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Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I come to the floor today to discuss what anybody ought to discuss with a heavy heart because when it comes to fighting drug abuse, the United States seems to be losing.

Over 100,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses in the last year alone. These casualties could have been prevented by better drug prevention, treatment, and intervention, but the brunt of this epidemic is due to drug trafficking organizations. Cartels fuel the flames of drug abuse, often using violence and causing devastating loss of life.

Drug traffickers lace street drugs with fentanyl, making deadly drugs even more lethal. And, of course, we all know that most or all of that fentanyl comes from China. China is winning a war, killing Americans through drug overuse, without even firing a shot.

Of course, drug traffickers are not slowing down. In June of this year alone, Customs and Border Protection agents seized over 1,000 pounds of fentanyl. This could kill two-thirds of the population of the United States.

The boots-on-the-ground agents seize these drugs before they reach us, but what they find, what they seize, is a fraction of what comes into the United States. In my home State of Iowa, agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration seized more lethal doses of fentanyl in 2020 than there were people within the State. This means the Drug Enforcement Administration seized enough fentanyl to kill everyone in Iowa.

Our law enforcement officers are critical to the fight against illicit drugs.

Now, listen. In the last year or two, law enforcement has been subject to terrible abuse, but these brave men and women don't do just great things; they also do good--good for our country and good in protecting our people. The brave members of State and local law enforcement--you know, like the police, like the sheriffs, like the correctional officers, as well as our Federal officers--deserve honor and respect. They put their lives on the line to ensure that we are all safe.

When tragedy strikes, we feel the loss of our fiercest defenders. In fact, according to the FBI, the rate of officers killed in the line of duty is up. As of last month, 59 members of law enforcement were killed in 2021. At this point in 2020, the number was 39, and that was still an uptick from years prior. This trend is a grim reminder of the bravery, the courage, and the valor each law enforcement officer has when they go to work.

DEA Agent Mike Garbo was one of our most recent casualties in the fight against the illicit drug trade. He was conducting a routine check on an Amtrak train in Arizona when two drug traffickers ambushed him and his fellow DEA agents with gunfire, and of course Agent Garbo was killed.

Agent Garbo was a committed law enforcement person, committed to a career of public service generally and law enforcement specifically. He served as a police officer in Nashville for nearly 12 years before he joined the Drug Enforcement Administration. He served the DEA honorably for more than 16 years, combating drug traffickers all over the globe, from our southwest border all the way to Afghanistan.

This tragedy reminds us in Washington, here, that our work to stop the flow of illicit drugs and to combat drug-related crime isn't over. I support being tough on deadly drugs like fentanyl substances by pushing for permanently scheduling all fentanyl analogs, and I am leading a bipartisan effort to proactively control synthetic analogs and address the heightened threats of methamphetamine.

Being pro-active in the fight against illicit, deadly drugs is critical for multiple reasons.

First, we want to make sure it is harder for drug traffickers to bring drugs into our Nation and to fuel the addiction crisis, but we also need to make it harder for drug traffickers to feel emboldened in lawlessness and to kill law enforcement people like Mike Garbo.

It is time for us to stop sharing stories about tragedies, and, instead, we need to rewrite the story of our future as a nation. I urge my colleagues to act for the betterment of all Americans and join me in the fight against the illicit drug trade, particularly the scheduling of fentanyl and its analogs.

Most importantly, we must all--and I do--thank Agent Garbo and his family for putting his life on the line to protect his fellow countrymen. His sacrifice is, sadly, much too common, but it doesn't make it any less powerful and tragic. We will continue to honor this man and those who follow in his footsteps as we fight the spread of illicit, deadly drugs.

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