SLO County congressman’s bill aims to combat fentanyl trafficking
While rain pattered on the sidewalk on Tuesday morning, a group of local and federal officials lined up outside the Katcho Achadjian Government Center in downtown San Luis Obispo to discuss a new effort to combat the fentanyl crisis.
The Disrupt Fentanyl Trafficking Act, written by Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara, and Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Oklahoma, passed both branches of Congress last week. It now awaits a signature from President Joe Biden to become law.
If signed by Biden, the bill would require the Pentagon to develop a strategy to combat fentanyl trafficking, partly by improving its coordination with local law enforcement agencies, Canada and Mexico, according to Carbajal.
“We are asking that our military and law enforcement develop a better strategy for coordinating with each other, so that we can ensure we are all working in the right direction,” Carbajal said at the news conference. “For the sake of hundreds of families on the Central Coast that have lost a loved one to fentanyl, we owe it to them to ensure that bureaucracy, siloing, and inter-agency coordination are not getting in the way of our counter-drug efforts.”
The law aims to increase federal attention on fentanyl trafficking by using Department of Defense tools — including intelligence, technology, and funding — to combat fentanyl trafficking and disrupt drug cartel activity, Carbajal said.
“Declaring fentanyl a national security threat would open significant federal and international resources to collaborate, disrupt and dismantle the steady flow of illegal fentanyl in the United States,” Assistant District Attorney Eric Dobroth said. “This is a very important goal.”
The legislation was originally introduced by Sens. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, in May.
“This is a bipartisan effort,” Carbajal said. “There’s acknowledgment from all perspectives that we need to be more aggressive, more strategic, and give more attention to this issue.”
Fentanyl-related deaths spike in SLO County
Fentanyl-related deaths in San Luis Obispo County increased 722% from 2019 to 2021, according to a data analysis by The Tribune.
Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties have reported similar spikes in fentanyl-related deaths, Carbajal said.
Additionally, the majority of drug-related deaths in San Luis Obispo County are caused by fentanyl, Sheriff Ian Parkinson said at the news conference.
As of Tuesday, the SLO County Sheriff’s Office had confirmed 69 drug-related deaths in 2023, according to Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Tony Cipolla. Of those 69 victims, 47 had a toxicology report that tested positive for fentanyl, Cipolla said.
Most of the time, fentanyl is manufactured in other countries and delivered into San Luis Obispo County, Parkinson said.
The benefit of the Disrupt Fentanyl Trafficking Act is that it would prevent the drug from getting to the county in the first place, which reduces stress on local law enforcement, according to Parkinson.
“Primarily, what it’s going to affect is controlling what’s coming in to the country,” he said. “Until we stop it, we’ll continue to see an increase in overdose deaths.”
Data from the Sheriff’s Office’s drug lab shows fentanyl seizures in the county also skyrocketed in recent years. In 2017, there were only 18 recorded fentanyl samples from seizures in San Luis Obispo County, followed by 27 in 2018. That jumped to 110 seizures in 2019, 449 in 2020 and 933 in 2021, according to the data.
The District Attorney’s Office will continue to prosecute fentanyl-related crimes, Dobroth said.
This includes prosecuting cases as a homicide if the sale of fentanyl killed a customer who didn’t know they were buying it, Dobroth said.
For example, fake pharmaceutical gray pills , cocaine, and methamphetamine can be laced with lethal doses of fentanyl, according to Dobroth.
“A multinational approach is necessary to tackle a multi-national fentanyl trade,” Dobroth said. “We’re optimistic that should the Disrupt Fentanyl Trafficking Act become law, we will see destruction and dismantling of international fentanyl trafficking organizations, which will result in tangible, positive impacts here locally in San Luis Obispo County.”
