Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares wrote a letter, signed by 20 other state attorneys general, to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken Feb. 8, asking them to take swift and immediate action to abate the deadly fentanyl scourge.
The attorneys general wrote it is well known and documented by the DEA that Mexican Cartels obtain dangerous raw materials from China, use them to cheaply produce deadly synthetic opioids and illegally transport those opioids into the U.S., according to the letter.
“Collectively, the destructive status quo caused by fentanyl and violence is costing hundreds of thousands of American lives each year," the letter said. "This catastrophic loss of life is inexcusable, yet it has received an anemic response from the federal government. To protect Americans from these terrorist organizations, you must take decisive action against the Mexican drug cartels by designating the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and other similarly situated cartels as foreign terrorist organizations under 8 U.S.C. § 1189.”
The letter calls for the Mexican drug cartels to be listed as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, citing the reason that “traditional counter-narcotics efforts are inadequate to address the threat posed by the Mexican drug cartels.”
Designating cartels as FTOs would grant state and federal law enforcement agencies power to freeze cartel assets, deny entry to cartel members and allow prosecutors to pursue tougher punishments against those who provide material to support the cartels, the letter said.
It was argued further these cartels should be listed as FTOs because of their diversification into the avocado trade, gasoline prices, gold mines and even supermarkets, according to the letter. It was pointed out the Kingpin Act focuses too narrowly on financial transactions with significant foreign narcotics traffickers and, because the cartels are operating in markets outside of narcotics, it is easy for those involved to escape designation.
According to the White House archives, the Kingpin Act became law Dec. 3, 1999, and was designed to “deny significant foreign narcotics traffickers, their related businesses and operatives access to the U.S. financial system and to prohibit all trade and transactions between the traffickers and U.S. companies and individuals.” The Kingpin Act authorizes the president to take these actions if a person is determined to have taken a significant role in international narcotics trafficking.
The Drug Enforcement Administration reported divisions across the U.S. have seen overdose deaths skyrocket, especially those caused by the synthetic opioid, fentanyl. The DEA reported overdose deaths had topped 100,000 for the first time in a year period in February 2022.
Mexican President Andres Manual Lopez Obrador rebuked U.S. lawmaker calls for military intervention in Mexico to reign in the drug cartels, Reuters reported March 9. Lopez Obrador did not take kindly to this, saying he would not “permit any foreign government to intervene in our territory” let alone another government’s military.
Lopez Obrador further said if Republican lawmakers continue to use this issue for their own political gain he would “make a call to not vote for that party,” according to Reuters.
The state attorneys general who signed the letter represented Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
