Fentanyl is killing Americans. U.S. House passes Buchanan’s bill to punish the Chinese

U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan has been pushing to punish China for failing to curb the flow of deadly synthetic opioids into the U.S.

On Wednesday, Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, scored an initial victory when a bill he co-authored was included in the passage of the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Buchanan, whose district has been hard by the opioid epidemic, began the fight in April when he introduced the Fentanyl Sanctions Act in a bi-partisan effort with Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass.

The bill, if passed by the U.S. Senate and signed by President Donald Trump, would impose economic penalties on China-based drug manufacturers that knowingly send synthetic opioids to drug traffickers and criminal operations.

“For too long, fentanyl and other opioids have continued to wreak havoc on communities in Florida and across the country,” Buchanan said in a prepared statement on Thursday. “We need to hold Beijing accountable for any lack of progress controlling the fentanyl freely flowing out of their country.”

Drug deaths nationwide involving fentanyl or other synthetic opioids have skyrocketed by more than 1,000 percent in the past six years, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Fentanyl killing Manatee County residents

In Manatee County this year — just through July — there were 110 confirmed overdose deaths, according to the medical examiner’s office, who predicted that number would climb because it takes time for toxicology results to confirm the deaths. There were 151 deaths in 2018 and 260 in 2017.

Forty-four of the fatal overdoses this year through July were confirmed to be from fentanyl. Buchanan said that number has risen to 61 through the end of October.

“This is a frightening development considering that just a few years ago the number of overdoses were declining,” Buchanan said.

Buchanan’s latest effort comes on the heels of his Centralized Opioid Guidance Act signed into law last year, which creates a national database on the best ways for patients to manage pain and avoid opioid addiction.

Two other Buchanan-backed bills were signed last year, including the INTERDICT Act to help stem the flow of opioids and the STOP Act to toughen screening of overseas shipments of deadly synthetic drugs.