Texas lawmakers say that at least 46 people in the Lone Star State have been charged with murder for allegedly giving others deadly doses of fentanyl, a drug that has been pouring over the nation’s border on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s watch.
That number was highlighted as lawmakers were updated on Monday about House Bill 6, which went into effect in September 2023, KVUE reported.
The outlet continued:
HB 6 lets prosecutors charge anyone who makes or deals fentanyl with murder. It also classifies any fentanyl-related death in Texas as a “poisoning” on a death certificate instead of an “overdose”.
Lawmakers and advocates have said they made the latter change because the term “overdose” has a stigma, and most people who died after taking fentanyl don’t know it was laced in the drugs they took.
The Republican National Committee said in June that approximately 30.3 tons of fentanyl have crossed the nation’s southern border since Biden took office, Breitbart News reported, noting that amount is enough to kill about 13.8 billion people.
In March, a Texas family was devastated when they learned that one of their relatives, a high schooler, died of suspected fentanyl poisoning after he made “one mistake,” according to Breitbart News.
A family member said, “Fentanyl is out there, and it doesn’t come looking like fentanyl. It’s a real issue. It has no demographics. It doesn’t care about your background. It doesn’t care if you have good parents. It’s there, and it’s a danger. And it’s, it’s taking kids.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the El Paso area ports of entry kept 11.2 pounds of fentanyl and 113 pounds of cocaine from going to the United States illicit drug market after one week of seizures, Breitbart News reported in May:
In most cases, border narcotic smuggling by Mexican cartels is aimed at moving the deadly merchandise north and away from the border region. The impact of fentanyl overdoses is a nationwide issue. In El Paso County, the latest annual medical examiner’s report (2022) shows nearly 70 fentanyl-related overdoses occurred in El Paso. The deaths occurred after residents of the border town consumed fentanyl alone or other illicit narcotics laced with fentanyl.
Per the KVUE article, officials with the Texas Department of State Health Services say about five Texans die of fentanyl poisonings every day.
“The synthetic opioid, which is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, accounted for about 45% of all drug-related deaths in Texas in 2023,” the report said.
