On MSNBC today with Kate Snow, Senator Portman highlighted the Synthetics Trafficking & Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act, bipartisan legislation he introduced to help stop dangerous synthetic drugs like fentanyl and carfentanil from being shipped through our borders to drug traffickers here in the United States. The bill’s introduction comes one day after Senator Portman visited with Montgomery County’s regional drug task force, where he learned that the Dayton, Ohio area has had twice as many overdose deaths in the first month-and-a-half of 2017 than in the same time frame of 2016. This spike in overdoses in Dayton and around the country are largely due to the spread of deadly synthetic drugs like fentanyl.

A transcript of the interview can be found below and a video can be found here.

Kate Snow: “The fight to keep some of those dangerous drugs from even getting to the U.S. is expanding today. As things stand, packages sent from other countries via the U.S. Postal Service don't require electronic customs data. Basically that means that they don't require an explanation of what's inside or even where the package is coming from. On Capitol Hill, there is a bipartisan effort being introduced today, a bill that would change that. And joining me now is one of the senators behind that effort, Senator Rob Portman who introduced this, it's called Synthetic Tracking and Overdose Prevention Act. Senator, nice to see you again.”

Senator Portman: “Kate, thank you.” 

Snow: “Talk about the purpose of this bill. I hadn’t realized what can get through the U.S. Postal System without really being checked.” 

Portman: “Yeah. Kate, what Gabe was talking about in Louisville unfortunately is having an effect around the country. I was in Dayton, Ohio yesterday where I had a similar story, but you noticed that Gabe mentioned fentanyl, not just heroin. What I’m hearing in Dayton and I assume what Gabe will tell us in Louisville is that what you have reported on so well over the last few years is changing—that the fentanyl is coming in, which is a synthetic form of heroin and also carfentanil and U-4 and other synthetics. It’s sometimes less expensive. It’s far more powerful—maybe 20 to 50 times as powerful as the potent heroin that’s on the streets. So it’s causing more overdoses because it is so powerful. It’s also causing more deaths. In Dayton, Ohio for instance, they’ve had about twice as many – I learned yesterday – deaths in this first month-and-a-half as they did on average during a month-and-a-half last year. So it’s increasing.”

Snow: “Twice as many, wow. Talk about the bill and what it does.” 

Portman: “Well, what’s unusual about the fentanyl as compared to heroin—which tends to come over land from Mexico—is that fentanyl comes in the mail, and it comes mostly from China, we are told by law enforcement officials, sometimes from India. So these are chemists in laboratories in China putting this in the mail and sending it into our communities. So to keep this poison out of our communities, we’re trying to come up with ways to be able to identify these packages and to stop them from coming in. And one thing we’ve come up with is the fact that, with regard to private carriers – UPS, FedEx, and so on – they do have to have this customs data you talked about. Data as to where it’s coming from, what’s in it, where it’s going. The mail service doesn’t have that. So of course the traffickers have used the U.S. mail system instead of these private carriers. We think if we simply put in place those kinds of restrictions, those kinds of mandates on the U.S. mail system, we would really help our law enforcement. And that’s what I heard yesterday from the folks in Dayton: that if they had that information they would be much more successful in targeting the suspicious packages and trying to keep some of this terrible poison out of our communities.”

Snow: “Does that sort of mean that the U.S. Postal Service is relying on China and India to tell us what’s in those packages? A cynic would say, would that really work?” 

Portman: “Yeah, well, it will work to the extent that the package is going to the right place. In other words, if you don’t say where it’s going, it’s not going to go there. That helps. With regard to what’s in it, you’re right, there’s another opportunity there I suppose for, you know, another count against someone who mislabels a product. But at least we’ll know where it’s going or it also won’t be delivered there. So it’ll give law enforcement that additional amount of information. I’ve talked to Customs and Border Protection and to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) about this. They like this bill because it’ll give them more tools, as they say, in their tool box to be able to try to keep some of these poisons out of our community. Ultimately as you and I have talked about before, this is about reducing demand. And unfortunately, that is increasing right now, which is a more difficult problem that Congress is also attempting to address through legislation in the last several months. But this small bill, the STOP Act, is very important. And it is bipartisan, Amy Klobuchar and I introduced it today. We’re hoping to get it through very quickly in committee and get it to the floor and get it passed. It’s also been introduced on the House side so we have a companion bill there as well.”