WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Angus King spoke to top intelligence officials about the immediate need to address the opioid crisis that is causing around 300 American deaths per day, and costing Maine. In an open hearing of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee (SSCI), King asked Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray about what the intelligence community is doing to help the government halt the flow of illicit drugs — including fentanyl — from Mexico, China and other nations in the United States.

Later in the exchange, Senator King pointed out that the U.S. Senate passed the National Security Act of 2024 a month ago — including King-supported provisions to crack down on fentanyl trafficking from China and Mexico — which sits in limbo in the House of Representatives. DNI Haines responded to King that this legislation would allow the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to “do greater detection” of the flow of deadly opioids into the United States.

“Who controls Mexico? Is the government of Mexico in control, or the cartels in control? And how do we how do we get at the problem of the drugs and the fentanyl? By the way, I did a little calculation a minute ago — about 15 people have died in this country of overdoses, mostly fentanyl, since this hearing started an hour and 20 minutes ago. That’s how serious this problem is. One a day in my state of Maine. How do we get control of this problem? […] Maybe this is a DHS question, but Director Wray, do we know how fentanyl is actually getting in? How does it get into the U.S.,” questioned Senator King.

“It’s coming through a variety of means, including at ports of entry. But there’s a variety of ways it gets in; part of the challenge of fentanyl is of course how small it is, and how easy it is to conceal, and how easy it is to be innovative in ways to get it across the border,” answered Wray. “The vast majority of the fentanyl that’s killing Americans is of course coming from Mexico, and the vast majority of the precursors for that fentanyl is coming from China.

“I should mention that in the supplemental that’s pending in the house, which focuses on Ukraine, there’s also a major fentanyl blocking provision that would be very important to this country to be acted on as soon as possible,” said Senator King. “Director, and you're nodding, but the record doesn't show nodding. Can you?”

“Yes, absolutely. It's not coming to the intelligence community in that case, but there are funding obviously for the capacity to do greater detection and things like that — that DHS would be deploying I believe, among other,” responded Haines. “And absolutely agree that this is a fundamental issue. And we can also talk more in closed session about some of the organizational things that we're looking to do.

“But we have a major bill to address fentanyl in that supplemental if we can get that out of its limbo in the house,” concluded Senator King.

Between January and December 2023 Maine saw 607 confirmed and suspected fatal drug overdoses, with researchers finding that fentanyl continues to show up in most overdoses deaths — appearing in about 78% of confirmed cases.

###