President Biden Remarks on Synthetic Drug Threats

September 24, 2024

Please welcome the Secretary of State of the United States. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Let me start by thanking all the heads of state, all the leaders, the foreign ministers who took time during this incredibly busy week to be here today. The exceptional group that's gathered in this room is a testament to the priority that our countries place on addressing the synthetic drug crisis and the strength of our partnerships. Now for years, the photosynthetic drugs has been rising around the world methamphetamines in the East and Southeast Asia Captagon in the Middle East traMADol in Africa and here in the United States, fentaNYL, the number one killer of Americans aged 18 to 49. And think about that for just a minute, not car accidents, not guns, not cancer, not heart attacks, fentaNYL. This is by definition, a global challenge. People ship precursor chemicals, the ingredients that go on to fentaNYL from one country to another. Criminals make them into synthetic drugs and then sell them in a third country. Every country needs to take steps at home to address this challenge but no single government can solve it alone. So last year in July, the United States and our partners launched this global coalition to mobilize a co ordinated response to the threat of synthetic drugs. We started out with 80 countries today, nearly 160 countries and 15 international organizations. Over the last year, we consulted with more than 1600 experts from around the world. And together this coalition has taken concrete steps to make our community safer to make our people healthier if we created an international network for legislators so that they can share best practices and create laws that make it harder for drug traffickers to buy the precursor chemicals or smuggle products across borders. Together, we're tracking and warning law enforcement and health professionals about new trends in drug use. We trained officials on how to use a new tool that scrapes the internet and finds people who are illegally selling precursor chemicals and other substances. Members of this coalition developing new public health measures, whether that's sharing school curriculums, expanding access to naloxone creating resources for addiction treatment centers. Today, the United States is introducing a new pledge outlining seven lines of effort that will guide our work together for the year ahead on areas like regulating drugs and chemicals, monitoring supply chains, sharing real time data on drug use. These lines of effort can be tailored to every country and every organization. So we welcome you joining us and pledging your support in a moment. We'll also hear from several coalition members about their leadership, their commitments. Uh And we'll carry this work forward together together, all of our country's efforts, add up to a stronger global network, a more effective response to synthetic drug threats. So please keep it up. We can save lives. We are saving lives, we can protect our communities. We are protecting our communities and we can make this world. We share a little bit healthier and a little bit more secure. Now, it is my honor to introduce a powerful advocate for this work. Someone who spent years building coalitions to deliver on the issues that matter most to people. Uh President of the United States, Joe Biden. Thank you. Thank you all day. My fellow leaders from nations around the world. Thank you for being here. It makes a big difference. A couple of years ago, a father who I got to meet from a small town here in the United States wrote me a letter about his daughter. Her name was Courtney. She was bright and smart. She had a laugh that was contagious and wanted to travel the world. But in high school, she became addicted to pills. Her father eventually brought her to a treatment facility, but his insurance company wouldn't cover the cost. They said quote, it wasn't a matter of life and death. A month later, Courtney died from a fen fentaNYL overdose. She was just 20 years old, 20 years old. In his letter that he wrote to me, he described life without his child. He said, and I quote, there is no greater pain. There is no greater pain. I told him, I know what it's like. Having lost several Children myself. Two Children, there is no greater pain. They still live in your heart, but there's no greater pain. Ladies and gentlemen, that's why we're here. Too many people all across our nation have stories like this. Too many families have suffered unbearable pain and unbearable loss. Opioids are the deadliest drug threat in our history. I've been working in drug control for a long, long time since the days I was a senator, but this is the deadliest of them all for years. Too little has been done to beat this threat here at home and around the world. In fact, before I came to office, overdose deaths in our country are increasing by more than 30% year over year when I became president, I made, beating opioid endemic a central part of the unity agenda. Something that our entire nation could rally around and has for over the last four years, we've turned that agenda into action. My administration made no excuse me, made naloxone a life saving overdose reversal medicine available over the counter. You could purchase it over the counter. For the first time, we invested over $80 billion across 50 states to expand access to addiction treatment and support. I issued an executive order to cut cartel leaders all from finan our financial system including issuing 300 sanctions. And I've deployed hundreds of advanced X ray machines to stop the threat of pills and powder coming across our border. Because I want to be clear, this is, this is a national security threat in July of this year. I signed the National security memorandum and officially recognized that fact that it is a national security threat, calls on every part of our government to do more to stop fentaNYL and protect our homeland from this threat. But as all of you know, this is a global challenge and requires a global solutions. So we established the tri the trilateral fentaNYL committee with Canada and Mexico and Mexico to stop narcotics crossing our border. I reignited counter narcotics co-operation with China to increase law enforcement co-operation to tackle the supply chains of precursor chemicals and pill presses. And I directed my team to build this coalition, this global coalition to address synthetic drugs. As all of you here know this coalition now has, as the secretary of state said, 150 nations as part of it, the result of these efforts, more fentaNYL has been seized at our border in the last two years than the previous five years combined. In the previous five years combined, nearly 60,000 pounds of fentaNYL have been seized. That's enough to kill every single American many times over dozens of major cartel leaders and traffickers are now behind bars. And I'm proud to announce for the first time in five years, overdose deaths are actually coming down across America. The latest data shows a 10% drop. That's the largest decrease on record. Folks, this matters. These aren't just facts and figures. They're families, families who don't have to bear the loss of a child, a parent, a spouse, families are kept whole, but there are too many that are still dying. There's so much more that needs to be done. So my message today is very simple. We can't let up, we cannot let up drug manufacturers and cartels continue to adapt their practices. Develop new chemicals move fast to evade our efforts. We have to move faster. They continue to exploit the global supply chains to expand their networks. We've got to cut them off, they continue to fuel violence, corruption and instability. We've got to protect our people and our communities. So that's why I'm calling on every nation here to commit to our new global coalition pledge. This lays out the accident was all taped to seize more drugs, stop more cartels save more lives. I also want to thank the leaders here who are stepping up and launching a new initiative today to advance coalition efforts all across three key areas. First, disrupting supply chain including production and distribution of illicit illicit drugs. Secondly, detecting emerging drug tests and increasing information sharing across all our countries and thoroughly preventing more deaths by treating more people through public health interventions. Increased access to life saving medications. It's possible it's about disrupt, detect, prevent and treat together. We're making it clear enough is enough, is enough. Let me close to this as leaders, we all have one solemn responsibility, protect our people from harm together through this coalition. I believe we can do just that we can disrupt the cycle of violence and instability. The drug traffic is great. We can get our people to care they need and deserve we can save lives, but only, but only if we come together and work together. The choice is ours. And I believe there can be only one answer. We can, we will and we must. So thank you all for being here. Let's get to work and I want you to hear from other leaders in this room as well. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please welcome the Prime Minister of the Italian Republic. Well, Mr President, dear colleagues, I wish to thank President Biden for promoting this meeting, which is an integral part of the wider action of the global coalition to address synthetic drugs threat. Italy is