It is important to establish earlier that I am a musician and that I have no political alliance. I am neither Democrat nor Republican. In fact, because of my past, my right to vote has been restricted. Thus far, I have never paid attention to a political race in my life. Ironically, I think that makes me the perfect person to speak about this. I’ve attended more funerals than I care to share with y’all. I could sit here and cry for days about the caskets I’ve carried of people I love dearly, deeply in my soul. Good people, not just drug addicts. Uncles, friends, cousins, normal people.”
The words of Jason Ford, known as Jelly Roll to his millions of fans, were powerful as he testified to Congress about the fentanyl crisis. No one will argue that the Fentanyl crisis is a horrible thing that many Americans go through every year. Lots of Americans have tried to pass a bill to stop this madness but have failed. And the overdose death rate is sky rocking every year. More than 112,000 people overdosed in 2023.
The government should should take act on the anti-fentanyl bill because there are people that are going through addiction everyday and the government isn’t doing anything about it.
During the pandemic lots of patients got treated with fentanyl, so that it could treat their severe pain, and advanced cancer pain. But sadly some patients liked to overdose and that would cause them to pass away. So they really had to watch the patients so that they wouldn’t overdose with fentanyl.
Just in general there are people everyday overdosing on fentanyl and the thing is that it doesn’t take that much to overdose on fentanyl. With 1mg of fentanyl you can already be messed up. And this tragedy is starting to go to the streets and homeless people are starting to dose in this.
The bill was unanimously passed by the Senate Banking Committee last June but was blocked from being included in the National Defense Authorization Act, along with other financial legislation, by Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) last December in an effort to include McHenry’s own cryptocurrency legislation which did not also did not make it into the final version of the act.
The government needs to pass the fentanyl bill so that the world can change. Not only for celebrities but for regular people like family members and homeless people. So that they can have a better life and future and not have to deal with this for the rest of their life.