Sherrod Brown visits Youngstown after FEND Off Fentanyl signed into law
Sen. Sherrod Brown met with local law enforcement leaders and criminal justice representatives from Mahoning County today to commemorate the year-long effort to pass FEND Off Fentanyl.
Sen. Brown’s bill, FEND Off Fentanyl, passed the House and the Senate as part of the bipartisan national security package, and was signed into law on Wednesday.
“As prosecutor, I see firsthand how fentanyl can impact our community. In the last fifteen months alone, 172 individuals have been prosecuted for fentanyl related crimes, including trafficking. I applaud the hard work of Senator Brown to get the FEND Off Fentanyl Act signed into law. This drug is deadly and its distribution onto our streets must be stopped,” said Mahoning County Prosecutor Gina DeGenova.
What is FEND Off Fentanyl?
The senator first joined Mahoning Valley leaders last July to call for the passage of this bill.
“Last summer, as we began to build momentum for this, Chief Davis and I made that original announcement a year ago in Youngstown. Today, it was Captain Jason Simon, the mayor, Chief Davis, we have a county prosecutor there today,” Brown said.
Sen. Brown worked with Ohio law enforcement to craft the legislation aimed at stopping the problem from the source, like City of Youngstown Police Chief Carl Davis and Simon.
“Many of the ideas in this bill came from law enforcement,” Brown said. “It gives federal law enforcement the opportunity and requirement to go after these cartels.”
Now that it’s passed, FEND Off Fentanyl will expand “sanctions to illicit fentanyl traffickers in Mexico and the creators of precursor chemicals in China.”
“Now law enforcement are empowered to go after the bank accounts, go after the traffickers, go after transportation, anybody that’s making money from this and that should mean that there’s less of this stuff in the country,” Brown said.
The prevalence of dangerous forms of fentanyl, often mixed with other substances, is a serious public health threat to Ohio communities.
According to Simon, “numbers alone can never adequately illuminate the compounding suffering that fentanyl has brought to families of those overdose victims.”
In 2022, fentanyl was involved in 80% of drug overdose deaths in Ohio.
“The heartbreak and secondary trauma endured by mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, friends and even children of our victims cannot be easily healed. As a community, we have an obligation to help those who need us,” Simon said. “As law enforcement professionals, our duty extends beyond that to try and put an end to the influx and use of fentanyl that is flooding our cities by arresting those responsible. Senator Brown’s initiative and leadership in composing and passing the bi-partisan and law enforcement-supported ‘FEND Off Fentanyl Act’ will instill some much-needed tools to help us with that goal.”
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