Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody once again raised concerns on Thursday about the influx of illicit fentanyl into the state from Mexico.
She, along with Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Mark Glass and Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods, discussed the state’s ongoing efforts to address the issue.
Moody pointed out that law enforcement in Florida is actively identifying drugs with direct ties to Mexican cartels. Describing the border crisis as an “untenable situation,” she emphasized that this is a challenge the United States has not faced until recent years.
Expressing satisfaction with the U.S. House’s impeachment of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Moody reiterated her previous calls to Congress for this action.
Ultimately, she placed responsibility for the border crisis on President Joe Biden, asserting that it is his duty to halt the flow of illicit fentanyl from Mexico into the United States.
“The responsibility lies with the president to control fentanyl supply at the border and keep our states safe. If we secure the border, Florida will be much better off,” she stated.
Moody revealed new statewide data on drug-related deaths in Florida for the year 2022, as per the annual report from the Florida Medical Examiners’ Drugs in Deceased Persons.
Fentanyl emerged as the most frequently detected drug (6,230 instances) and the leading cause of death, accounting for 5,622 fatalities in 2022.
The report distinguishes between drugs identified as the primary cause of death and those found in the deceased individuals.
The figures are based on a subset of 15,592 deaths identified by state medical examiners as drug-related, representing approximately half of the 35,429 deaths investigated out of a total of more than 242,595 deaths in 2022.
Additionally, the report highlights a 42% increase in deaths attributed to fentanyl analogs compared to the previous year.
Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods expressed concern, noting that fentanyl continues to enter the country daily. Over the past three years in his county, there have been 221 fentanyl-related deaths, with 11 reported so far this year.
“We are never going to arrest our way out of this,” Woods stated, emphasizing the need for multi-agency collaboration as well as public and corporate partnerships in interdiction and preventative measures. He declared, “We have to partner together on the state level, with individuals because it is not a law enforcement issue, it’s a societal issue.”
Their announcement followed the seizure of sufficient amounts of fentanyl by Florida law enforcement officials in various operations, enough to potentially harm the entire population of Florida.
Similarly, Texas law enforcement officials have confiscated enough fentanyl to pose a threat to the entire populations of both the United States and Canada, as reported by The Center Square.
Additionally, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents seized an amount of fentanyl during the first two fiscal years of the Biden administration that could potentially harm nearly 5 billion people.
Furthermore, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents confiscated over 386 million lethal doses of fentanyl last year, marking the highest single-year seizure in the history of the agency.
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