Fentanyl ‘unleashed on purpose’ in US by cartels

Attorney General Merrick Garland told senators Wednesday that the fentanyl epidemic ravaging the US has been “unleashed on purpose by the Sinaloa and the new generation Jalisco cartels” — as lawmakers pressed him for a plan to stop the deadly drug.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) kicked off the hearing by telling Garland that ranking member Lindsey Graham (r-SC) had “basically challenged me — and I accept the challenge — to show as much concern about the gun deaths, show as much concern about fentanyl deaths in this country, and I want to do that.”

When Graham’s turn came to speak, he said that lawmakers needed to “up our game when it comes to fentanyl.” and asked why the Justice Department was not designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations or upping mandatory minimum sentences for knowing fentanyl dealers.

“There is no strategy that I can discern about how to deal with the poisoning of Americans through fentanyl,” Graham added.

Garland deflected many of Graham’s questions, referring him variously to the Defense Department, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security.

He also put the onus on the Mexican government, saying it was “helping us, but they could do much more. There’s no question about that.”

“We do what we can do with respect to the jurisdictions that we have,” he said, noting that he has “personally met with the families of children and teenagers and young adults and even the elderly who have taken these pills.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) laid blame on the Biden administration for the state of affairs, pointing to a porous southern border overwhelmed by drug traffickers.

He also noted a December 2022 DOJ memo that recommended prosecutors not enforce mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug crimes.

“You’ve arrogated to yourself the decision to make policy by saying that in spite of the fact that there are mandatory minimum sentences for many of these drug crimes — which are now causing untold death and destruction across America — you’re telling prosecutors, ‘Don’t charge those if they involve a mandatory minimum sentence,’” Cornyn charged.

After Garland insisted the memo’s recommendation did not apply to violent crimes or drug trafficking, Cornyn accused the AG of “cherry-picking which cases that you will charge with a mandatory minimum sentence and not applying them uniformly and charging the most serious crime that can be proven at trial.”

“If we apply it to every single crime,” Garland said, “we will not be able to focus our resources on violent crime, significant drug trafficking, one the cartels, on the people who are killing people with fentanyl. So the purpose here is to focus the attention of our prosecutors and agents on the things that are damaging the American people in the largest possible respect.”

“At 108,000, roughly, Americans who died as a result of drug overdoses last year, 71,000, roughly, of fentanyl overdoses, do you consider your current policy successful?” Cornyn asked.

“We have a huge epidemic of fentanyl, created by intentional acts by the cartels,” Garland reiterated. “We are doing everything we can, within our resources, to fight that.”