Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), running against Mehmet Oz (R) for the state’s open United States Senate seat, is refusing to commit to supporting legislation that would make it easier for law enforcement to lock up dealers of illicit fentanyl.
During an on-camera interview with NBC News’s Dasha Burns, Fetterman said he believes fentanyl dealers “deserve to be in prison” but also refused to commit to supporting legislation in the Senate that would make it easier for law enforcement to prosecute and convict dealers.
The exchange went as follows:
BURNS: Republicans in congress want to make it easier to put fentanyl dealers in prison by reducing the quantities needed for a mandatory minimum sentence. Given Pennsylvania’s devastating problem with opioids, would you cosponsor that? [Emphasis added]
FETTERMAN: Well no, fentanyl should be more stiff, absolutely. I mean, that’s an incredibly deadly drug and I agree that we have to make sure that if you’re a dealer, if you’re a dealer and you’re putting this kind of poison into the community, there have to have stiff penalties on that, they don’t have any business being on the street. [Emphasis added]
BURNS: So would you potentially cosponsor and reach across the aisle for this bill? [Emphasis added]
FETTERMAN: I’d have to see what’s in front of me when it’s there. The bottom is, being an addict, you know we haven’t been able to arrest our way out of to the addict but it’s actually the pushers and the dealers that’s a completely different issue and they deserve to be in prison. [Emphasis added]
Fetterman’s dodging on the issue of prison sentences for fentanyl dealers comes as an interview from 2018 features the former Braddock, Pennsylvania, mayor suggesting “needle exchange[s]” and “safe injection sites” as solutions to fighting the nation’s opioid and fentanyl crisis.
Opioids and fentanyl have wreaked havoc on Pennsylvania in recent years.
In 2021, for example, about 15 Pennsylvanians died every day from drug overdoses or poisonings. The continued rise in drug-related deaths across the state coincides with fentanyl replacing heroin as the dominant opioid where, last year, nearly six million doses of fentanyl were seized in Pennsylvania alone.
The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) figures reveal that more than 100,000 Americans are dying from drug overdoses and poisonings every year. Nearly two-thirds of those deaths were linked to fentanyl.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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