The War on Fentanyl Is Working, But It’s Not Over
No one has taught me more about the curse of fentanyl than my friend Blair County Sheriff Jim Ott. Jim lost his 33-year-old son Josh to fentanyl. Now he goes into schools across the Commonwealth and tells kids the truth: one pill can kill. Jim's grief and tragedy are not unique. Too many Pennsylvania families have been devastated by this drug.
On the campaign, I promised to do everything in my power to stop it. We’ve made progress, but there is more to do. That’s why I am in Allentown today with FBI Director Kash Patel meeting with Jim and other families struck by fentanyl and with law enforcement working to stop this crisis.
From 2020 to 2024, fentanyl killed an average of 4,000 Pennsylvanians a year. Preliminary data suggests that in 2025, that number fell to roughly 1,500 — the lowest in a decade. Nationally, drug overdose deaths have dropped from a peak of more than 114,000 to about 71,500, the lowest level in nearly five years.
This is real progress. But a thousand dead Pennsylvanians is unacceptable. We have made great strides cutting off the flow of fentanyl into our communities. Now we must double down on reducing demand, investing in recovery, and staying ahead of emerging drug threats.
The first order of business, when I took office last year, was to cut off the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. by securing the border, going after the cartels, and uniting federal efforts to take the drug off our streets. This is exactly what President Trump and Republican majorities in Congress have done.
Fentanyl originates in China, where the Communist Party turns a blind eye to precursor chemical production, launders drug money, and enables Mexican cartels to refine and traffic it across our border. Under the Biden administration, the border was wide open — and the effects were devastating: 300,000 Americans dead.
President Trump took decisive action. Backed by $165 billion in DHS funding in the One Big Beautiful Bill, which I proudly voted for, he closed the border, driving crossings to near zero. He imposed tariffs on China in response to their role in the crisis and designated cartels as foreign terrorist organizations — bringing the full weight of the U.S. government against them. Now drug boats sit at the bottom of the Caribbean and narco-terrorist-in-chief Nicolás Maduro is in handcuffs.
In the Senate, I have worked with the Administration to ensure federal resources focus on this mission. The first bill I introduced directed the FBI, DHS, DOJ, Treasury, Defense, and the Intelligence Community to unite their efforts to disrupt trafficking networks and cut off the financial flows that fuel this trade. The Administration has since stood up interagency Homeland Security Task Forces — including in Philadelphia — that are breaking down the bureaucratic barriers that let these networks thrive.
We also enacted legislation that permanently classified fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I — the strictest federal designation — and directed the State Department to develop a real strategy to dismantle the cartels, with accountability and metrics.
But interdiction alone is not enough. Fentanyl remains the leading cause of death for Americans between 18 and 44 and killed one thousand Pennsylvanians last year. That’s one thousand too many.
While we have made great progress to cut off the supply of this drug, we must address why so many Americans are vulnerable in the first place and ensure that those fighting addiction have a real path back.
That starts with access to what works: medication-assisted treatment, recovery housing, sustained support, and naloxone. These tools are saving lives. Last year I visited the Light of Life rescue mission in Pittsburgh with HUD Secretary Turner and met with former addicts rebuilding their lives through the dedicated support of the good people working there. We need more services like it, and we need investment that matches the scale of the crisis: more funding for treatment, more support for community organizations on the ground, and more research into what keeps people in recovery.
We must also stay ahead of what's coming next. I recently introduced a bill to classify all nitazenes under Schedule I and close the loopholes Chinese traffickers exploit to bring them to our streets. These are synthetic opioids up to forty times more potent than fentanyl, often hidden in counterfeit pills, missed by routine toxicology screens, and with no medical use. We are also working to contain xylazine, a veterinary tranquilizer that causes severe tissue damage and resists naloxone, and medetomidine, a dangerous sedative increasingly showing up in Pennsylvania's drug supply.
Our country responded too slowly to fentanyl. We cannot make that mistake again.
I think about Jim Ott — a father who turned the worst loss imaginable into a mission to save other people's kids. His fight is my fight. I am proud to stand with Jim and so many others fighting to end this terrible scourge today. And I will not stop fighting until I can look every Pennsylvania parent in the eye and say I did everything I could to stop this scourge.
