ASAP Urges President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis to Help Close Drug Pipeline in Mail
Effective Solutions for Opioid Epidemic Must Address Source of Deadly Synthetic Drugs
Washington, D.C. – Today, President Trump’s new Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis holds its first meeting to address the growing opioid epidemic. Ahead of the meeting, Americans for Securing All Packages (ASAP) submitted comments to the commission, urging the taskforce to help close a major loophole in the postal network that allows deadly synthetic drugs to enter the country without detection by law enforcement.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, at least 340 million packages reach the United States from foreign posts every year without advance electronic security data that would allow law enforcement to identify packages containing hazardous materials. As a result, powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil are being produced in foreign laboratories, purchased on the ‘dark web,’ and shipped through the global postal network to homes across the country, often undetected.
President Trump has acknowledged the postal loophole. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire, he stated that his administration would “crack down on the abuse of the loopholes in the Postal Service to literally mail fentanyl and other drugs to users and dealers in the United States.”
In submitted comments to the commission, ASAP senior advisors Governor Tom Ridge and Juliette Kayyem, highlighted the urgent need to close this dangerous postal gap:
“This postal network security gap poses a growing public health threat, and as you know the need for action is critical. No strategy will work without a serious approach to the illegal supply chain that is allowing these drugs to enter the U.S. in the first place…
As the first Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush and a former Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, respectively, our jobs were to keep the American people safe. As members of the Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, that duty now turns to you to help stop one of the biggest epidemics facing our country in decades…
We look forward to seeing your recommendations, and hope they will include action to stem the tide of deadly opioids by closing this major security loophole.”
About Americans for Securing All Packages
Americans for Securing All Packages (ASAP) is a bipartisan coalition composed of health care advocates, national security experts, businesses and nonprofits who believe it is time for the U.S. government to take action and ensure that all packages being shipped to the United States from any foreign postal service are adequately screened before arriving on the doorsteps of unsuspecting Americans.
