Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s FEND Off Fentanyl Act signed into law

Aid for Ukraine may be the most consequential part of the foreign aid measures Congress recently approved, and President Joe Biden signed into law, but U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown is highlighting a different policy change wrapped into the effort. The Ohio Democrat’s FEND Off Fentanyl Act was part of a wide-ranging bill including provisions to use frozen Russian assets and potentially force the sale of TikTok.

“Our legislation would impose new, more powerful sanctions targeting the entire fentanyl supply chain,” Brown said in a recent conference call, “from the chemical suppliers in China to the Mexican cartels that traffic the drugs into our country.”

Passage of Brown’s measure comes nearly a year to the day after he and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC, introduced the idea. The proposal declares fentanyl trafficking a national emergency and places new sanctions on the leaders of trafficking organizations. The measure also gives the U.S. Treasury Department more latitude to combat money laundering tied to trafficking and gives officials the authority to make use of forfeited property for law enforcement efforts.

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“Law enforcement in Ohio and around the country made it clear that we needed more tools to stop fentanyl at its source,” Brown said in a statement shortly after President Biden signed the bill into law.

“Because of our work together, those tools are now law and can begin to be put to use going after the cartels,” he added. “Today is an important step in our fight to stop the illicit fentanyl that is flooding Ohio communities.”

The opioid crisis

In 2021, the most recent national data, more than 80,400 Americans died of an opioid overdose. Those figures, from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, portray a sharp increase in overdose deaths — the number of fatalities effectively doubled in just five years.

In a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state-by-state comparison of mortality from any drug, Ohio lands near the top. In terms of raw number of overdose deaths, the state had the fifth most in 2021, and in terms of rate, it landed at seventh.

Fentanyl has been particularly deadly. According to preliminary state figures from Ohio, 81% of unintentional overdose deaths in 2022 involved the drug. Ohio’s overdose deaths overall declined by about 5% compared to the peak in 2021. But even then, 2022 saw more than 4,900 Ohioans die from an overdose. More than 3,900 of those were related to fentanyl.

The organization Harm Reduction Ohio tracks data from the state’s mortality database, and while it notes official reporting is still months away, 2023 is on track to see another modest decline.

Still, addressing opioid abuse is, and has been, a priority for politicians from both parties at the local, state and federal level. Brown and his former Senate colleague Republican Rob Portman teamed up on several measures during their time together.

Fighting the opioid crisis also remains a perennial feature in campaign ads and political debates. Brown’s campaign team, for instance, was quick to seize on Republican Bernie Moreno’s statement that he would’ve supported aid to Israel but not the broader package of legislation.

Although Moreno, who’s challenging Brown for his Senate seat this November, didn’t weigh in on the FEND Off Fentanyl Act specifically, Ohio Democrats painted Moreno’s dismissal as part of a broader rejection of bipartisanship.

In line with former president Donald Trump, Moreno vehemently opposed an earlier Senate bill pairing Ukraine funding with several conservative immigration policy changes. In an interview with the Ohio Press Network, Moreno insisted, “I did read all 357 pages,” and it “highlights every single thing that’s wrong with Washington D.C.”

“It’s grotesque, it’s disgusting, and I would do everything in my power to make certain that something like that bill never got passed,” Moreno said.

Brown’s FEND Off Fentanyl Act was included on page 225.

After this story was published, Moreno spokeswoman Reagan McCarthy offered additional context.

“Bernie is happy to see any action to stop the flow of fentanyl into our country and would have supported this as a standalone bill,” McCarthy said before criticizing Brown’s “long record of supporting open border policies that have exacerbated the fentanyl crisis.”

In particular she cited a 2022 vote in which Brown opposed funding for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to “better detect fentanyl coming across the border.” It’s an apparent reference to an amendment offered by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, during the Senate’s vote-a-rama on the Inflation Reduction Act. That proposal would’ve earmarked $500 million to install vehicle scanners at the southern border, among other provisions dealing with oil and gas leases and building energy codes.

However, here again the Senate bill Moreno called ‘grotesque’ carried similar provisions — setting aside $424.5 million for the “acquisition and deployment of non-intrusive inspection technology.” Notably, the acting director of Customs and Border Protection as well as the head of the Border Patrol union both endorsed the measure at the time.

The FEND off Fentanyl Act

Brown’s package of sanctions and anti-money laundering provisions has the backing of several law enforcement organizations including the Fraternal Order of Police, National Association of Police Officers, the National Sheriff’s Association.

Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn joined Sen. Brown’s call with reporters earlier this week and praised the measure for targeting the flow of drugs into the country.

“Fentanyl is ravaging our communities and killing our citizens, and we must stop the flow at the source immediately,” he said.

He referenced a recent Congressional report that shows the Chinese government is directly subsidizing the production of fentanyl precursors so long as they’re sold outside China. Once they cross the ocean, those chemicals are fueling massive trafficking enterprises.

“They’re making billions — with the B — a year, and we have to stop that,” Wasylyshyn said. “As long as they’re making that kind of money, they’re going to do whatever it takes to get through this.”

Brown described hearing the same concerns from law enforcement over and over again.

“In Youngstown or Toledo, Cincinnati or Cleveland, Zanesville, Columbus, Bowling Green,” Brown said, “law enforcement tells us one of the best ways we can support them in this fight is by doing more to keep it from reaching Ohio in the first place.”

Follow OCJ Reporter Nick Evans on Twitter.