Valley leaders celebrate new fentanyl crackdown law

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – President Biden signed a spending bill into law last week that included Senator Sherrod Brown’s FEND Off Fentanyl Act.

It’s a bill that got a big boost in January from country music star Jelly Roll at a Senate hearing.

“And Jelly Roll talked about how his sister was the only one in his family who had escaped addiction, and so it had been a multi-generational thing,” Brown said.

Fentanyl has killed over 70,000 Americans. DEA agents said they seized a record-breaking 386 million fentanyl doses across the USA last year — enough to kill every American.

“And it poses a clear and present danger to our communities and law enforcement as a whole across the country,” said Trumbull County Sheriff Paul Monroe.

“Our duty extends beyond that need and to try to put an end to the influx of fentanyl in our communities by arresting those responsible,” said Capt. Jason Simon, with the Youngstown Police Department.

The FEND Off Fentanyl Act first declares the trafficking of fentanyl as a national emergency.
It tries to stop the drug at its source, with the drug trafficking organizations in foreign countries.

“We make it harder for them to make money from this if we’re freezing their assets and keeping them out of the banking system,” Brown said.

“Targeting the traffickers and dismantling their fentanyl distribution networks is a huge step toward eliminating this dangerous drug from entering our communities,” said Mahoning County Prosecutor Gin DeGenova.

Echoing the problem with fentanyl, the Youngstown Police Department said it responded to two overdose deaths over the weekend, both believed to be fentanyl-related.

Monroe said the county averages an overdose every day and an overdose death every three days.

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