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EXCLUSIVE: Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is calling for illicit fentanyl to be declared a weapon of mass destruction after two mass overdoses in her state — and amid an increase in overdoses attributed to the deadly drug.
Moody is urging President Biden to either use executive authority or urge Congress to declare fentanyl a WMD — a move that would require government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the Pentagon to work together.
“Given how many Americans are being murdered, the whole federal government and every tactic and capability that we have should be utilized to stop the death and destruction that fentanyl is causing,” she says in a letter to Biden.
A weapon of mass destruction is defined by the U.S. government as a “nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or other device that is intended to harm a large number of people.” Moody’s office cited prior government assessments that fentanyl “is very likely a viable option for a chemical weapon attack.”
BIDEN, MEETING WITH MEXICAN PRESIDENT, URGES HELP FROM REGION TO STOP BORDER SMUGGLING
“Relying on non-state criminal actors and terrorist to think or act as expected is a losing proposition. The reality is that the deadliness of fentanyl combined with its sheer availability in Mexico to criminal cartels and non-state actors makes it an increasingly likely weapon for use,” Moody says in the letter.
Southern border seizures of the drug, which is 50-100 times more potent than morphine and can be fatal in tiny amounts, have soared in recent years. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized 10,586 pounds of the drug in FY 2021. That is up from 4,558 pounds seized in FY 2020 and 2,633 pounds seized in FY 2019.
While it is unclear how much fentanyl is getting into the U.S., since that number refers to apprehensions of the drug only, the number of deaths related to the drug is increasing. The Drug Enforcement…
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Source : foxnews
