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Senate Investigators Google Their Way to $766 Million of Fentanyl

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday January 28 2018, @04:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-gray-web dept.

takyon writes:

With Google, Bitcoins, and USPS, Feds realize it's stupid easy to buy fentanyl

A congressional report released Wednesday lays out just how easy it is for Americans to buy the deadly opioid fentanyl from Chinese suppliers online and have it shipped to them via the government's own postal service. The report also lays out just how difficult the practice will be to stop.

After Googling phrases such as "fentanyl for sale," Senate investigators followed up with just six of the online sellers they found. This eventually led them to 500 financial transaction records, accounting for about $766 million worth of fentanyl entering the country and at least seven traceable overdose deaths.

[...] "Thanks to our bipartisan investigation, we now know the depth to which drug traffickers exploit our mail system to ship fentanyl and other synthetic drugs into the United States," Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio said in a statement. "The federal government can, and must, act to shore up our defenses against this deadly drug and help save lives."

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @11:07PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @11:07PM (#629625)

    The feds and states must stop protecting us from everything. Make it all legal, tax it, and focus on education campaigns. Anything prescription should have specific requirements for proper risk discussions between doctor and patient but nothing more. How many billions of tax dollars have been poured into the legacy war on drugs and how well has that worked out? As a tax payer I don't want my portion going toward ruining lives and over-protecting me from myself. Portugal decriminalized drugs with excellent results and we could do the same.

    Starting Score:    0  points
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @11:58PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @11:58PM (#629638)

    We could, but "drugs" is one thing you can say to a conservative that will make him ask for big government.

    Maybe we could call them global drugging alarmists.

    • (Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday January 29 2018, @10:54AM

      by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Monday January 29 2018, @10:54AM (#629765)

      Drugs, immigrant, gay, terrorist, liberal....yeah, they all pretty much work that way.

      --
      Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.