Mastriano Announces Measure Toughening Penalties for Fentanyl Pushers in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) on Thursday announced he will soon introduce legislation to strengthen penalties for fentanyl pushers whose sales result in deadly overdoses. 

The senator is naming his measure “Tyler’s Law” after Tyler Shanafelter, an 18-year-old constituent who bought what he believed was Percocet but turned out to have acquired a fentanyl-laced product. The young man fatally overdosed. 

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Border Authorities Seize Enough Fentanyl to Kill Millions

Border authorities in Texas seized 22 pounds of fentanyl worth $339,300 that a smuggler was attempting to drive into the U.S. on Wednesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says that 2 milligrams of fentanyl can be enough to kill a person, 22 pounds is 9,979,032 milligrams. Applying the DEA’s own metrics, this means the latest seizure is enough to kill 4,989,516 people.

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Drug Enforcement Administration Issues First Public Safety Alert in over Half a Decade After Surges in Illicit Fentanyl

Fentanyl

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) issued a Public Safety Alert Monday warning of the surge in illegal fake painkillers combined with illicit fentanyl or methamphetamine.

The Public Safety Alert, the first warning in six years, highlighted the surge in fentanyl and methamphetamine-laced pills mass produced by criminal drug groups, which are killing Americans at a historic rate, according to a DEA press release.

“The United States is facing an unprecedented crisis of overdose deaths fueled by illegally manufactured fentanyl and methamphetamine,” Anne Milgram, administrator of the DEA, said in the press release.

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