's talk about the Chinese side of things. They seem to use our concern about what they're doing with these precursor chemicals as part of their geopolitical negotiations with us on other stuff –
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
That's right.
CHUCK TODD:
Right? They stopped cooperating on this because Nancy Pelosi showed up in Taiwan. How should we – you know – we want to disaggregate those, but if they don't how do we manage it?
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
Well, look, we have less economic leverage over China than we did 15, 20 years ago, because we continue to make bad decisions. But we still have a lot of leverage, okay? And the Chinese export a ton to the American markets. They absolutely need the American consumer to be able to run their businesses. We should be willing to say that, "If you don't stop sending fentanyl precursors to Mexico and to our own ports of entry, we're going to really penalize you guys economically." That is the real tool. We're not going to invade China because they're sending fentanyl into our country. We can increase tariffs and extract a massive economic cost. I think the Biden administration should be doing exactly that.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you think we can hire enough people to do the inspections because it seems like most of this fentanyl comes in at ports of entry. A lot of it's at ports of entry. Is there a reasonable way to inspect everything and everybody because it's American citizens bringing in the fentanyl. They're basically being hired to be the runners.
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
So, fair point there. I want to address that. A lot of it's coming through ports of entry. We don't really know how much is not coming through ports of entry.
CHUCK TODD:
It's a fair point.
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
Because we're not catching it. But I think the fact that we have a pretty effective way to capture this stuff at ports of entry is evidence that it does work. Is it perfect? No. Right, no solution here is perfect. But the goal here is not to get to zero people killed by drug overdoses. The goal is to get it less than 100,000, and then less than 90,000, and then less than 80,000. Those are attainable goals. And absolutely, having better screening at our ports of entry is part of that solution.
CHUCK TODD:
It does seem we're throwing more at it. When it comes to the war on drugs, is it possible when you look at a Portugal, when you look at some other foreign – would we tackle this better if we legalized it and regulated it? And I know that seems like a crazy notion.
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
Of course.
CHUCK TODD:
But you look at some of the outcomes in Portugal and you think, "Well, maybe it's not so crazy."
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
So, I think Portugal's a very different country. And in fact, if you look at some of the strategies that have been tried in Portugal, some of them have been tried in certain municipalities in the United States. And what you end up seeing is drug overdose numbers go up, addiction numbers go up. So, I think if the Portugal approach could work here, it would've, frankly, already worked. Look, some harm reduction absolutely matters, right? Suboxone is a sort of medically assisted treatment for people who are trying to break clean of this stuff. All that's part of the equation. But I think that if we believe we're going to solve the opioid problem by handing out needles, we're going to make the problem worse and in fact, we're already seeing evidence that we've done this. So no, I don't think that's the solution. But I do think that we should follow the evidence wherever it ultimately leads here. Legalization is not going to help, but maybe doing medically assisted treatment more and making that more accessible, that's a good solution.
CHUCK TODD:
Senator J.D. Vance, Republican from Ohio. Thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective.
SEN. J.D. VANCE:
Thanks, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
One mom in northwest Ohio, who lost her 21-year-old son Austin Lamb last year, put up a billboard to honor him and to warn of the dangers of fentanyl.
[START TAPE]
STEPHANIE KINDLE:
He was only 21 years old and he was leaving in two days for the Marines. We have all practically raised him together. That's kind of how we are here. There’s a lot of moms suffering, and I don’t want to see anyone else in this community have to go through what I’ve went through.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
And joining me now is Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. He chairs the Senate Banking Committee, and he's co-author of the Fend off Fentanyl Act. Senator Brown, welcome back to Meet the Press.
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
Good to be back, Chuck. Thanks.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me start with why do you think Ohio has become such a magnet for fentanyl overdose deaths?
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
I don't know that Ohio's a lot worse than other states in that. I think Ohio partly because – until I explain, it won't sound quite accurate, but because we've been hit so hard by bad trade agreements, from NAFTA, through PNTR with China. Where companies – when I went to Johnny Appleseed Junior High School, I went to school in Mansfield, Ohio with the sons and daughters of machinists – electrical workers at Westinghouse, and machinists at Tappan, and auto workers from GM, and carpenters and electricians, and insulators, and laborers. And those jobs – ten years after I graduated, those jobs started to go south because these companies were looking for cheap labor. Then it went overseas. NAFTA, PNTR with China. And those communities have struggled and I think that, you know, addiction generally, whether it's alcohol, whether it's – whether it’s cocaine, whether it's fentanyl, tends to follow despair. I think that’s probably why – it doesn't mean fentanyl doesn't hit all segments of society, but it's probably worse in those communities.
CHUCK TODD:
So, we have supply issues. We have demand issues. This Fend Off Fentanyl Act, you're trying to at the money part of things. You’re trying to get at the money laundering part of things. There are some Republicans, including your colleague in Ohio, that wants to see these cartels labeled terrorist organizations. Right now, they're sort of one step short of that, right, as sort of criminal syndicates. Where are you on this?
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
I'm agnostic on how we label them. I think the important thing is an all the above approach. When you look at it from the supply chain, to addiction, to death, in too many cases from fentanyl, it means we need to scale up treatment programs. I spent time at the Talbert House in Cincinnati, Brigid's Path in Dayton, all kinds of places where I'll sit around. One man in Cincinnati put his hand on the arm of his maybe 32-year-old daughter and said, "Without this treatment facility, Talbert House, my daughter would be dead." I hear those stories far too often. So I don't care what we call it.
CHUCK TODD:
Can we build these treatment facilities fast enough?
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
Yeah, we can scale them up if there's interest. But it's a partnership. And we have a state legislature that's about to eliminate apparently the sales tax on guns, continuing to cut taxes for rich people. They don't fund public education and public treatment programs the way that we should. We have a federal government that's too – that’s too sort of just uncertain about steps to take on these issues. A lot of local communities are stepping up. YWCAs are stepping up, all kinds of local programs like I mentioned. But it's all the above. So it's treatment programs, it's giving – it’s giving police the tools they need to bust fentanyl sellers safely because this stuff is so dangerous, to cutting off the actual source of it, the precursor chemicals coming out of China, and what's happening in Mexico,
CHUCK TODD:
We see that –
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
– the crime syndicates.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me ask you about AMLO and the person that runs Mexico. Do you think he can be a trusted partner here? It seems as if both the Trump and Biden administrations have sort of cut a deal with AMLO. "You slow the flow of migrants, we'll look the other way on the other stuff." And looking the other way has meant not going after these cartels.
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
It's not in the Mexican government's interest that these cartels thrive the way they do. These are –
CHUCK TODD:
You say that. You sure he thinks that?
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
Well, I'm not sure what he thinks. But I can't imagine by any measure of any quantifiable measure there that he can think this is good for his country. These are blood-thirsty people that'll do anything to make this kind of money. There's always death surrounding. I don't even mean deaths of Americans and Mexicans that overdose, I mean deaths because you can't penetrate them. And we have people that know how to do that in this country. We have people that know how to do the sanctions. And it's too important for us to back off. I don’t think that – I think he sees it's not in his interest to do that. He's a civilized guy that understands power, but he understands that cooperation with us matters too.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you think it's possible that at the border, at the ports of entry, we could use technology to inspect every single person and thing that came over in order to stop fentanyl, or is that just –
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
I don't think nearly –
CHUCK TODD:
That's impossible?
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
First of all, it's probably impossible. And I would say presidents of both parties for years have failed at the border and have failed this whole issue of immigration at the border. So you can talk about all the technology. And I want the technology. I want our agents to have all the latest technology. Not just our agents, but our police and in Ohio, in Norwood, in Ohio, in Southern Ohio to have the kind of technology that could protect their lives and help them ferret this stuff out better. But I think that not nearly all the fentanyl through – comes across the border. That's why our bill that Scott and I worked on is so important because it will cut back on the production, because we can't stop it all from coming in because it comes in a whole bunch of different ways.
CHUCK TODD:
Right. Do you – this there – the fact that fentanyl comes in the country, does that mean we have an unsecured border? Or can we have a secure border and still have a fentanyl problem in this country?
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
We need a secure border. And we need Congress to actually work together on that, not just demagogue issue after issue. But even a secure border doesn't keep this stuff out, nor will our sanctions mean none is produced. Again, it's all the above. It's treatment. It's police work. It's sanctions. It's border protection. It's all that.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. Let me ask you this. In your entire adult lifetime and most of my entire lifetime, we have had a war on drugs. Drugs are winning. Is it simply that's just the way it is? It's always going to be Whack-a-Mole? There's always going to be a new drug, and there's always going to be a new something that we have to go get? Or is this something that we can culturally change on the demand side?
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
I like to think we learned something from the last – from other, quote-unquote, "wars on drugs." First of all, we've learned that you can't just imprison everybody. You just can't arrest, and arrest, and arrest your way out of it. That's why we have this all of the above approach, that we're going after the source. We're giving police more. We're doing better on treatment. We've never dealt with alcoholism in this country either. We've tried.
CHUCK TODD:
We tried Prohibition. We saw that that didn't work.
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
Yeah, we tried everything. Right. Right. I know lots of people who joined AA in their teens, their twenties, their thirties, and their lives have been really good, with temptations always around them. Some have committed suicide. Some have had all kinds of problems. So, I don't think we ever give up. But it's a human condition people have, of potential addiction.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. Senator Sherrod Brown –
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
Thanks, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
– appreciate you coming in.
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
Good to be back.
CHUCK TODD:
Like I said, this is one of those issues where I could tell there's not a lot of partisanship because everybody admits they don't have the answer.
SEN. SHERROD BROWN:
Yeah. Fair enough. Thank you.
CHUCK TODD:
Up next, Meet the Press has been covering the war on drugs for decades. We look back to what then-Senator Joe Biden had to say about President Clinton’s approach at the time.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. For President Biden, like so many American families, the issue of addiction is personal. His son Hunter Biden has fought a long-time drug addiction. In 1996, then-Senator Joe Biden joined a Meet the Press roundtable that was centered around the effort to curb drug use at the time, and he had some tough words for President Bill Clinton's approach.
[START TAPE]
SEN. JOE BIDEN:
I publicly stated that this president is silent on the matter. Now, what's the one thing that could deal with the kids? The one thing? To keep them from getting into the drug stream or, once they sniff it, to get out of it, no pun intended. There's only two things you can do: the moral disapprobation of society, the president starting it, though him speaking to it the most. Two, dealing with the things that work: the prevention programs, the education programs. This is about a society that does not provide enough opportunity for people living in certain areas, certain circumstances, that relate to jobs, homes, families. No drug policy's going to settle that.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
When we come back, are tougher laws the answer to solving this overdose crisis? Data Download is next.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back, Data Download time. It's been called the nation's longest war. And more than five decades in, many Americans are wondering, what have they gotten out of the time and money spent on the so-called War on Drugs? But different measures suggest that those policies have had limited success, if we can call it that, and have produced, at best, uneven impacts across the country. So let's start with the basics. The War on Drugs has not only been long, 52 years, it has been expensive – $39 billion last year. How about this? We have spent, in the 52 years, over a trillion dollars since we launched this so-called War on Drugs in 1971. And despite throwing all that money at it, the problem remains. In the '80s, we were talking about cocaine and crack cocaine. The last few years, it's opioids that have become the key driver to drug overdoses, with synthetic opioids, like fentanyl, the cheap culprit, as you can see here. And we showed this graph at the top of the show. The opioid deaths were eight and a half times higher in 2020 than in 1999. And synthetic opioids have been driving that spike much more than commonly-prescribed opioids, or even heroin. But just like in the '80s and '90s, not all Americans are being impacted equally. In 2018, as you can see here, white Americans actually had a higher opioid overdose death rate than the nation – 18.8 per 100,000 in the population, versus 14.6 for Americans overall and 14.1 for Black Americans, according to the CDC. But look at this. In just the last three years, the rate for Black Americans has skyrocketed, more than doubled to 33.5 per 100,000 in the population. The figure for white Americans has also climbed, to 28.4 per 100,000. The overall figure also has climbed, to 24.7 per 100,000. But these numbers for Black Americans obviously stand apart. And guess what? At the same time, the number of convictions for fentanyl trafficking has gone way up – more than 450%, from 422 offenders in 2018 to more than 2,300 last year. And once again, it is Black Americans being hit the hardest. Let me show you this. Black offenders make up the largest share of fentanyl convictions, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. About 41% of offenders were Black, 39% were Hispanic. Whites made up a much smaller portion of fentanyl convictions, at about 19%. So in other words, despite 50-plus years of action, drug overdoses, over-convictions, largely due to fentanyl, and Black Americans are bearing the brunt of this crisis now on both ends – addiction and incarceration. When we come back, our panel of experts who have been on the frontlines of this crisis for years.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. Joining me now are three guests who have been on the frontlines of this fentanyl crisis, and frankly, of the drug overdose crisis for some time: former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot -- she'd been a prosecutor as well before that; Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a medical director of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative and President of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing; and Jan Rader, the former fire chief in Huntington, West Virginia, director of the Huntington Mayor's Council of Public Health and Drug Control Policy. Welcome to all of you. I'm going to start with the former elected official here. You've been on the frontlines. You were a prosecutor, this touched your own family, with your brother. Where are we today versus where we were in the '90s?
FMR. MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT:
Well, look, I think the good news coming out of Chicago is that we are really focused on harm reduction and treatment. We have decades of evidence, as you indicated earlier in your show, that the war on drugs was not a success. It didn't stop the problem. And at the local level, what we have to focus on is how do we help these folks? We get them to turn their lives around. And we've done a couple things in Chicago. Number one is we made sure Narcan is available literally everywhere. I remember going into libraries and talking to librarians about their fear in certain areas of our city, where addiction was very high, about finding people in bathrooms that had OD'd. So we made sure we got Narcan out everywhere. Fentanyl test strips. It's critically important. And particularly because what we're seeing is not only a huge number of African American males – 45 to 64 are the hardest hit population – but we're now starting to see younger people who had no interest in opioids, but were taking other drugs, and finding that they also are now laced with fentanyl.
CHUCK TODD:
Laced with, laced with the stuff. Jan, we first met six years ago when the issue was heroin.
JAN RADER:
Yes. Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
And this is -- we're talking about an urban community in Chicago. We're talking about Huntington, West Virginia, a more rural community. Talk about the transition from what you were fighting with heroin addiction. I remember you were the ones going, "I want to get these little Narcans in everybody's -- " I remember you talking about that.
JAN RADER:
Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
So now, what is fentanyl like?
JAN RADER:
Well, it's worse. You know, 2017 was our worst year in Cabell County, West Virginia, a county of 92K. And that year, we had 202 deaths from overdoses. And more than 70% of those were from fentanyl. And that was the year that fentanyl really came into our area. It’s tougher – gets tougher, you know, gets tougher to save lives because that one time that they overdose can be it.
CHUCK TODD:
Is there any best practice you've seen or developed or tried to work with in the six last years that you think is worth pursuing?
JAN RADER:
I think that what we need to do is stay focused on each individual and be kind. And to realize that these are the most fragile people. It's very shame-based, it's guilt-based. And we need to provide them with the self-worth that they need to accept the treatment.
CHUCK TODD:
You feel like we need a cultural change?
JAN RADER:
I think we need a cultural change, because still today the number one barrier is stigma.
CHUCK TODD:
More than anything else. Dr. Kolodny, look, you're part of this group for Physicians for Responsible Opioid, but that's been the problem, right? I mean, many doctors made us addicts.
DR. ANDREW KOLODNY:
Yeah. And, you know, I heard earlier you asked the Ohio senators, "Why does Ohio have an especially severe problem?"
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah.
DR. ANDREW KOLODNY:
I think one of the best answers to the question about why some geographic areas have been hit harder than others boils down to exactly what you're asking about: prescription opioids. We have good data that tells us that the opioid crisis is most severe in the regions of the country where opioids were prescribed most aggressively, like --
CHUCK TODD:
Direct line? You believe there's a direct research line?
DR. ANDREW KOLODNY:
Oh, there's no question about it. And to really make sense of what's happening right now with fentanyl, it's important to understand that we, roughly speaking, have three groups of opioid addicted Americans. We have an older, non-white group, mostly Black men, who became addicted to heroin many years ago and were long time heroin users, who are dying at a very high rate right now because of fentanyl in the heroin supply. And then we have the two groups of opioid-addicted Americans who became opioid addicted post-1996. Their addiction began with prescription opioids. It's a younger group that switched from prescription opioids to heroin, and is also dying at a very high rate from fentanyl right now. And then there's a middle-aged and older group of white Americans that became addicted to prescription opioids that are actually doing a little bit better right now, since doctors have started to prescribe more cautiously.
CHUCK TODD:
So Jan, trying to deal with this, look, in West Virginia, I believe they now have a drug-induced homicide law, right, that's called -- that’s labeled as first-degree-murder. Is that the way out of this?
JAN RADER:
I don't think so. That's not – you know, to me, a strict law like that is going to stop somebody from calling 911 when somebody overdoses. So that makes that event more deadly.
CHUCK TODD:
What do you want from the Biden administration? Or what would you have needed from any administration, forget whether it's Biden or whoever, because this is a, I think, an above politics issue?
FMR. MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT:
Look, every mayor's going to tell you that they need more resources. What we've seen that's been successful is the things that I talked about before, but we've also I think done a lot with diversion at the police station. So our public health department, led by, I think, our gifted commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, has worked directly with our police department. The people that we are diverting at the police station, 73% of them we don't see again.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you have enough -- so you have police -- right now, I know every city's still trying to hire more police officers, just in general.
FMR. MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT:
Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
And you have to have also police officers that know how to deal with overdose.
FMR. MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT:
What we have done is we've stood up two types of teams, one that is got law enforcement involved, but really the social worker takes the lead for these particular calls. We've done a lot of training with our 911 call takers and dispatchers. But we have a separate team that's focused on opioid use and abuse. That's the team that's going out there, that's responding, that's educating, that's working one on one, as Chief Rader said. But we've got to make sure that we use every tool in our toolkit. And it's -- soft power is more, much more effective than the hard power of law enforcement for this particular problem.
CHUCK TODD:
Dr. Kolodny, I know the research is not fully there yet, trying to find, frankly, a drug that can help people not be addicted, right, in some form of this. Is that going to be our way out of this on the demand side?
DR. ANDREW KOLODNY:
Well, we do have good treatments for opioid addiction. And I think to bring down overdose deaths in the short run, if we saw that people had better access to the most effective treatments, and I'm talking about a medication called Buprenorphine – Methadone maintenance can also be helpful for many people who are opioid-addicted – if opioid addicted individuals had better access to these --
CHUCK TODD:
Should that be over-the-counter?
DR. ANDREW KOLODNY:
No, it should not be over-the-counter, because these are also -- even though they're very good treatments for addiction, they can be addictive and dangerous.
CHUCK TODD:
But should every firehouse have this?
DR. ANDREW KOLODNY:
Every firehouse should have Naloxone for reversing overdose deaths. But treating addiction should really be done within the healthcare system. And if someone who is opioid addicted could more easily access effective treatments than they could access --
JAN RADER:
That's right.
DR. ANDREW KOLODNY:
-- fentanyl, or heroin --
CHUCK TODD:
Right.
DR. ANDREW KOLODNY:
– or prescription opioids, I really do think we'd see overdose deaths starting to come down.
CHUCK TODD:
And Jan, what about getting folks to ask for help?
JAN RADER:
You know --
CHUCK TODD:
That still, is that still a barrier?
JAN RADER:
That's still tough. It's a barrier. And just like the mayor said, you know, we, we have a team like that too. We have two teams. We have a team that goes out within 72 hours after you overdose and offers you treatment options. It's called a Quick Response Team. And then we have a police officer paired with a mental health care provider to respond in the moment. But I think that we need to change our thinking and how we treat those that are suffering with substance use disorder, because they are very fragile individuals.
CHUCK TODD:
Addicts - this is a disease. This is not something that we should be shaming these people. We should be helping. Thank you for this. That's all we have for today. Thank you for watching. Please enjoy the 4th of July weekend safely. We'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.
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