There’s a rare point of agreement among Republican and Democratic candidates this election year: the U.S. has a drug problem and it’s fentanyl traffickers’ fault.
Republicans, including Donald Trump, are hammering Democrats over border policies they say have allowed fentanyl to surge into the country. Democrats, including Vice President Harris, respond that they, too, have cracked down on traffickers and want stricter border enforcement.
The consensus reflects the resonance of border control among voters — most fentanyl comes from Mexico — and a hardening of the nation’s attitude toward addiction. Troubled by drug use, homelessness and crime, voters even in the most progressive states favor cracking down. Politicians from Trump and Harris on down the ballot say they will, reports Politico.
“It’s one of those things that people don’t want in their community,” said Rep. Jahana Hayes, a Democrat running for a fourth term representing a district including suburbs of Hartford, Connecticut, and rural areas to their west. “They want a tough-on-crime stance on it. They want it to go away. They’re afraid for their families, they’re afraid for their children.”
That worries public health experts and treatment advocates, who see a backsliding toward the law enforcement focus that once looked futile in the face of the nation's insatiable appetite for drugs. They fear it bodes ill for more federal efforts to expand addiction care.
“There are a lot of things that both parties can point to, as far as progress that’s been made in addressing overdoses: We’ve seen bipartisan efforts to expand access to treatment, to expand access to health services for people who use drugs, and I wish they would talk about that more,” said Maritza Perez Medina of Drug Policy Action, an advocacy group that opposes the law enforcement-first approach.
Six years ago, when a bipartisan majority in Congress passed the SUPPORT Act to inject billions of dollars into treatment and recovery services, and then-President Trump signed it, the vibes in Washington around drug use were more empathetic.
After it passed, fatal drug overdoses driven by illicit fentanyl skyrocketed, hitting a record 111,451 in the 12 months ending in August 2023 before starting to recede. Homelessness, sometimes tied to drug addiction, also spiked.
When the SUPPORT Act came up for renewal last year, Congress wasn’t sos motivated. The Democratic Senate hasn’t voted on a bill, while a House-passed measure from the chamber’s GOP majority offers few new initiatives and no new money.
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