Angel mom says current border policies are contributing to US drug overdoses
Angel Mom and Founder of Parents Against Illicit Narcotics Virginia Krieger discusses how current U.S. border policies are contributing to illegal drugs crossing into the U.S.
Current border policies under the Biden administration have allowed China’s criminal "partnership" with Mexican cartels to flourish after U.S. drug overdose deaths hit a new record in 2020, according to the founder of the group Parents Against Illicit Narcotics.
"This partnership in combination with our current border policies have allowed this fentanyl to continuously pour over the Southwest border practically unabated," PAIN founder Virginia Krieger said Thursday on "America's Newsroom."
Krieger, who lost her daughter Tiffany Leigh Robertson to a fentanyl overdose in 2015, warned that the flow of drugs into the United States has caused a "fentanyl poisoning" crisis, wherein online sellers have targeted unaware American teenagers with fraudulent prescriptions filled with the potent synthetic opioid analgesic.
This, in addition to contaminated party drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamines, has affected an "entirely new population"--mainly teenagers – who were previously not a major sector of the substance abuse community. Krieger said that a significant portion of these teens were first-time users when they overdosed.
"Children should learn from their mistakes — they shouldn’t die from them," she said.
According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), fentanyl is between 50 and 100 times stronger than morphine, an opiate used in hospitals to treat serious pain.
In 2020, 93,331 Americans died from drug overdoses, a 29% increase from the previous year.
"Every parent out there needs to talk to their young teens and young adults, especially college and high school students, so that they’re aware of this very new and very inherent danger," Krieger added.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) issued a nationwide report in the summer of 2016 indicating hundreds of thousands of counterfeit prescription pills had been entering the U.S. drug market since 2014, with some of the pills containing deadly levels of fentanyl.
"The current fentanyl crisis continues to expand in size and scope across the United States," according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
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