CALIFORNIA, USA — Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that his team is joining a federal task force to end the trafficking of fentanyl at the southern border.
"We are in a full on state of emergency, full state of crisis when it comes to the fentanyl epidemic," said Bonta, who announced the partnership at a roundtable discussion in San Diego Wednesday morning.
The federal task force is called the Fentanyl Abatement and Suppression Team, or FAST. It aims to stop criminal organizations from smuggling fentanyl through the California-Mexico border and distributing the deadly drug in the United States.
"Half of all fentanyl seized in this entire country comes through our district's ports of entry," said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California Tara McGrath.
Thousands of lives across the nation and locally have been impacted by the deadly drug. Last year, a 15-year-old girl from Roseville died from fentanyl poisoning. The man who gave it to her was recently sentenced to 15 years to life in prison in California's first fentanyl murder conviction.
Over the past year, the federal task force has helped arrest more than 50 fentanyl smugglers, distributors and dealers in San Diego County.
Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed several bills into law to further address the opioid crisis. Among them was legislation that adds fentanyl to the list of controlled substances, increasing penalties on drug traffickers.
Another bill requires schools to create safety plans for prevention and response to fentanyl poisoning and overdoses.
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