When Americans turn on their television news, they get a front row seat to the latest congressional drama or some other partisan fight between Republican and Democrat politicians. At the end of the day, petty arguments and mudslinging is not what Americans truly care about. Instead, they care about kitchen table issues like education, crime and inflation that affect their families and their communities.
One issue that has captivated and hit home personally with many Americans is the ongoing fentanyl crisis. Our country has had a drug problem for many years, but that crisis intensified with the start of the opioid crisis that to date has killed more Americans than the war in Vietnam. This loss has been magnified by the introduction of fentanyl into the illicit drug pipeline. We still don’t have an easy answer, but we can make inroads with the proper political will.
Every community in America has been touched by the fentanyl crisis. I have worked in the criminal justice field as both a prosecutor and defense attorney for two and a half decades. I can tell you that the actual risk to our communities and our children from dangerous illicit drugs has never been greater than it is right now. The easy flow of fentanyl into our country from drug cartels eager to profit from our suffering has effectively gone unchecked at our broken southern border.
While we continue to hear the heartbreaking stories of families losing loved ones, we still have not properly addressed this crisis and it has only continued to worsen under the failed leadership of President Biden. Since the president assumed office nearly three years ago, Texas officials have intercepted more than 383 million lethal doses — enough to kill every man, woman, and child in the U.S.Yet that represents only a small fraction of what otherwise easily makes its way across our border and into our communities each and every day.
This reality should shock and disturb every American. A failure of leadership like this has consequences eventually reaches places like Virginia. In fact, more than 7,300 fatal fentanyl overdoses occurred in the Commonwealth from 2013 to 2021, according to the Virginia Department of Health.
So, what are our leaders doing to attempt to address this crisis? During the 2023 legislative session, the Virginia General Assembly passed seven primarily Republican-backed bills to take the epidemic head on, including legislation that would increase charges for dealers who knowingly and intentionally distribute fentanyl and redefine the drug as a weapon of terrorism. The most notable of these bills were HB1642 and SB881, which would have charged dealers of fentanyl with felony homicide if they were found guilty of killing someone through distribution of this lethal narcotic.
These identical bills never made it to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) desk, however, because the Democrat-controlled Senate blocked the legislation in committee. It was both frustrating and inexplicable to have Democrat state senators like John Edwards publicly saying, “It’s a drug that can kill you, and we want to raise the punishment because it’s more than just selling something else,” but then voting to kill the bill.
This kind of political gamesmanship is not only irresponsible, but it shows that Virginia Democrats truly have no interest in solving this epidemic that has already ravaged Virginia communities without regard to geography, affluence, or partisan makeup. It’s even more shocking when you find out that these same Democrats joined Republicans back in 2019 in supporting the same bill, only to have then-Gov. Ralph Northam (D) provide them with a backstop with his cowardly veto of the bill.
Organizations like the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) have raised awareness to this malice by Democrats by releasing a slate of digital ads focusing Virginia Democrats’ defeat of this legislation. The ads will hopefully remind Virginians that Senate Democrats’ so-called “brick wall” is actually a nothing more than barrier to common sense and safer communities.
With drug overdoses now the leading cause of unnatural death in Virginia, it’s time to properly address this crisis before even more Virginia families suffer the loss of loved ones from this deadly drug. Virginians will have a choice this fall to hold Joe Biden and his Democrat allies in Virginia accountable for their actions. It’s time for Virginians to get behind Republicans running in key legislative seats so that Gov. Youngkin can muster the support he needs to enact meaningful solutions to put an end to this epidemic in Virginia once and for all.
Todd Gilbert is Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates.