U.S. Senator Pat Toomey met with officials at Bethlehem city hall during a tour of the area March 20, where he announced proposed legislation geared toward fighting the opioid epidemic.

While ever more laws, programs and resources are directed toward this effort, the Blocking Deadly Fentanyl Imports Act in particular is meant to curb sale and delivery of the drugs from their sources; notably China and Mexico, where fentanyl is manufactured.

The act would make American foreign aid contingent upon a recipient country cooperating with United States drug enforcement efforts relating to fentanyl. Toomey also said the act calls for emergency scheduling of new fentanyl derivative drugs, making close copycat as controlled or illegal as the original product.

“This isn’t going to stop all the drugs, we know that,” Toomey said, “But given the devastation the drug has inflicted, it’s long overdue. Our focus is to get China to crack down as hard as it can.”

Local leaders have been hard at work in their own jurisdictions, helping residents in need as they can.

District Attorney Jim Martin said overdose-related deaths in Lehigh County have skyrocketed over the last four years, and he has responded by making life-saving Naloxone available to EMS workers and anywhere residents or local employees may see a critical need. His Blue Guardian program, instituted over a year ago, has been instrumental in rallying overdose survivors to therapy.

The city of Bethlehem’s BPAIR program, which allows resident walk-ins at the police station to seek help without repercussions, aided 32 individuals in 2018, Mayor Bob Donchez said. “The [Centers for Disease Control] says fentanyl is the deadliest drug today. In Bethlehem, it makes up 63 percent of all drugs seized so far in 2019.”

Toomey said previous similar legislation never even made it out of committee, especially when it comes to curbing foreign aid, but that was before the true impact was becoming clear. “Fentanyl is still relatively recent. This opioid crisis is not new, it’s been around for some time, but it’s been evolving. Sometimes it takes congress a little while to catch up. This is a very good reason to deny foreign aid.

“I think the Chinese government does not want to be seen looking the other way with respect to fentanyl. It’s a matter of getting them to prioritize this.”

Toomey said the Blocking Deadly Fentanyl Imports Act will reach the floor later this year.