Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has called on the U. S. State Department to increase its pressure on China to stop the flow of deadly fentanyl reaching Kansas and the Nation as a whole.
Schmidt joined a letter, sent with 15 other Attorneys General, to U. S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken outlining their concerns about the production and distribution of fentanyl. They are asking Blinken and the Department to step up efforts to curb China’s production and exporting of fentanyl precursors and Mexico’s failure to prevent the drug’s manufacture and shipment to the United States. Overdoses from the drug have skyrocketed.
The KDHE reports there was a 54% increase from 2020 to 2021. Fentanyl has been smuggled into the United States from Mexico in alarming quantities. Today, most fentanyl available in the United States has been trafficked from Mexico across the U. S. Southwest border. Seizures of fentanyl at the border have more than doubled in the past two years.
