WASHINGTON, D.C. — Tucked into the $95 billion foreign aid package signed into law last week, one measure seeks to target the fentanyl supply chain.

The FEND Off Fentanyl Act passed exactly 364 days after it was first introduced in the Senate by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. The bill originally passed in July 2023, but got stalled in the House.

The law declares fentanyl trafficking to be a national emergency and imposes sanctions on people and groups that make and traffic fentanyl and related opioids, from the chemical suppliers in China to the cartels that traffic the drugs from Mexico into the U.S.

“You go after the Chinese Communist Party that produces and then ships the precursor chemicals. You go after the Mexican syndicates who are making this stuff and smuggling it in,” Brown said.

Fentanyl overdose deaths in Ohio alone have surged from 84 in 2013 to 3,963 in 2022, the last year for which data is available, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

“It’s a disaster and that’s really what we’ve seen in the last eight to 10 years,” said Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner Dr. Thomas Gilson. “There’s already a shortage of forensic pathologists in the United States, and this was really just another straw on a camel that’s carrying a pretty heavy load and the back is close to breaking on some of this stuff.

Gilson and other medical professionals applauded the passage of the FEND Off Fentanyl Act. The bill had also been endorsed by a number of law enforcement agencies, including the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Association of Police Officers and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, as a strategy to reduce fentanyl overdose deaths.

“Arresting a local drug dealer in Cleveland will not fix a national problem.

There is stuff you just can’t do at a local or a state level,” Gilson said. “I think some of the aspects of the FEND Off Fentanyl Act [interrupt] fentanyl getting into this county and makes it less profitable. That’s my hope.”

Gilson rebuffed critics who have argued the law would cause drug traffickers to merely shift production to other countries and related opioids.

“That’s a defeatist attitude, to think I shouldn’t try something because the problem is just going to move somewhere else,” Gilson said. “No, the problem has to be addressed where it is now.”

Sen. Brown said the law was written after consultation with many law enforcement agencies, public health officials and addiction specialists. Musician Jelly Roll also testified in Congress in support of it.

“I would rather listen to deputy sheriffs and to border agents and to Jelly Roll, who went through a lot of addiction issues in his own family. I would rather listen to them than a bunch of Ivy League elitists in Washington getting paid well by these think tanks,” Brown said.

In addition to financial penalties, Brown said the U.S. should do more to physically prevent fentanyl smuggling.

“We need to protect the border better than we have as a country,” he said. “Presidents of both parties have failed and we need to fix that next.”

Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, was a cosponsor of the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, but voted against it last week. A spokesperson said while Vance supported the bill, he could not support the larger package that included $60.1 billion in funds for Ukraine, which he opposed.