Washington Lawmakers passed The FEND Off Fentanyl Act as part of the $95 billion aid package approved last month.
The legislation calls fentanyl trafficking a national security threat and imposes sanctions targeting the supply chain.
Alexis Gullatta knows firsthand that fentanyl can destroy lives.
"It started as pressed pills that had fentanyl, and then those became too hard to get and too expensive and heroin or what we thought was heroin was cheaper, but it was really fentanyl," she said.
Gullatta said she was addicted to the synthetic opioid.
"I never in a million years thought that it would happen to me, and it did," she said.
Every day across our country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that more than 150 people die from overdoses related to synthetic opioids.
According to the Ohio Department of Health, 81% of unintentional overdose deaths in 2022 involved fentanyl.
That's why at Stella Maris, CEO Daniel Lettenberger-Klein told us that the Fend off Fentanyl Act, which just became law, is an excellent first step.
"Once fentanyl is on the street, it's too late. Being able to work upstream and try to create some meaningful change for the people that we have on our front doorstep every day hopefully will have a generational impact," Lettenberger-Klein said.
According to the legislation, Mexican drug cartels are to blame for trafficking illegal drugs and the People's Republic of China for supplying the chemicals.
"This has a law enforcement component and financial, Treasury Department, involvement. So, I think some of the government's best tools are the ability to claw back money, to freeze money, to stop the flow of money from happening and funding things like fentanyl getting through trafficking rings. I'm hopeful that there is a meaningful impact from this," said Lettenberger-Klein.
For Gullatta, her life has changed for the better since receiving treatment for her addiction at Stella Maris.
"I have a full-time job. I have a brand new car. Things are a lot different than they were two-and-a-half-years ago," she said.
Gullatta said she's all for stricter laws to help stop illegal drugs from destroying lives and families.
"The stuff can kill you. It will kill you," she said.
The FEND Off Fentanyl Act is U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown's legislation.
"Law enforcement in Ohio and around the country made it clear that we need more tools to stop fentanyl at its source," said Brown (D) Ohio.
The communications director of Brown's opponent for the U.S. Senate, Bernie Moreno, said in a statement, "Bernie is happy to see any action to stop the flow of fentanyl into our country and would have supported this as a standalone bill. However, Sherrod Brown has a long record of supporting open-border policies that have exacerbated the fentanyl crisis. Not only has he repeatedly voted against building the wall and securing the border, but in 2022, he voted against hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to U.S. customs and border security agents that would have allowed them to better detect fentanyl coming across the border."
