Please standby

>> Good morning and welcome to the Justice Department’s first ever national opioid summit. My name is Mary Daly and I serve as the Department of Justice opioid coordinator. I work in the office of the Deputy Attorney General and assist department leadership in components with opioid related initiatives, policies, grants and programs. Attorney General Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein have made ending our national opioid epidemic a top priority. Our leadership measures our performance in this area by whether we help bring the death toll down. Our Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General have set the tone. It has been inspiring to witness the hard work and dedication of our employees across the Department of Justice. Today we are here to discuss the role of federal law enforcement in reversing this epidemic. This summit brings together United States attorneys, federal, state and local law-enforcement officials, government and public health officials, policy leaders, and most importantly families who have lost loved ones to this epidemic. We hope you enjoy this summit. Before I introduce the Deputy Attorney General I would like you to stand as Ray Walker sings the national anthem — rhea Walker sings the national anthem.

>> Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light. What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming. Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight what so — over the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming. And the rockets red glare the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say does that star spank gold– star-spangled banners yet wave. Over the land of the free and the home of the brave.

[APPLAUSE]

>> Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has spent over 27 years in government service. After graduating from the Warner school of business and Harvard Law school he started his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Douglas Ginsburg at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Mr. Rosenstein began his career with the Department of Justice through the Attorney General’s honors program. He previously served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland between 2005 and 2017. During his tenure as U.S. attorney Mr. Rosenstein was a great supporter of the department’s drug enforcement efforts. Regularly attending organized crime drug enforcement task force meetings which is where I first met him. His unwavering support for our efforts continues and it is an honor to work for him. It is my privilege to announce– to introduce the 37th Deputy Attorney General of the United States Rob Jay Rosenstein.– Rod Rosenstein.

>> Thank you very much. I need to update my resume. I think I’ve been 28 years almost 29. It is a great honor to be here. I want to thank Mary for her welcoming remarks and the exceptional work her and her entire team did organizing this event today. For those of you watching on TV, we have a standing room only here was important — which illustrate how important this issue is to us. Seated onstage are acting associate Attorney General and our assistant attorney general for legal policy Beth Williams. They have both been working on this issue with us. We are also joined by many of our United States attorneys from throughout the country. Districts are doing — that are dealing with the opioid challenges. And other department leaders, public officials and private citizens. I see leaders of our partner law-enforcement agencies who have been working with us. If you are wondering why many of us are wearing purple today it is not just a coincidence. We wanted our outfits — we are wearing purple today in recognition of domestic violence awareness month. Another important priority for us. On the topic this morning, this is the first national opioid summit held at the Department of Justice. It is just one step in a very long line of steps the Attorney General has taken to combat the Kobe crisis. We are honored to have many to sing with guests with us today. Our first panel will include men and women affected by the opioid crisis were turning their grief into action with concrete illustration of the devastation the drug overdose epidemic is wreaking throughout the country. Among the panelists are a retired U.S. Navy Admiral who served as our nation’s ninth vice-chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff and his wife Mary to share their story. We thank James Winnefeld and Mary Winnefeld for their service. In August of 1989 on the eve of the 200 anniversary of the office of the Attorney General then Attorney General Dix Thornburg addressed the House of delegates of the American Bar Association. He was one year into his job and the nation was in the throes of a terrible drug epidemic. Throughout the 80’s and 90’s crack cocaine ravaged our cities, spreading violence and death. The crack cocaine epidemic led to skyrocketing murder rates in many U.S. cities including here in Washington, D.C.. In 1991 Washington’s murder rate peaked at 482 total murders, a rate of 81 homicides per 100,000 residents are you the city became known as the nation’s murder capital. Exponentially higher than the average throughout the rest of the country. Attorney General Thornburgh reflected on how the department had changed over two centuries. Since the appointment of the nations first Attorney General in 1789 Thornburg concluded the Justice Department’s fundamental responsibility remains the same, responding to the just expectations of the American people. As articulated by the president and by elected representatives in the Congress. Those expectations he declared impose heavy responsibilities for those of us charged with meeting them. In 1989 Thornburg observed Americans expected a maximum effort against drug dealing and drug abuse. Nearly three decades later he once again — we once again confront a scourge of devastation caused by drug abuse by a different drug. In the late 90’s companies began marketing prescription pain medication without full disclosure of the risks and doctors prescribe the drugs without full understanding of the consequences. Some patients became addicted to opioids as a result of misuse of pharmaceutical opioid medications. As addiction spread the supply of heroine exploded, providing a cheaper and more potent alternative to prescription pain bills.– pain pills. Over the past couple of years Chinese manufacturers started to produce large volumes of deadly synthetic drugs for shipment to the U.S.. The new chemicals are many times more potent than heroine. They contributed to an unprecedented surge of drug overdose deaths. In Baltimore a few years ago and medical examiner revealed an increasing number of victims who had died with Fentanyl in their systems. I learned about a couple cases prosecuted involving a substance called China white which was a form of Fentanyl. It is prevalent in our generation in unprecedented quantities. We now face the nation’s deadliest rub epidemic — drug epidemic ever. There are more than 72,000 deaths last year and two thirds of them involved opioid drugs. In addition to the deaths, many more times more people suffer the harms of addiction and the harm spreads to family, friends, and neighbors who experience the consequences in their communities. The human suffering wrought by this epidemic is beyond measure. President Trump made clear from the start of his administration that fighting the opioid epidemic is a priority. The president declared a public health emergency last year and he directed us to make a top priority. The president directed us to take concrete actions to solve this problem. Under the leadership of Attorney General Sessions the Justice Department is doing just that. The Attorney General reversed the previous administration’s The Attorney General reversed the previous administration’s policy of mandating lower sentences in drug cases and restore the traditional principle that prosecutors generally should charge defendants with the most serious readily provable offense and that we should disclose to the sentencing court all relevant facts. The Attorney General also instructed federal agents and prosecutors to increase the time and effort devoted to prosecuting drug dealers. As a result the number of drug defendants charged with federal drug crimes started to increase. As the Attorney General always emphasizes, we’re not here to fill a prisons with criminals. We are here to deter crime. That is the mission of our U.S. attorneys. We now use every tool including criminal and civil enforcement to stop illegal drug dealers and cut off the supply of pills from corrupt doctors and pharmacists who fail to consider the best interests of their patients. Across the country federal prosecutors and agents are working closely with state, local and tribal law enforcement to stem the flow of dangerous drugs to their communities. We know that our efforts will make a difference. Drug enforcement is not just about chasing criminals and punishing guilty defendants, it is about prevention. Criminal cases are very important because they have a deterrent effect on the people who produce, distribute and supply dangerous drugs. They send a message about the serious consequences of drug dealing. Working with our local, state, and federal partners and with foreign governments we are making progress. Preliminary data from the centers of disease control suggests that the work this administration and of our career prosecutors and agents is starting to stem the tide of rising over toast — overdose deaths but we still have a lot of work to do. Attorney General Thornburgh in1989 spoke about the challenges he was facing he noted the department could not declare victory even though every conventional statistics measure of enforcement shows progress. Investigations and arrests and convictions, prison terms and forfeitures have reached record lows. Nonetheless, Thornburgh said the expectations of the American people have not been met. He recognized that law-enforcement enforcement alone could not end the drug epidemic. He predicted the war on drugs would not be one solely in the court but in classrooms, workplaces, communities and houses of worship and pharmacies and a relatively young U.S. attorney in Alabama named Jeff Sessions who was a U.S. attorney at the time has brought that same philosophy to us in our generation here at the Department of Justice. Overcoming an epidemic of this magnitude will require engagement by all sectors of society, not just by us in law enforcement. That is why the Trump Administration’s opioid strategy incorporates prevention enforcement and treatment efforts. That is why Mary Daly has been appointed as the opioid coordinator for the department and why the Attorney General has instructed every U.S. attorney to appointed opioid coordinator in each of our 94 judicial districts to drive this initiative forward. Our exceptional law enforcement officials understand that public health and public safety go hand-in-hand. We work together and we will effectively respond to the American people’s just expectations and we will save lives. Now it is my great honor to introduce Jeff Sessions. He devoted most of his career to public service. He served as an assistant United States attorney. As a United States attorney, state Attorney General, and United States Senator he is not here to carry on business as usual. He is here to deliver on President Trump’s commitment to make America safe. We at the department are fortunate for his leadership. Please welcome the 84th Attorney General of the United States Jeff Sessions.

>> All right, thank you. Thank you very much. Please. Thank you. Thank you so much. Very warming. It is a pleasure to be here. Rod, thank you for your leadership and your kind words. And all the things you do every day. To drive the agenda of this department through the — Mary Daly, thank you for being both of our right hands on this subject. We appreciate that. Mary controls how we focus and drive this agenda. It is a very important thing. I would like to thank our acting associate Attorney General Jesse but a Shia — Jesse Venuccio and our assistant Deputy Beth Williams. We had a chance to chat this morning with Admiral when a felt– winnefeld. I served with him and saw the tremendous leadership he displayed for America as vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I know we will enjoy and appreciate his remarks today. Assistant Attorney General, and the acting DEA administrator, he is doing a great job. And FBI Deputy Director Dave Bowdich is Syrian I want to thank a whole group of our United States attorneys are you– is here. I want to thank a whole group of our United States attorneys.

[APPLAUSE]

Thank you. We believe — they believe this is the best group of United States attorneys ever assembled. I used to think the same about my Ronald Reagan class. I helped fix this one. This is number one I have to tell you. They are motivated and driving their offices to advance the priorities of this administration and certainly opioids and drugs on that.85% of law officers in America and most of the work on our case is particularly drugs are done by our state and local colleagues. We want to give a special thanks to Jonathan Thompson at the national sheriffs Association, can Wegner, Sheriff Donny Youngblood and Michael U.S. for the international Association of Chiefs of police. They are key partners in our law-enforcement plan. It calls on these United States attorneys, all 94 together to work with local law enforcement to achieve the goals we have set. It is a distinguished group and the size of this crowd indicates the interest that we have. I want everyone to know that this department is responding to suspicious packages that have been sent to several political leaders and a media outlet in the last few days. Yesterday I spoke with FBI Director Chris Wray and Deputy Director Dave Bowd ich. We briefed the president to bring them up-to-date. FBI and ATF are working on this. I want to thank our law-enforcement officers for dealing with the explosive devices. It points out the current our officers display. I would be worried indeed about something as dangerous as this. We condemn the actions that led to these activities in the strongest possible terms and are determined to make sure we get to the bottom of it and justice is done. Our shared work on fighting drug crime has never been more important than now. I was there and 81, half of high school seniors acknowledge using an illegal drug. Over the next 10 or 15 years that dropped by half to under25%. I would say to you we are facing a crisis today more severe than then but we can make a difference. This is the deadliest drug crisis in our nation’s existence. We have not seen anything like it. The Center for disease control and prevention estimates that approximately 72,000 Americans lost their lives to drug overdoses last year. The highest death total in history by far. It is widely estimated that life expectancy in the United States declined for two years in a row largely because of these overdose deaths. Millions of people are living with painful consequences of family members addictions or an addiction of their own. Most of us personally know someone who has been deeply impacted by this epidemic. So, we face a very grave challenge. I feel it very deeply. We can and we will meet it. We will reverse these destructive trends and protect our people, our health, our culture, our law. We at DOJ embrace our important role given to us by the president, it is important for you to know that we are indeed focused on this. We are making much progress but we have much more to do. President Trump laid out a comprehensive plan to end the crisis. The three parts are prevention, enforcement, and treatment. Those are proven requirements of an effective plan to reduce drug abuse in America. He and a bipartisan Congress, I think it was only one no vote in the Senate, agreed to invest $4 billion in the opioid crisis. I signed legislation yesterday at the White House where the First Lady and he hosted an important event to bring attention to this crisis to highlight the actions of his administration. We signed into law the support act which will go a long way to improving prevention and treatment. The president has launched a nationwide campaign about opioid abuse. A campaign that I believe is critical. It worked in the 80’s and will work again today. He declared this month to be substance abuse prevention month and he has taken able step to declare the opioid crisis to be a national health emergency. It is a lawful designation. It has meaning. The president has set a goal of reducing opioid prescriptions in America by one third over three years. Reduce the total number of opioids being prescribed by one third. We embrace that goal. I believe it is an important goal. We are on our way to achieving. According to the DEA’s national prescription audit in the first months of 2018 opioid prescriptions were down by nearly 12% compared to just a year before. That is in addition to a 7% decline last year. We have the lowest opioid prescription rates in 18 years. We’re going to bring them lower. We have too many prescription opioids on the streets from a whole lot of different sources. For next year, DEA’s lowering the legal limit on opioid production by an average of 10%. That is a 44% decrease in opioid production limits since 2016. We are going after the fraudsters, corrupt doctors, pharmacists, others who take advantage of addictions to line their pockets. Two years in a row we have set records for health care fraud prosecutions. We charge 601 defendants with $2 billion in medical fraud last year. That was the most doctors and the most medical personnel, most from the department has ever taken on in a single law-enforcement — this is the most defendants we have ever charged with health care fraud, the most opioid related fraud defendants we have ever charged in a single action. All of this work is adding up and it is adding up fast. I want to share with you what we are doing so we can begin to focus on that the department has charged 226 doctors with criminal offenses with opioid related crimes, convicted 82 of them. We have charts another 221 other medical personnel for opioid related crimes.16 doctors alone prescribed more than 20.3 million pills illegally. Unbelievable numbers. People lined up at somebody’s clinics — some of these clinics around the block and paid cash for a doctor’s visit but really to get a prescription they could fill. These numbers, prosecutions will continue to rise because we have developed new methods to attack the problem. I have directed each of our United States attorneys as ignition of your coordinator in their — designate an opioid coordinator in their office. I have sent prosecutors to focus specifically on opioid related medical fraud in some of the hardest hit areas of our country. To help them we have begun a new data analytics system program. We call it the opioid fraud and abuse detection unit. This team follows the numbers. We have the numbers. Prescription drugs have to be accounted for. A team follows numbers like which doctors are writing opioid prescriptions at a rate that exceeds their peers, how many Dr.’s patients have died. Pharmacies that are dispensing disproportionately large amounts of opioids. It has been very productive and we expected to continue being affected. Sadly, also, today, too often you can order drugs through the mail. With a few clicks of a button one can go online and have them shipped from around the world. To a home in the United States. We are taking unprecedented action against the killer compound Fentanyl that is often trafficked through the mail and across our borders. Last July the department announced the seizure of the largest darknet marketplace in history. The team that worked on that case was given an award yesterday. This site hosted 220,000 drug listings. People put their address up and how to communicate and we will ship you illegal drugs through the mail. It is responsible for countless Fentanyl overdoses and addictions. In August I announced charges against a married couple we believed were once the most prolific synthetic opioid traffickers on the darknet in North America. That was on important case. We work with our partners in Canada to help them in died a man they believe is the third most prolific darknet — indict a man they believe is the third most prolific darknet Fentanyl dealer in America. In January would begin a new team at the FBI that focuses specifically on the threat of online Fentanyl opioid sales. They have already begun carrying out nationwide enforcement actions, arresting dozens of people around the country. In the districts were drug deaths are the highest, and some of them are noteworthy, we are prosecuting every Fentanyl case that we can in those districts. Even when the amounts might be small compared to other drugs. When it comes to synthetic Fentanyl we are working hard to stop every source of it, to make sure it does not impact too much our local community. This was tried in Florida. We met with the sheriff and assistant United States attorney prosecuted the case in January, this past January. They had half the number of overdose deaths as the previous January. This was targeted Fentanyl enforcement and it saved lives. The Sheriff’s office went from responding to 11 overdose calls a day in that County to an average of one a day. That is why we have started a new effort, operation SOS to send a 10 more prosecutors to help implement this kind of strategy in 10 districts around the country where the deaths and problems are the greatest. Fentanyl isn’t made in these districts, it is not made in America at all, neither are most of the drugs. The vast majority of the Fentanyl in this country is made in China. That is why under President Trump we have become the first administration to begin to prosecute Fentanyl traffickers. My chief of staff has been to China. We have urged them to help us be more effective in confronting this deadly disease. In August I announced our third case, a 43 count indictment against a drug trafficking organization based in Shanghai. China could do more, we need them to do more. They are not doing enough. The administration recognizes that the vast majority of illegal drugs in this country got here over our southern border. They just did. Four years in a row now the DEA has told us that Mexican drug cartels are the single biggest drug traffickers to the United States. We feel in this Department of Justice a huge responsibility to deal with that problem. Last week I designated to Mexican transnational criminal organizations as priority threats for our new transnational organized crime task force. They will be top targets of hours. We are developing a coordinated strategy to deal with them. I announced 15 indictments against 45 liters, funders, transporters, drug sources and distributors. We are intercepting drugs coming into this country at record levels. The Coast Guard seized a record number of drugs in 2017. Half a million pounds total. Worth about $6 billion. Over the last 12 months DEA seized more than a half-million pounds of cocaine, six tons of hair, 50 tons of methamphetamine.50 tons of methamphetamine and more than two tons of Fentanyl.70% more Fentanyl than the year before. In the last year the DEA has seized enough drugs to kill every man and woman and child in the United States of America. We are seizing more drugs and prosecuting more cases. We have increased prosecutions and targeted more cases effectively. For opioid we prosecuted are seizing more drugs and prosecuting more cases. 36% more defendants than the previous four your average. We have increased heroin prosecutions, OxyContin prosecutions, we have tripled the number of Fentanyl prosecutions. For two years in a row. These are preliminary numbers. They don’t include health care fraud charges. The increases are actually larger. The increases are actually larger. What is most important is that overdose deaths in this country, we hope and hope to say continues that they have plateaued or start to come down. I’ve announced goals when I became attorney general to reduce filing crime after two years of increases it drops.– violent crime and after two years of increases it drop. Homicides had gone up 20% in 15 and 16, those have been reduced. We want to reduce prescription opioids, those have fallen. We want to deal with overdose deaths. We are beginning to see some progress. I am confident if we stay the course we will see more drug overdose deaths — drug overdose deaths increased 73% from 2015 to 2016. It appears that the growth has stopped according to the Center of disease control. Drug overdose death increased on a month by month basis until last September. They’ve been going up steadily. The rolling 12 month total of overdose deaths in America decreased by 2.3% from September17 through February. These are preliminary numbers. We want much bigger decreases than 2%. It is broken. It gives us confidence we may be on the right path. We are announcing 27.8 million in grants funding and are sending law enforcement agency tax groups throughout antiheroin program. These funds will be used for criminal investigations in states that are particularly suffering from the opioid crisis. We will invest 7 million in state investigations of methamphetamine which is a big problem in many of our states. Particularly in the West.35 million through our office of victims of crime to help children who have been victimized as a result of opioid abuse, often their parents. These funds will support things like counseling, mentoring, foster care, legal services, training for school personnel and law enforcement. The administration is investing more than 34 million in treatment and assistance for those in need. I am announcing a new Appalachian regional prescription opioid strikeforce. Appalachia has been hard hit. Some of the first pill Mills in America started in southern Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia. To this day they continue to suffer tragically high rates of addiction overdose and death. We will be going to Kentucky tomorrow afternoon to meet with prosecutors and investigators there. Our new strikeforce will be composed of 12 additional opioid fraud prosecutors. Each with their own team of federal law enforcement agents. They will help us find doctors, pharmacists, professionals of all kinds who are flooding our streets with drugs. And put them behind bars. We cannot allow this to continue. We will be relentless. We will continue to get smarter and better at our work. And these new steps are going to build on the successes we have already had as an administration and as a department. We are going to keep up the pace. It will be a good way for us to consolidate and come together to determine where we are now and what we have accomplished and what we will need to do in the future. The stakes of never been higher. We have never seen a challenge we have had today like we are seeing today. Our determination has never been higher. I thank all of you that will be participating in the panel today. All of you here that care about this matter. I want to thank our federal officers and our state and local partners for the dedication they are showing. We’re going to make this a safer country group thank you all for.

[APPLAUSE]

>> Thank you to our attorney and Deputy Attorney General for those wonderful remarks. I would like to thank both of the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General for their leadership in this area. We’re going to start panel one. The Deputy Attorney General has to leave for some previously scheduled meetings, the Attorney General will remain for the first panel. We would like to give them a round of applause.

[APPLAUSE]

I think will be setting up for panel one. We can take a stretch. Thank you.

>> If everybody could start taking their seats we are going to begin. Ladies and gentlemen we are about to begin our first panel could you take your seats please. Thank you. This panel is entitled the

opioid crisis: A call to action. It is intended to be just that, a call for action — call to action for all of us. Each of our panelists lost a child to a drug overdose and now works to end the crisis. Our moderator is Darlene Hutchinson, director of the office for victims of crime. She joined the department in August of 2017 bringing with her20 years of experience in victim advocacy. As the Attorney General announced, her office will award $34.6 million in grants to help children who have been victimized by the opioid crisis. Please welcome mis-Hutchinson and our panelists to the stage.

[APPLAUSE]

>> We will just speak really loudly.

>> It is an honor to be here with the distinguished analyst Terry at I’m always in all of the folks who can take their unfortunate circumstances and channel it into helping others. That is an amazing thing. I believe many of you have the agenda and no basically who we had with us. I will do some early introductions to cover that. The admiral to my left ear, Admiral Sandy Winnefeld is retired from the Navy, 37 years he had their and most recently was the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff which he retired from in 2015. He has been an instructor and commended aircraft carrier, the USS enterprise and is a distinguished professor at Georgia Tech. His wife Mary is a cofounder with him of safe, a nonprofit organization that stands for stop the addiction fatality epidemic. They are doing phenomenal work in that way and I know they will to you more about that. Mrs. Winnefeld has worked actively to advance the health and wellness of military and veteran families. Further down we have Walt Rains from Kentucky. He is part of the U.S. attorneys office team, heat they call it. Harriman education action team for the Eastern District of Kentucky where they are doing a lot of public speaking and going out and changing policy and concepts about how to affect and attack the opioid and drug abuse epidemic that we are suffering through. It is a great partnership with the U.S. Attorney’s office and the families there in that area. At the end we have Kevin Meara who is a cochairman of the city of Angels, I nonprofit from New Jersey that he helped found. It is a peer to peer grassroots recovery center that I’m sure we will hear more about. As a recovery coach he has been able to help and work with hundreds of families and individuals over the years and also has been very active in veteran support services. As Mary was saying and the Attorney General was so great to mention the office of victims of crime within the Office of Justice Programs within DOJ, all of us at ojp are stepping up our efforts to attack the opioid epidemic. More than $300 million of grant funding is coming out of ojp. None of our funding is taxpayer money. It is funding from criminal defendants. We are turning that around to help the children that are crime victims as a result of the opioid epidemic. We are thrilled to have the Attorney General’s support on that program. We have just awarded 42 grants plus 10 with our partners over at dja. I hope in a few years we will report back in to the about the success we had. I want to give the panelist and opportunity to share with you some of their stories and what they are doing in their field.

>> Good morning.. Thank you. For all the work you are doing. There are 94,000 kids in foster care and that is underreported in my opinion. They deserve a chance or we are going to lose an entire generation which is going to affect our American dream. I am Mary Winnefeld. I have been that I started safe as a result of losing our son Jonathan when a felt — Jonathan Winnefel d on his fourth day of college to heroin laced with Fentanyl. We are here on behalf of Jonathan. All of you have his essay. You know his desire in life was to help those who cannot help themselves. We are carrying on his legacy. Jonathan was in my opinion and our opinion a great young man. Compassionate, loving, great athlete, smart, intelligent, creative, but all along he was struggling. Struggling from a very young age. Good morning, my husband and I have started safe project. You might have a party path. You will become dependent upon it and the third a self-medication for some sort of mental health challenge when you consider that about 1/3 of Americans entering college have anxiety or depression and it’s easy for someone to hand them a pill that will make them feel better. We believe that choice is a very abstract concept when it comes to this particular epidemic. Imagine when a Dr. is prescribing something to you. Trust a doctor or a dentist. Choices very abstract and our son was actually on the path of self-medication for a mental health issue.

>> he was not the party boy. From an early age, he was suffering from anxiety and depression. It was misdiagnosed as attention deficit because he was an introvert. He went on the medication Adderall. It’s an amphetamine that’s highly addictive and sets the brain up for substance abuse disorder. If I had one decision I would do over again, I would have run from that doctors’s office and never put my son on that. Unbeknownst to us, we found out he was self-medicating to offset what Adderall was doing to his brain. Alcohol was involved in the was getting Xanax in high school and along with smoking weed. Long story short, we pulled him out of his senior year of high school. He was the varsity pitcher on his baseball team. He had already been accepted into college. We pulled them out and put them into 15 months of residential treatment. Treatment works. We saw our son come back to us. His brain was recovering. You also you the essay he wrote any got his EMT qualification while he was in treatment and we figured this was a home run. His brain was coming back and it was time to move on I going to college to assimilate back into the world. We lost him in a veritable transition. We lost him on the fourth day of college to heroin laced with Fentanyl that he purchased from an open air heroin market that is still going on and has been for the last 16 years in Denver, Colorado, every night from 10:00 p.m. until 4:00 a.m.

>> we are grateful to a particular detective on the Denver police were forced to relentlessly researched and tried to find Jonathan’s killer. He actually did find the killer. We are grateful to him for that. Where very grateful to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver for doing everything they could together enough evidence to prosecute this person. It just came up short and we know they did the best they could. You can imagine how it hurts to know that Jonathan’s killer is still at large in Denver. We know who he is and he is probably killing somebody else’s kid. What you do about this? We decided that rather than turn into a ball of anger, grief, and shame which we cannot blame anybody for doing —

>> and there are bad days.

>> we decided to start a nonprofit and along the six things that are very deeply interrelated that we believe the nation needs to do in order to reverse this epidemic. They are very deeply intertwined. It begins with public awareness so that we can get the public behind the effort. The president has fortunately begun leading, to get the resources both public and private in organizations like ours, to help turn the tide. The other public awareness thing that is important is reversing stigma. There is a lot of bad stigma out there. There is great at journalism but the photojournalism is enhancing stigma. Those people under underpasses are not my family so we are working hard on the public awareness and working hard on the fall spectrum of prevention. The reason we were not at the White House ceremony yesterday as we were talking to 750 high school kids in Delaware. We get leverage to give them a nuanced message of stories and addiction science so they can make their and decision about what to do.

>> just say no does not work with them.

>> it’s not a sophisticated enough message for a high school kid. Our third line of operations is prescription medicine. We have to go after the irresponsible sectors of the pharmaceutical industry which the Justice Department is doing and we believe doctors and dentists need to ask for more responsibly than they are. Where we find some of our greatest leverages with patient because it turns out that the patients are smarter than the doctors and dentists. Many are wisely turned down opioid prescriptions about doctors are demanding they take. We are also pushing very hard for other programs such as dea’s takeback day and another one is coming this weekend which is a great program. It’s an unbelievable segment of the population that does not realize the hazard is sitting in their medicine cabinet and they need to dispose of it responsibly. The next of operation is treatment and recovery because there simply are not enough treatment resources in this country. They are not standardized. They’re not as accessible as they need to be in there certainly are not as affordable as they need to be we have to do better. The bill that was just passed by Congress may not be enough for us but it’s a great start all stop The last line of operation we have his family outreach and support. If we only knew then what we know now, we would still have our son. We have put out a lot of lessons learned on her website back from elementary school through the addiction process, the treatment process and transitioning out of treatment. We hopefully will be able to help people. These are intertwined so let me give you an example of how the six lines of operation are deeply dependent on each other. If I could snap my fingers and make this prescription medicine portion go away overnight, I would prevent a large influx of substance dependent people. It would also create an additional demand signal for people to go into very dangerous substances like heroin laced with Fentanyl that killed our son.

>> methamphetamine.

>> and that is bad enough. If we don’t have adequate levels of law enforcement to dictate — to take the deal is off the street and adequate levels of treatment as a catch for the people who are unable to get the prescription medicine on which they depend, then we will fail. We don’t have public awareness to lower the stigma, people will not seek treatment first place and we don’t have good family outreach and support, will have a loving and understanding families that are at essential to help somebody recover from this disease. We funnel these things through things we call safe campuses which is about encouraging campuses to have prevention programs have recovery programs for their students and safe communities where we try to gather the best practices we can find from communities fighting this epidemic come up until them up conveniently and put them act out.– put them back out. There is a great deal that can be done at the federal level. There is a great deal that can be don’t the state level. The governors are starting to feel pressure and some are really stepping up in a major way to fight this epidemic. But we win this at the community level, the local level and that’s what we are all about. Thanks a lot for having us here today.

>> we look forward later on for questions and we love collaboration. We want best practices. We look forward to working with you.

>> thank you so much. Thank you for bringing the powerful story here. I want to bring waltz and Kevin into this. Walt has been touched by an unfortunate situation. Share a few words with us.

>> when I was asked to be on this panel, I actually saidme? Here? I said well what do they want? All I kept hearing was they want your story. And last night, I was on a conference call with Drew and Katie from the DOJ to talk about this and I said again, are you sure you want me? What is it you really want? Again, they said we want to hear your story. OK. So to start with a story about our son Zach — I want to start at the end. And then go to the beginning. Zach was 24, married, his wife pregnant. They had kind of a young couple disagreement and Zach came home that night. In the night he came home, we met him at a narcotics anonymous meeting. He went to a meeting, he was shortly out of rehab, maybe two or three weeks and he was going to meetings and we went to this meeting with him. If you’ve never been to an na meeting, I highly recommend you go. It’s very enlightening and you will learn more in that one-hour meeting then you may even think you know about drugs. But when Zach came home, we were at our house and he went to his room and we went to bed. Then the next morning, July 4,2015, my wife says — I said to my wife, you may want to get him up because I think Katie is coming down here, his wife. She goes in his room. She comes back out against me and says I think you need to go in there. I have a medical background and I went in and Zach was laying face down. I turned them over — I turned him over and started working on him. There was a needle next to him in the floor. And I moved it a little bit out of the way because when you are in a situation like that, your rain is firing so fast you cannot imagine. I thought the police will want that. I moved it over. When I turned him over, you could tell it was going to be too late. But we started working. And then I guess it was 10 minutes, ems came and they took over and took him out and took him to a local hospital. We followed up their. By that time Katie had come and was there. Of course, the whole may read was there as you can imagine. Three or four police cars, ambulances, it was a scene that you can’t imagine you are in, you just can’t imagine it. It never skips my mind, it is there all day. I could be having a conversation with somebody and not even thinking about anything and out of the corner of your eye, you see someone who is an eclipse of your child and you are right back to it. Zach was her only child.– Zach was our only child. How did that happen? My wife is a 38 year retired schoolteacher. I went to work everyday. We were middle-class. We were you. We were you, we were just making a living. We. Were never on an episode of cops we did not have them in our neighborhood. There is no reason. We were just middle-class American. About the age of 14, Zach’s story sounds remarkably just like your son. Add problems, anxiety problems, started self-medicating with marijuana, started all of a sudden having trouble at school. We didn’t know how to stop it. We went to physicians. Went to counselors. Zach started missing school so we had him arrested. At the age of 16. You have your own son arrested because he won’t go to school. Try that one on for size when you have children. To have the police command to your house and rest your child because you know it’s the best thing for him because you cannot stop it. We tried everything. We had Zach in rehab countless times. We had him in rehab one time because of just over use of marijuana because we saw what it was doing to him. It was just tearing them down, turning him into a person that we did not recognize. When you go to an na meeting which I ask you to go to, ask those men and women in those meetings how did you start? How did you get here question mark 80%, 90% of them will say I started with marijuana. When I hear how we need to legalize marijuana for this or for that, I understand the medical. But I just shake my head. When you go to those meetings, just ask. Most of them don’t say I started with over-the-counter drugs or opioids. They start with marijuana. It opens the door. But we were a normal family. We went to Disney World and we went to the beach and we went to Graceland and we did all this stuff and just slipped away from us. It just slipped away. And Zach was out of rehab just a couple of weeks and he was doing a favor for one of his so-called friends that we never approved of but what can you do? And Zach’s fatal dose of drugs didn’t come from a guy at the corner or come from some guy he knew. It came from a federal employee. A came from the United States Post Office. They came to our house. It sat in a brown envelope and it was Fentanyl. A came out of Québec, Canada. We didn’t know. I never even heard about the dark web. I actually still don’t understand what it is but that’s where it came from. It was hand delivered to our house. We gave it to Zach. We didn’t open it up. You don’t think we don’t think about that every day? That’s what this whole addiction process does. It takes a little bit of everybody involved. Everybody in America knows there is a drug problem. They simply just don’t care until it shows up on their doorstep. Or their brothers doorstep or their sisters doorstep. that’s what may go, oh, wow. Everybody knows there is a problem. And now, my wife and I are part of an organization talked about earlier called heat, heroin education action team. It started in the Eastern District of Kentucky at the U.S. attorney’s office. When my wife and I were invited to go to the first meeting, I was very skeptical. What can you do? You want to throw your hands up. What can you do? What it is, it’s a group of people like me and my wife and people who have suffered this loss. And Jenny Parker sitting here leave this up. And she gets the right people to the right organization. My wife is a retired schoolteacher so she goes to schools. I go to more adult organizations. We have a person for every type of organization. I want to challenge the U.S. attorneys in here — if you don’t have heat where you are at, why not? It helps, it works. They hear our stories. My wife comes home after every meeting and says, the kids lineup to tell her about their dad or their mom or their brother or their uncle. It’s a way for kids to know, I’m not alone. Because when this happens to you, I pray for every one of you in here that it doesn’t happen but if it ever does, you feel you are alone. Even though you are not, you feel like you are. So, it’s a high honor to be here and I wish I was not here for this reason. But that’s my story.

>> thank you, walt and you may be questioning why you are here but I think all of us know that you sharing your story along with these other panelists is very powerful and your words to the U.S. attorneys to encourage them to develop a program like you guys have in Kentucky is very strong endorsement. I want to bring Kevin into this. He has been doing this work probably longer than anybody on the panel, probably about a decade now in the New Jersey area. You have probably learned a lot of lessons over the years of what works and what hasn’t worked. Share with us some of the work you are doing in New Jersey and how you got here.

>> good morning. Can you hear me good? My cell phone number is 609-731-9166. I don’t say that out of arrogance or confidence that you will want to call me. I say it because by the time I get to the end of my presentation, I will probably forget to say it. I’m giving it to you now. I want to thank Attorney General Sessions. We met at the White House. You are a Southern gentleman. Us parents need you and we need you now and I thank you. I also want to thank Darlene for moderating our panel. And especially thank Mary and Katie for spending so much time talking to me on the phone and just listening to my ramblings. We always talk in honor of our children but today, I also want to talk in appreciation of Detective Scott kivett from the Robbinsville police department. He gets it and when he calls me up, devastated by arresting someone and then tells me months later about the recovery but then he calls me and tells me that the person relapsed and passed away. I understand what it takes from his heart as a local law enforcement officer. I also want to recognize someone in the audience, don holman whose son Garret passed away. The Attorney General is talking about synthetic and Fentanyl coming in from China and Garret passed away from u4770 and usually I tell my parents, when you lose, if you get out of bed in the morning, you are doing everything you are supposed to be doing. Don’t tell that to don because in the first year he was in the White House twice and invited to a session with the first lady. Don’t stand in the way of a parent on a mission. Today is the DOJ opioid summit so I’m hoping that my presentation will generate conversation and help you to think out of the box. Usually, I talked to high schools. I talk about preparation. But I was thinking about it last night. It’s not different for you. Many of you, you your academy training and your school prepared you for these careers you have today. For me, my love of history prepared me to get involved in government. As a 38 year utility worker, that prepared me to work to ships at Ground Zero test to ships at Ground Zero on 9/11. I’m Irish Catholic and I say I come from a small Irish Catholic family, only eight kids, but that prepared me for my Irish activism and I was one of only about 15 people in the United States during the Irish peace process that was invited to the State Department when the envoy came back to talk about that. It also prepared me to be invited to the White House for the St. Patrick’s Day reception’s. Whether you consider those successes or experiences, none of them prepared Mary and an eye for June 30, 2008 when we woke up and found my son dead on his bedroom floor from a heroin overdose. His name is Kevin and he was 24. we called him KC and I effectively refer to him as a knucklehead. Great kid. He loved life. He had a tiger by the tail called heroine.-heroin. I’m a volunteer for city of Angels and when KC died, parents of his friends and his friends came to Marianne and I visit our son or daughter has a problem, can you help us? As you can imagine, like most parents, we didn’t know what to do. We set out to help them we found that we needed to learn more. So I went to a local judge, Tony Massey and we talked and I said I’m learning about addiction and treatment but these kids have been arrested. I need to learn about law enforcement. He brought in a retired cop who had a program in the city of Trenton. There was three of us in the room and then five and then 15 with chart pack all over the wall and we couldn’t figure out how the system worked, we asked someone to show us. In March of 2009, we took $1000 out of KC’s Memorial fund and started city of Angels. The name wasn’t particularly special. One of our crew watched the movie city of Angels, it sounded good to us. It’s a nonprofit in New Jersey. It’s a 501(c)(3). Everyone is a volunteer and nobody is paid. All the money we raise goes out to helping. When we started out, it was just to health people get help — it was to help people get help so we were training to be interventionist, counselors. And we started to get some of our kids and recovery. We’ll go to high schools, church groups so that they would have an opportunity to do testimonials and then we started doing advocacy. I will tell you, I all at all to Dr. oz. It sounds funny but it was a chance meeting with the director from the white office — the White House office of drug policy which wound up inviting us to the firsthida conference at Towson University. Mj was there who is my hero, to the White House for a parents meeting and then in March, I was asked to speak at the White House opioid summit. When I stood up to talk, Attorney General you were sitting up on stage, I kind of look and said I cannot fathom 10 years ago that our journey would take us from kc’s bedroom to the East room but it did. One of the things we concentrated on at city of Angels is recovery coaching. It’s an emerging entity in this field. We found it back in 2011 I did not act on it until 2012 but we went and got trained is recovery coaches. Since then, we have trained about 500 recovery coaches. In 2008, it was basically volunteers. In 2012, it was called recovery coaches and now they call it peer recovery specialists in the Police Department and recovery rooms to help those that have had had overdoses or have been arrested. We also have a program — I talked to the Admiral program — earlier, many veterans had dirty paper which means it was the less than honorable discharge. You could have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, you get court-martialed out and you get home with no benefits. These people served our country and had no benefits. We started the warrior down program and the Slattery detachment of the Marine Corps league in North Jersey adopted us. I was making monthly trips to Walter Reed and down to North Carolina and we are trying to address our vets. That’s a little bit about how we got here. And where we are. Soy I want to talk a little about where we are going. And since we are here with law enforcement, I will try to focus on law enforcement. A show of hands, who is federal? Who is state? Who was local? What we have to hope for today is that what we are talking about will start raking down some of the silos. So that what you will do is seamless. Have you heard law enforcement has no role in this? That this is a health think? If you break up the commute into three segments — medical, education and law enforcement. Law-enforcement you would think of the last ones over the fence because you were trained to arrest. Let me tell you, you are light years ahead of the other communities. There’s still kicking heroin addict out of emergency room’s to get into a high school and to talk. For that, I applaud you all. You are forever in our thoughts. Quickly, let’s talk about Scott kivett. He was on our board almost 10 years ago as a Robbinsville police officer and it was Scott who working with us created his care program, community addiction response effort to wear if they arrest someone, they will bring one of our recovery coaches in. We know if you invest one dollar in prevention and treatment, you will save $12 between law enforcement and medical. If we can go in with that intervention and stop two years down the road where it’s a felony, it will be successful. That’s done on the local level. What about Tom and Jeff? I met them in Towson and Tom holds his phone and says look at this. He shows me an app for his phone. How many od map? How many states are employing it? It’s an app for overdose reporting. Real-time. Lied.-live. The drug monitoring initiative, I met them and set with them. We are all looking at where the overdoses happened in their data was able to show us where they were coming from. Where are they coming from to get their drugs? Sharon Joyce from the Attorney General’s office in New Jersey has been in charge of opioids there such as Mary. And she sat with me. Remember, I’m a nobody. I’m not a professional, I’m just a dad who buried his kid that she sat with me to hear what I had to say. She gave me 30 minutes and after an hour and a half, she said can you put this in writing? Chief Brian pesch of Bordentown sat with me and devise not only a care program for now we are talking about recovery houses which is the scourge of your community but for us to train these guys to be recovery coaches that the police departments can lean on in the community. Rather than being a scourge, they contribute to the community. Special Agent Joe crowder Virginia State police, can you imagine him holding a local event in his high school? on drugs and alcohol? I still remember to this day when I was on stage presenting– I drove all the way from New Jersey — there is nothing in the Roanoke Valley. Joe was saying do you see that Police Chief? He said he won’t allow an arc can in his police vehicles. He says that’s for EMT. We know there needs to be a seismic shift in how we speak. Patrolman ta meka holly from Princeton. They came and took our recovery coach course. To become recovery coaches. To be a resource in their Police Department so that someone there– we talk about domestic violence, that’s where we got the idea for a standard operating procedure for recovery coaches just like with domestic violence when someone is brought in, arrested, the wife is brought in to begin and resources. That’s what we modeled this after. Prosecutor Sean Dalton and Detective Danny Clarissa — the Gloucester initiative in South Jersey. They got together, prosecutor,10 Police Chief’s, Detective larusso, the school and Dr. Jim Baird to form an initiative where they are all working together to educate, put a resource emergency rooms and put a resource in the Police Department. Sergeant Craig Hoover from East Brunswick. Craig goes over his arrest records and then he goes out and visits the resident. Of where the addict lives to see if they won’t help. So I can say from where I stand that our experience with law enforcement has been positive. If anybody tells you that you don’t have a role to play, tell them to come see me. So, this segues into where else are we going. What of Sergeant Hoover had the ability to visit addicts before they overdosed based on their likelihood of overdosing? It sounds like the Wizard of Oz. Maybe you should talk to retired major wong in New Jersey where the DMI leads the nation. Wan is able to data mine that information. As we create the dashboards of tomorrow, the data mining has to be right. At coa, our concentration has been on the front and, interventions, family meetings but yet these kids are still dying. I have some smart people at city of Angels were volunteers but they started to talk to me about wellness, about gutcentric. When your insurance runs out, Admiral walt, Mary, Debbie, treatment doesn’t want you anymore. Imagine being a treatment center and your insurance runs out and you sail want to stay for three more weeks, I’m doing good. They say what. When insurance runs out, nobody– the only thing left is aa. And there is 20 million people in recovery and only about 2 million people in aa and nothing against them but its cigarettes, coffee, and doughnuts. City of Angels, we are looking at the beck and because when we started, nobody was doing what we were doing that now, there is so many other groups. There is treatment centers, interventionists on the front and so we are looking at the back end because, Attorney General, we have to learn how to extend the recovery. If city of Angels helps 100 people get into recovery, 2-5 stay in recovery and the other97 go back to heroin and now with Fentanyl, that’s what’s killing them. We have to find a way to extend their wellness and that’s what we are looking at. One of those things is called hbot. Any divers in here? Hyperbaric treatment? Any EMTs in here? If you go in and you are found on your bedroom floor from carbon monoxide poisoning and you are brought back to the hospital, you are treated in a hyperbaric chamber. That’s called detox. Did you ever hear that word before? We are looking at city of Angels usinghbot therapy. More related injury and illness center, there are only three in the country. We are working with the doctors on oxygen therapy. We talked to the V.A. secretary about it. The V.A. is starting to look at it for PTSD and traumatic brain injury but if you look at a spec scan of a traumatic brain injury or PTSD, it looks similar to a brain on alcohol or heroin. If it can fix that, why can’t fix that? We’re looking at that. Maybe the future of city of Angels is like the Saint Jude children’s research Hospital. We were talking about creating for our veterans a research Institute for addictions. I called city of Angels a small mom-and-pop operation but we believe we did big things because we have big friends, Mary, the Attorney General.

>> while you are talking about that, you bring up about the recovery and extending bet and I think that’s a critical area. Mary and the Admiral of work on that as well and how that’s a very vulnerable situation that someone’s in. I don’t know if you want to rest that quickly and then go back to Kevin?

>> everybody goes to how many deaths and reporting those and Baltimore has a great program doing that. One thing I would love for people to do is reach out — there is an app that shows you where narcan is located in communities and that’s with saving lives in bringing down the number. Transition is definitely — we need to change the culture in this country. We need to look at how insurance reimburses. Mental health and substance abuse needs to be reimbursed the same way for diabetes or any other chronic disease. Addiction is a lifelong disease.

>> the specific question is, why is this so dangerous when people are coming out of long-term treatment? What’s going on scientifically is your brain has recovered and the opioid receptors we all have the govern our well-being that were saturated when the person was addicted are clean. They are reset, as it were and because the opioid receptors have a lot to do with controlling respiration or bodies, if you go out and relapse and you use the same dose of the drug that was required to overcome that desensitized opioid receptor and you put that on her re- sensitized opioid receptor, that’s when you can overdose. That’s white were vulnerable coming out of recovery because you are still new in the world again and it’s a new experience for you. You are vulnerable to even just seeing drug paraphernalia and re-initiating cravings and if you take the same dose of the drug, there’s a good chance it will kill you and — and if it has Fentanyl, you’re a sitting duck. That’s what that particular phase is so dangerous. It has to be carefully managed and when people can get through that, there’s a pretty good chance that if they have the right support from their families and the system at large that they can actually recover.

>> it’s a cultural shift. Going into college, 1/3 of all students have some form of mental illness. Things I-80 or depression or bipolar or something severe but when you put that on top of the stress and anxiety of going to college, and Adderall is your number one study drug, you are setting people up for failure.

>> we talk about medication assisted treatment and we talk about medication assisted recovery. When someone is taking a drug in your only substituting that for another drug, I say bring it on. I would rather have substituted that drug than the one I killed my son. If he had been on the right medicated assisted recovery, we would still have them today.

>> I’ve got a couple of questions but I think we’ve got about 10 minutes left.

>> I’m time sensitive challenged. I know I have taken more of my time. I just want to conclude with this — I know why am doing what I’m doing. This is not a deck of cards. These are the funerals I’ve attended just in the city of Angels. That chair is to help you understand what you are doing. There is 62 days between this conference and Christmas and in that time, there will be 12,231 and two chairs at Christmas dinner tables because of overdoses. You want to know me and the Admiral and Walt and Debbie and Sue because of what we’ve learned. You don’t want to be us because of what we went through. We are broken. We are not defeated, thank you.

>>

[APPLAUSE]

>> we do hear so much about the statistics and those are numbers on paper but when you hear the real stories and see how this epidemic is affecting every demographic and breaking down some of the stigmas we talked about, that there are some many families affected by this and the powerful stories speaking out and you are telling how we got here and maybe there’s an intervention and maybe the common theme I’m hearing, especially wa lt and Kevin is the partnerships with law enforcement and prosecutors and the victim — and the services that are out there in the community is so important that none of us should be operating in our silos that we can partner with each other and it’s so much more powerful. Walt, how did you first get into this? Did you reach out to the Attorney General’s office?

>> um, I think I heard it through my wife who heard it from a friend of hers. There was a family friend who lost her daughter on Christmas eve, 2014 and it was the day after Christmas and I took the day off work and was reading the paper and saw her obituary. Her name was Elizabeth hulsing and my wife taught her. I went to my wife and said look, and then it was horrible. And then went to act died, then we heard from Elizabeth’s mother who knew about the heat program. I was very skeptical. I asked questions when I was there because prior to being at the first meeting was the national overdose awareness day. I’m sure many have heard of this. We had that in Lexington and I went to this park or they have the national overdose awareness day and proclamations were read and speeches were given. There was absolutely nothing in the newspaper and nothing on our local news about it and it irritated me. It just irritated me. Nothing was mentioned about it. When I got this call or we go down to this meeting that that then U.S. attorney comes in a my first question is, how are you going to be different than these people? Well, because he walked the walk and talk the talk, he started it. And then it did not take as long to realize it was the real deal. He wanted to reach the community and he did. And that’s how heat started. I don’t know how many members we have now but it’s very effective and again, I say if you don’t have it in your office, why not?

>> if I can jump in, I know personally that Colorado, North Carolina, Attorney General Josh Stein, love him, they are bringing together all of those, everyone in the community. We were down there about six months ago for a meeting with law enforcement, harm reduction, Duke University, everybody coming together to look at this in a holistic approach. In Colorado, operation poison pusher and operation warm handoff. Going after the dealers but also taking care of those who have succumbed to addiction so that we don’t have the repeat in the jail and rather than arresting, how we take care of those people. There are communities, there are states coming together and are working through these collaborations and that’s how we will get a handle on all of this.

>> to underscore that, when you sit in a room in North Carolina with 13 sheriffs and Chiefs of police who are steadily s,–tudly, strong law enforcement professionals doing it to this job and they have decided that arresting users is not working for them and they have reached out to the harm reduction community, they are doing exactly what they should do and going after the deal is hard that they are reaching out in a harm reduction. When you see those communities cooperative with each other, it’s really powerful.

>> Kevin, you have been doing this a fair number of years so it’s got to be difficult, the stories you see in the prayer cards you held up, that it takes its emotional toll on law enforcement and the prosecutors put them on volunteers and folks doing this work. You have already had your own tragedies. How do you cope with that? What do you say to inspire people who want to get involved? It’s difficult but you have to take care of yourself at the same time and insulate yourself. Share with us your thoughts on that.

>> I tell people that we built my brothers house and I tell people I can build a house and go out and dance at night but I’m sure, Admiral, Mary, Walt, Debbie will attest that when we are done today, we’re wiped. It takes everything out of you. Marianne is in school right now. She is a special services School District eight so she is not here. But when she is with me, I have to look and — I have 2 — Inside, I forced her to relive this when we come out and do these panels, every time. She is a tough Italian girl. I was with the Attorney General in March at the White House and I came home all excited and told her about it. She said I don’t care whose house you are at of the garbage has to go out. She keeps me grounded. Whether it’s your faith, for me, whether it’s your support group, something allows you. I am by nature week =–w eak so want to be able to do this. When I was kneeling over my son and giving him CPR, I kind of looked up and Marianne was at his feet crying. I said God, I’m not going to be able to handle this. I’m just going to go behind the shed. Unless you take this for me. I believe that’s what he did and it has allowed me to go out and when we have a parent who loses, the hardest thing is, I’m never so forward to say I know what you’re going through because I don’t. I know what I went through. And to feel that that parent now has to go through that, that’s the hardest thing.

>> we all bring something different to this. Even as similar as similar situations might be, everybody approaches it and handles these tragedies in different ways. I think support groups are so valuable. I know from my 20 years as a victims Advocate that having other people who can somewhat identify with your walk and you can find a common bond and share with each other and build each other up on those difficult days. I think if I canbuy a couple of more minutes. I know we have some great policymakers and prosecutors in the room. We may have time so if you guys of a burning question, anything you are wondering and you want to ask this valuable, brilliant panel we have here? They have answered all your questions?

>> it’s a shy group.

>> they are shy. I hope you will take their advice and develop some of these programs. if you don’t have a group like this already in your area. I am quite certain you can probably find some willing partners in your communities.

>> I’d like to say thank you for having us here and thank you for what the federal government is doing and what you are doing on the state level but it’s going to take communities to going all the way down. As we used to say in the military, I did a lot of work with wounded warriors and yes, the federal government has a responsibility to take care of those individuals but we all have a responsibility. This is truly affecting our way of life going forward. I had the honor of yes, the federal government has being at at adweek to talk to corporations. The American Dream is at risk in our national security is at risk. We have no idea that the babies born every 20 minutes with needle abstinence syndrome and how that will play out in the future. All those young people in jail now that will keep rotating out, this is affecting our economy. If we cannot approach to any other way, the way we are were built is at risk.

>> I want to thank Attorney General Sessions and Rod Rosenstein for putting this together and the people organize this. ICAC of faces and you folks are on the front lines of this epidemic and thanks for what you guys do each and every day. We really appreciate it.

>> this is being streamed live and I hope a lot of folks are watching this across the country and getting great ideas about how to do this. If you contact the Department of Justice, they can put you in touch with different resources out there and make this happen in your communities. We don’t have time to waste. We got to get boots on the ground and folks busy about this and that’s why it’s been wonderful working in the Department of Justice and seeing that actually happening on all fronts from the enforcement and prosecution but also the grantmaking components that are funding these great programs.

>> and the great collaboration because we really need to get at the underlying cause. No one grows up saying I want to be an addict and my son did not say I want to die at age 19. That was not his goal in life so we really need to look at the underlying causes. Right now it’s opioids and methamphetamine is on the rise, vaping is huge and we have no idea what’s in that. Fentanyl can show up. We need to look at the underlying causes as well. I know we are trying to solve what’s happening and stop the fatalities but it’s looking at how we get into the situation in the first place.

>>

>> I’m appreciative to the four of you not just for being here but also the work you do every day in your communities and spreading the word I think it’s great. We do have maybe a question.

>> I was part of a program, it took over a decade that reversed high school senior drug use down50%. Many lies were saved. There are three things, prevention, we’ve got to keep people from starting on the path, law enforcement which is a component of prevention but it’s important and don’t let people tell you is not an thirdly is treatment. Without more money out now for treatment. We will have more prevention programs but the key to prevention is citizens like these you have heard from today. They carry that message and it touches people’s hearts and more and more people know somebody personally who has suffered as a result of this disease. Darling, thank you for putting this together and thank you all for participating. We are so glad you are here.

[APPLAUSE]

>> Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our first panel. We’d really like to thank all the panelists for sharing their stories of their loved ones and inspiring us to do better. We’ll take a brief break. The Attorney General has to leave for a scheduled meeting, but we’d like to invite everybody to give the panelists and Attorney General a round of applause.

[applause]

>> Hello, ladies and gentlemen. It’s time to start our second panel. Can you please take your seats. A lot of good conversations going on. That’s exactly what we want here at the summit. Our second panel is called enforcement — the justice department’s imperative. It’s composed of many distinguished officials from across the department. We’ll discuss our efforts to combat the epidemic. Our acting associate Attorney General, Jesse panuccio is moderating the panel. He previously served as the executive director of the Florida department of economic opportunity and also served as a general counsel and deputy general counsel to the governor of Florida. He’s a graduate of Harvard law school and Duke university. In his current role he oversees the department’s civil division, its office of justice programs, the community Oriented policing service, and the office for victims of crime. These are all key D.O.J. components in combating the epidemic. All of our distinguished panelists oversee their own components or agencies and I will leave it to Mr. Panuccio to introduce them.

>> Thank you for that introduction and for your tireless efforts in helping to address the opioid crisis. It continues to be a privilege to work with you on this urgent priority for the department and nation as a whole. I’ll get to our panelists. I want to provide a few p opening remarks. Let me also say many thanks to the panelists we just heard from who are providing the resources and the care for those who suffer from the consequences of this terrible addiction crisis we have. It grows out of their own personal tragedies and personal crisis. We’re so appreciative for what they do. As you heard, that panel was a lot about treatment and how we care for those who are addicted. But enforcement is the other side of our efforts here. So we turn from that topic to the issue of how we stem the tide of how we drive down the illicit production, distribution, and use of opioids. As you have already heard this morning from Attorney General sessions and deputy Attorney General Rosen stein, one of the justice department’s top priorities is driving down the death toll from opioids. More than 200,000 people have perished in the last two decades because of opioid overdoses. Almost a quarter, 42,000 of them, occurred in 01 alone . To put that in perspective, opioid deaths in 2016 outranked automobile fatalities, gun fatalities, and alcohol induced fatalities. 125 people per day are dying from opioids. That’s this entire audience to put that in some perspective for you. It is just simply staggering to think about. This ghastly death toll is the result of our country having been illegally flooded with prescription opioids, synthetic opioids, and heroin. There are people, companies, and criminal gangs or enterprisings responsible for this fatal — enterprises responsible for this fatal glut. It is our duty and intention to hold them responsible. That applies to the entire supply chain — manufacturers, distributors, doctors, pharmacies, organized crime, and street dealers. Those who have spent years violating this nation’s drug laws to profit off of addiction and death are going to be held accountable. The department will bring to this fight all of its tools and resources. Criminal prosecution also continue to be large part of our effort. We will indict and aggressively prosecute those who manufacture, import, and sell heroin and synthetic opioids. We will likely prosecute doctors and pharmacists who misuse their controlled substance registrations in the distribution of prescription opioids. We will also use the full arsenal of the department’s civil ebb formente — enforcement authorities. The false claims act provides the department with a powerful tool to pursue all of those in the opioid distribution chain that are responsible for improper marketing, distribution, prescription, and diversion. Much of our work in this area is not yet public, but I can assure you that a reckoning is coming for those who have defrauded the government in the course of profiting from opioids. Another important example of civil enforcement an ongoing, cooperative effort by the consumer protection branch here at main justice and several U.S. attorney offices to invoke the injunctive relief provisions of the controlled substances act to halt illegal prescribing by doctors and pharmacists. The northern district of Ohio announced the first of these cases this past summer. The consumer protection branch is also exploring the use of the federal food, drug, and cosmetic act in these areas — cases. Doctors and pharmacists need to be on the frontlines of stemming this crisis. They need to prescribe responsibly and lawfully. If they do not, we have the tools to hold them accountable. One set of commentators describe these recent case from the northern district of Ohio as the department getting creative and aggressive. That the department has rediscovered a potentially powerful tool and now shown is willing to use it. That is absolutely correct. The commentator was right to warn anyone at all connected to the opioid business to take heed of what we’re doing. Cases like these will give our attorneys the tools to stop bad actors before or during prosecution. Or even when the evidence falls short of what is necessary to bring a criminal case. These new tools supplement others that have traditionally been the mainstay of civil enforcement under the controlled substances act. We’ll continue to bring action force civil monetary penalties of up to $6 ,500 for each errant prescription and up to $14,500 for each record keeping violation involving controlled substances. These penalties can and often do result in civil complaints seeking millions of dollars in penalty ps. They provide a powerful incentive for controlled substances registrants to follow closely federal regulations. At the same time, the D.E.A. will continue to bring administrative actions to revoke the controlled substance registration of doctors and pharmacists who disobey the rules. Tactical diversion squads will continue to conduct inspections and investigations that provide the evidence for all of these enforcement tools. In sum, the department of justice is employing every resource we have, criminal, civil, and administrative, to combat the opioid crisis. We want the message to be clear. To be very clear. Those causing this crisis will be brought to justice. We have here today a very distinguished panel to discuss our enforcement efforts. They are uniquely qualified. Each of their extended bios, I could probably spend 10 or 15 minutes on the careers of each of these individuals, their extended bios are in your materials and offer only a brief introduction to get to the substance. We’re joined by blyian benczkowski, the assistant Attorney General for the department’s criminal discuss main just’s criminal enforcement efforts. We’re joined by Justin herdman, U.S. attorney for the northern district of Ohio who will discuss some of the criminal cases his office has brought. As well as the pioneering civil work and case from this summer I just mentioned. We’re also joined by uttam dhillon, the acting administrator of the D.E.A. who will discuss the important work his agency has done identifying doctors and pharmacist who is break the law. The D.E.A.’s investigative resources and the administrative process the D.E.A. has at its disposal to revoke controlled substance registrations. And we’re joined by David bow ditch, deputy — David bowdich, he will discuss the bureau’s cooperation with the D.E.A. and local law enforcement to gather the evidence we use to combat the opioid crisis through enforcement. Gentlemen, thanks to each of you for joining us for this important panel. I’ll open it up with a question that would be for everyone. If you could discuss in perhaps five minutes each, I know this is a big question for five minutes, how are your agencies or components contributing to the department’s overall effort to curtail the opioid epidemic? Let me try to focus that for each of you. Brian, perhaps you could address the components in the criminal division how they use the various expertise. Justin, if you could highlight with what you have done with operation synthetic opioid surge. Uttam, discuss the drug take back day. And David F. p you could highlight any of the differences in the F.B.I.’s dealing with the prescription painkiller, prescriptions versus the Fentanyl or synthetic opioids. Go down the line.

>> Thank you. It’s an honor and privilege to be here today to represent the brave men and women of the drug enforcement administration. This is an important week for D.E.A. This Saturday, October 27, is national prescription drug takeback day. It is from 10:00 to 2:00. It will be at locations all across the country. Collection locations across the country. It’s date we encourage all Americans to look in their medicine cabinets and p pull out all of those prescription drugs they are not using and go to that collection location near them and deposit them for safe and secure disposal. Anybody who is watching this who wants to know where to go, all they need to do is go to deatakeback.com. You will find a location near you. There is over 5,000 locations throughout the country that will be receiving prescription medication this is Saturday from10:00 to 2:00. It’s important to do this. So many Americans have become addicted to the medicines in their medicine cabinets. Getting those medicines out, properly disposing of them, is critical. Since we started this program in2010, we have collected almost 10 million pounds of medications. We do it twice a year. And last one was in April. We collected about 900,000 pounds. We’re hoping to at least match that if not obtain, collect more this Saturday. The second thing, because the deputy Attorney General and Attorney General talked about how prevention is a part of enforcement. That’s one element of prevention that D.E.A. focuses on, the take back day. This is red ribbon week a very important week for the drug enforcement administration. This is a week when we remember the special agent, D.E.A. special agent enkey Ray who was brutally murdered by Mexican drug traffickers 33 years ago. Every year at this time we remember him, his ultimate sacrifice. And we also have programs throughout the country, throughout schools where we teach students, educate students about the dangers of drug addiction. We ask them to take a pledge not to become addicted to drugs. This is a good time for this opioid summit because this is a really important time for D.E.A. in terms of our prevention model. I’ll say — from a very — briefly what we’re doing from an enforcement perspective quickly. We’re increasing the number of special agents. We’re adding task force officers. We’re authorizing 400 more task force officers. The Attorney General has increased the number of federal prosecutors who will be prosecuting drug cases. D.E.A. is focused completely and totally on fighting the opioid crisis from both the prevention area we discussed as well as full force on the enforcement. Our job is to disrupt, dismantle, and destroy drug trafficking organizations. We’re completely focused on that mission.

>> Thank you. Appreciate that. Deputy director, would you like to adress the issue?

>> Thank you for allowing me to address you today. I represent the F.B.I. director wray and 37,000 men and women who work worldwide to keep this nation safe. This is one facet of our mission. And we obviously work with everyone at this table and their people throughout the world on this problem. Sometimes I will step back on a highly complex issue and say to myself if you look at the way things work, we have been here before. Can I say that about this problem? I don’t know. But we have had major drug issues before in this country and we have found a way to address them to the best of our ability. Let’s be clear, we’re only a piece of this solution. We recognize that because as long as the demand is here, you will have drugs coming into this country. But we have a responsibility to do everything that we can to mitigate that. And to the point that was made Earlier, hold people accountable. We in the F.B.I., we focus on a number of things which first of all, we work with our partners at the state and local level very closely. As well as our other federal partners n this case mostly with the D.E.A. And department of homeland security as well. The D.E.A. is — from the department of justice, they are the lead on drug investigations. We work very closely and hand in hand with them. We do this to address the transnational criminal organizations. Some of those organizations start in Mexico in this case. I’m going to talk about synthetic opioids to include Fentanyl. Fentanyl I know you have probably discussed this and I don’t want to retread old ground, the origin of the vast majority is China. It comes to Mexico and comes into this country or comes through the mail into this country. That is — those are our entry points. There are more. Our concern if you go back to the meth problem, this is why I say sometimes there is nothing new under the sun, it was started in the canyons of California and probably a few other places. It eventually evolved into being produced down in the superlabs in Mexico. That’s when it become much more efficient and much more productive for the trafficking groups. Once they get it here, then it goes to the street gangs. The street gangs will distribute it. Or in this case it will go to your networks that are focused on these particular problems. Those are multiple points where we can interject and work hand in hand with our partners to ensure we try to address those networks and hold them accountable for bringing this dangerous substance into our country. We do have concerns that the same thing could happen here. The Fentanyl is produced, much in China. Could you see some of these superlabs being multipurposed in Mexico? Absolutely. That’s our fear because it would make it more plentiful to come into the country. We have a massive approach — massive job ahead of us, but we will continue to work hand in hand. Again, I recognize for those in the room, we’re simply one piece of this solution. To better address the original question I was asked, we do have a prescription drug initiative which focuses purely on criminal enterprises that are engaged in prescription drug schemes. That’s fairly easy, your enterprises if you look at them, if you look at a gang or drug cartel, they are going to have sales arms. They are going to have enforcement arms. They are going to have guns, money laundering. The prescription drug scheme networks may have a little less of the violence, but they will have the same. They run like a business, sometimes disorganized, but they run like a business like any organization. Second thing we’re doing — next thing we’re doing is working on the dark web. The distribution networks. This is a very prevalent area in which we have had a number of successes to address the trafficking of synthetic opioids in particular on the north end. It’s very concerning. We have a lot of undercovers. We have a lot of efforts afoot down there so we can continue to address its issue. Then finally we work with the D.E.A. very closely on an education project where we produce a couple of videos for the public consumption. We found those to be relatively effective. It’s difficult to measure the true effectiveness of it, but we do receive a lot of comments. That was a jointly produced videos. And were designed purely to educate.

>> Thank you. Assistant Attorney General benczkowski.

>> Thank you. It’s fair to say there is no higher priority in the criminal division than this issue right now. The president and Attorney General have set the tone. And that alone would be enough under normal circumstances to elevate this to the top of the list. But for me, this issue is a little bit personal. My father spent 30 years of his career in both the public and private sectors, including more than 20 years here in the District of Columbia, in the field of prevention and treatment of addiction. I’m very, very proud of not only his record, but also to have the ability to lead the men and women of the criminal division on the law enforcement side of this equation. The criminal acquisition is a big place.– division is a big place. We have many different sections. Those sections are aligned well to address the variety of ways that opioids are manufactured, distributed, and trafficked in the United States. We have our narcotics and dangerous drug section which works hand in hand with the United States attorneys offices around the country, as well as our organized crime and gang section. Both of whom attack almost every day exclusively large drug trafficking organizations, including the organizations that are trafficking heroin and Fentanyl into the United States from China and Mexico. Our computer crime and intellectual property section is working furiously to attack the problem of Fentanyl distribution in places like the dark web on the internet. And probably most importantly in the highest profile initiative involves our fraud section, the Attorney General announced this morning a task force that will be led by, he said a dozen, I think we’ll probably have more, dozen plus experienced federal prosecutors who are going to go into five states and nine judicial districts in Appalachia, partner with our U.S. attorneys offices around the country to bring experienced prosecutors to bear to work side by side with U.S. attorneys offices in those affected districts to target doctors. To target pharmacies. To target health care professionals that are spreading this disease and addiction and poison in those communities. And the way it will work is the way it’s always worked. We bring a strike force model to bear in these states. We send in at the request of the United States attorneys and with respect to the strike force that was announce ped today, I had an opportunity, I and my deputy, to speak to all nine United States attorneys before we decided to do this. We had unbelievably enthusiastic support from all nine U.S. attorneys for us to come into the districts and work with them to prosecute cases in one of the most deeply affected and hardest hit parts of the country.

The way we do it is through — in addition to the typical hard work prosecutors do working with our federal law enforcement partners to make cases, we use modern technology, data analytics, to mine a variety of data, Medicare and Medicaid data and other data that gives us a very good sense of who the highest risk outliar physicians and pharmacies are in these communities so when we go in we’re not there making case where is it takes two and three years a. We’re able to do these things in a matter of months because the sooner you can can take off these doctors and others who are spreading prescription opioids in these communities, those are lives that are saved when you do these cases more quickly. That’s an overview of what we do in the criminal division. The hallmark of what we do under my leadership, it’s been the criminal division’s approach over the years, but I think we’re taking an even greater approach to this going forward, is making sure that we’re the best partners we can can possibly be with our U.S. attorney — we can can possibly be with our U.S. attorney colleagues in the field. We’ll talk about our offices which is a great example of collaboration between the criminal division and U.S. attorneys office. We’ll be the best partners we can can can possibly be in the field. I see a lot of U.S. attorneys in the audience. We look forward to working with you on all of these cases wherever you’ll have us. We’ll be the best partners we can be.

>> Brian, thank you. I want to follow up. On the strike force models, on the civil side, cooperation with local law enforcement sometimes in building evidence in this area is important. Is that a part of these models? What role do you see for local law enforcement?

>> It is. I think that we should utilize the things that work. So we work not only with the D.E.A. and F.B.I. and H.H.S., O.I.G., but we strongly encourage our local U.S. attorneys to utilize local law enforcement in these matters wherever they are willing to participate. We absolutely want that to continue. I don’t think we could make these cases without state and local support.

>> Thank you. U.S. attorney herdman.

>> I want to say at the outset I’m honored to be here on behalf of our United States attorney community. I know several of my colleagues are here. I think it really really does demonstrate to all of us how important this is. It is in our backyard. There are 93 of us across the country. The stories we heard on the first panel from Walt and Kevin, those are stories we have heard in our communities. We’re of our communities and there to protect our communities. And when you think about those stories that were told in that first panel, the fact this they are replicated 72,000 times last year in each of our districts, it’s something that I don’t this have to say it but will, we’re absolutely committed to addressing it. When you think of the fact that almost all of those 72,000 deaths were the result of some sort of illegal or criminal conduct, it calls for an enforcement strategy we can employ and implement in our districts. One of the opportunities we have been given from the department of justice with the resources we have been provided through OCDETF, is 10 pilot districts. Operation S.O.S., synthetic opioid surge. 10 of us were selected to implement this program and it’s districts that span from New England, Maine and New Hampshire, all the way to the district of California. I saw Greg Scott here from there. There is a cluster of districts in the heartland of America. Both districts in Virginia, both in Ohio, eastern district of Kentucky, and eastern district of Tennessee. I think almost all of my colleagues from those districts are here. That illustrates the impact in each of our communities of this opioid crisis. What we have committed to doing out of our offices is selecting one county within our districts where we will prosecute every readily provable opioid case involve Fentanyl, we don’t see very much heroin, but if we have heroin we’ll prosecute that, too. We have to do all out of these particular counties. There is a reason for that. You heard the Attorney General speak about the fact that we didn’t think of this. It was first implemented by one of our U.S. attorney colleagues in the middle district of plafment in manatee county. The results they witnessed were outstanding. Drop up to 77% in overdoses over the course of the project they implemented down there. A drop of 74% in overdose fatalities. Our objective here in each of our districts is to drive the death rate down. We can can do that by attacking Fentanyl dealers and suppliers. My colleague Christina is here from Vermont. I Herzegovina — I’ve heard her say this several times, if someone is dealing Fentanyl, they might as well be dealing cyanide. It is poison. Where people are profiting from selling that poison all of our districts are committed to bringing them to justice. The county in Ohio State is Lorraine county, immediately west of Cleveland. About 300,000 people. Former steel mill county. Had some auto plants. Suffered economically like much of the rest of our region. But has also suffered from the opioid crisis. In 2016 and 2017, the county witnessed about 130 deaths per year as a result of overdoses. Almost all of which were related to opioids. The death rate in p Lorraine county is the seventh highest in our district of 40 in northern Ohio. So we selected that county because we thought it was a place we could make an above average impact by implementing this program. This is very important, I know all my U.S. attorney colleagues who are implementing this program have thought along the same lines, very, very close relationships with our county prosecutor. And our local law enforcement. We have worked really tightly with the police departments over the years as a rufflet great federal cooperation through the F.B.I. and through the D.E.A. It was definitely a place we thought we could make an impact. We rolled our own version of operation S.O.S. out in July. Right when the toge announced this. Since then we charged 24 people out of Lorraine county for dealing almost exclusively Fentanyl, but also Fentanyl analogs. And some Fentanyl laced in pills. Of those 24, this is where I think you can start to see the impact, of those 24, 15 were out on bond for county level drug trafficking offenses. These are people that had been arrested multiple times, had been released from local courts, whack out — back out on the street and dealing. We were able to take them off the street and detained. All have been detained out of this. That’s 24 people not dealing Fentanyl anymore in Lorraine county. They are detained, awaiting trial. Some have pled. Another thing that’s important to point out is that of these 24 people that we have arrested, 15 are also career offenders. These are people who are facing very significant penalties. Decades in prison under the U.S. sentencing guidelines because of their criminal history. Again these are cases we may not otherwise have taken because they involve a very low threshold of sales involved. Another critical component and something we see in all the cases is the intersection with violent crime. We have arrested 24 people so far since July. Five of them had firearms and ammunition on them at the time of their federal arrest. They are on the street. They are on bond. Or they are on some kind of supervision. We arrest them for a new drug case and they have firearms, including last week, a gentleman who had an A.K.-47 on him when he was arrested. So we feel very good about the progress we have made thus far. We’re really encouraged by some of the preliminary numbers that we have seen. The objective is to drive down the death rate in the selected geographic region. We feel good about what we have seen. We’re going to push forward it and very encouraged from the support we-e we’re getting.

>> Let me turn the next question specifically to you. You have some experience, great experience using different tools in parallel whether it’s criminal investigative tools you just discussed or civil injunction suits I mentioned Earlier. The path breaking suits that you and the consumer protection branch brought. Can you offer some thoughts, especially for the U.S. attorneys that are here or those watching, on the practicalities of using parallel proceedings?

>> I think it’s an absolutely critical component of what we are obligated to o do out of our offices. If you have a law enforcement tool that’s on the shelf in a crisis like this, you better take it down and dust it off and figure out how to use it. That’s what we tried to do across all of our attorneys in the U.S. attorneys office. Whether are you in the civil space, criminal space this is all hands on deck. Everybody’s a part of the solution here. What that enables us to do, you have a civil prosecutor and criminal prosecutor who are sitting at the same table talking about a district wide strategy, it enables us to come up with, as you said before, Jesse, creative solutions to a problem that is unprecedented. That’s what we’re going to need more of if we get our way through this. What we will do is we will — we have developed a list of various targets. And we will go through them line by line and look at from both a civil peck spective and criminal, how we can develop an investigation into any one of these targets. Some are worked jointly. Some are worked individually by our criminal prosecutors. Some of them are worked individually by our civil prosecutors. This framework has allowed us to move for quickly than we otherwise would have. The cases we filed over the summer were case that is we saw an imminent need to seek injunctive relief from our courts to prevent further prescribing from doctors who truly had thrown any sort of idea of care for their patients out the window. They were overprescribing or they were just flat out selling narcotics and controlled substances for cash. Something we felt like we needed to move quickly. And controlled substances act and injunctive relief available enabled us to move more quickly instead of trying to move to the grand jury. It allowed us to indict right awafmente it was a great opportunity. But we couldn’t have done it without the teamwork from both civil and criminal prosecutors.

>> One thing I’ll stress. Maybe you want to provide a brief comment. When you are working with parallel proceedings, the A.G. off likes to say 85% of law enforcement is local. As I mentioned, sometimes in building evidence for these cases, or doing the reviews, local state licensing boards can be important to these efforts as well. It’s something to keep in mind when you are dealing with parallel proceedings. That means parallel in the federal government but also the local partners and their tools. Administrator dhillon, let me ask you. The D.E.A. has criminal tools at its disposal, administrative tools. Can you discuss the intersection of those and the importance of using both?

>> First let me make a point about collaboration. We can could not do our jobs without working closely with our federal partners and our state and local partners. I want to echo what everyone said about how important collaboration is to drug enforcement. On the administrative side, D.E.A. does several things. First, D.E.A. sets quotas for the amount of controlled substance that is manufacturers can manufacture every year. We have been reducing those quotas significantly. The idea here is, supply matters. And what we don’t want is more addictive drugs available than needed for medical purposes and research purposes. Over the last four or five years, we have now reduced the quotas for these drugs about 44%. It’s important from our perspective to always ensure that those medications are available for those who actually need them. That there is never a shortage. But it’s also important for us to ensure that those quotas are at a level where diversion of large numbers of prescription medications, controlled substance can cannot occur. The other thing we do enforcement side with respect to a registrant. A registrant is anybody who is registered with the Drug Enforcement Agency to handle controlled substances. This goes from manufacturers, everyone from the manufacturer, who can can make a drug torques a distributor who can distribute it, to a pharmacist, to your family physician. These people are all registrants. One of our tools is to look at whether they are properly handling controlled substances. A classic case would be a doctor who is prescribing opioids to somebody who is not — does not need them or medically necessary. We have seen that, unfortunately, own a number — on a number of owe cailingses. Pharmacists selling those to those who don’t have prescriptions . When we see that we can take an administrative action against those individuals and we can take away their registration so they can no longer handle controlled substances. Those are two of the way that is on the regulatory side that D.E.A. is attacking the opioid crisis.

>> Thank you. Brian, let me turn to you. You mentioned the criminal division has a variety of tools. One is asset forfeiture work. Seems like an important aspect of this problem. Wondering if you could discuss that a little bit and give us a few examples how that’s playing out.

>> Yet another section in the criminal division, the money laundering and asset recovery section A. group of lawyers and analysts whose job it is to take the profit out of criminal activity. By tracing, seizing, and forfeiting the proceeds of crime. And they work across a number of areas from the traditional types of money laundering that you typically see in large-scale drug organizations. Bulk cash going back across the border into Mexico. When it gets seized by our law enforcement partners at the border, it’s oftentimes our lawyers who do the legal work to seize that cash and forfeit it. Same thing with trade-based money laundering. Taking dirty money and working it into a legitimate business and washing it around. Our lawyers and analysts working with our law enforcement partners look at those types of occurrences in order to attack cartels, local drug organizations, and others who are trying to move the cash from their illicit activity. And be able to continue to use it. One of the things we’re seeing more of with the advent of the use of the dark web to transmit, to sell Fentanyl, analogs and precursor chemicals is the use of crip toe currencies and other high-tech means for moving value around the world. That is becoming increasingly more difficult to address, but our lawyers and analysts, along with the folks in the computer crime and intellectual property section, the techie, geeky lawyers we have in the criminal division, are working together to figure out how to crack the problem of crypto currency and the use of that to move value in connection with these transactions. Finally we have a bank integrity unit in the criminal division that looks at financial institutions to make sure that financial institutions are doing everything they possibly can to meet their obligations under the bank secrecy act. To know their customers, know their customers’ businesses. When money is moved into financial institutions, they are filing the proper paperwork with the federal government. Including suspicious activity reports, which we then mine for leads. Look for opportunities to follow the money back into the criminal system in order to attack the flows that way. Those are a couple of way that is we use our assets in the criminal division to attack the profits of criminal activity. In addition to going after individuals, I think it’s incumbent upon us, and the Attorney General has been very clear about this to me in the three months I have been on the job. It isn’t just find the criminals and prosecute them and lock them up, he’s also said on repeated occasions we need to follow the money. We’re going to continue to do that.

>> Thank you. Deputy director bowdich. Let me turn back to you. Steep rise in illicit drug sales on the dark net and heard from wunl of the panelists Earlier the lethal dose came, for his son came from the dark net. With that rise and the rise of transnational organized crime, can you discuss about how the bureau works with international partners and stakeholders in this space?

>> I can. I touched on this Earlier. Take the street gangs out of it. The folks that push it into the country. There are two cartels controlling or have the most heroin production. That’s C.J.N.G. I’ll give it to you later. The two that are really rampant in poppy production as well as heroin distribution right now. There are many more cartels. We work closely with our partners. We also have offices overseas that we’re working on this problem with where we’re hand in hand with our partners. When it comes to the dark net — we do — don’t want to get into too much in-depth on that. We do have under cover operations going on the dark net where we’re trying to identify and track the networks. As I mentioned Earlier, and enterprise is a network and network is an enterprise. The only thing that changes is their techniques, procedures. That’s what changed. We have had to evolve with them to help track them. As far as the international relationships and how that helps, it is essential today, I don’t care if it’s this crime or any other N. this crime, that’s why we’re here, it is absolutely essential because these prds do not emanate from the U.S. — products do not emanate from the U.S. They emanate from other countries as we discussed. Pressure on some of these countries to continue to work together and even go further than that is going to be very, very important. I will tell you this from a nonpolitical position, career position, we have an Attorney General right now who we meet with multiple times a week and he is consistently asking what are we doing for this problem? He is absolutely emphasizing this. My point in telling telling you this this is not some political show here. This is very near and dear to his heart. He is putting a tremendous amount of influence, which essentially expands to other parts of government and interagency, which is very, very important. For how this problem is emphasized and resourced. Our focus on the transnational side, is working with those partners that I mentioned Earlier with the Mexico, China, some of the central American countries and others to ensure that we have the best relationships we can build. And that we do ensure that everybody understands, we all have skin in this game. Sometimes those are built through very close relationships. Other times there is a little leverage that can be applied. Either way we need to work together on the problem. We will continue. The dark web is — there is dark web and clear web. Some of these materials, these synthetic opioids are also sold on the clear web. Which is the internet. Most of that is in powder form. It’s easier to find them. The dark web is really — it’s the wild, wild west. It is something I don’t want to get too deep in the procedures and how we do our business, but it’s very important element because we have seen a lot that has been trafficked through there.

>> Thank you. I think you are right to say there is a consistent message from the top, from the Attorney General, that we’re seeking to drive that toll down right now. That is why everyone here is so committed. Why we’re using creative tactics. Using statutes that we haven’t used before. The overriding goal is to drive that death toll down. One final question, we’re running short on time. I’ll ask each of you to address this in a minute. As you know on this stage Earlier, Earlier this year, the Attorney General announced the prescription interdiction and litigation task force. That is an umbrella under which we’re conducting a lot of this work. One of the focuses will be of use of that anal litics. If you could discuss just briefly — analytics. If you could discuss just briefly how are they useful to solving this cry sis. People are familiar with data analytics are used to fight street crime and issues like that. We’re taking some of those tactics and adapting them to the opioid crisis. Start Justin, with you.

>> We are avid consumers of data out of our U.S. attorneys office. We’re very fortunate. If you want to use this to your advantage, you need to have somebody who not only understands the data but loves to look at it. We have that person. She’s actually a civil A.U.S.A. in our office. And lives and breathes the data and portray it is in a way for us that makes sense and we can develop strategies around it. It is critical for us to not only identify targets out of the data, but understand somebody who may look like an outliar for some reason. There are legitimate explanations for why somebody would be an out liar on the data. If you have somebody that’s proficient with the data, conversant, and explain it to people less so, are you absolutely doing what I think we need to do at the directive of the Attorney General. Which is identify the people who are really driving the crisis in the wrong direction and come up a strategy to take them out.

>> In the criminal division, and I would echo everything that Justin just said, we have a particular team in the fraud section led by a wonderful woman named Naomi, who takes all this data. It’s across the board. It’s Medicare and Medicaid data. It’s prescriber data. It’s financial data. It’s data on opioid deaths connected to particular physicians. It is a real sort of soup pot of data. And Naomi takes it and analyzes it and is able to look district by district across the country and produces based on that data targeting packages for the U.S. attorney’s offices which allow us to be much more efficient in the use of our prosecutorial and investigative resources because we have this advance data that tells us in the first instance where to look. I think Justin’s point is good. Sometimes it also tells us this might be the right place to look, or look like the right place to look, but it really isn’t. The level of efficiency that we’re able to bring to bear in the use of our resources, which then leads to quicker investigations, quicker indictments, quicker prosecutions, and quicker pleas. I’ll give you an example. There is a fell, — fellow, doctor, in the southern districts of Florida, he was selling opioid prescriptions for Medicare he patients for $100 to $200 a prescription. From the time we investigated to the time of his sentencing was 10 months. He got 97 months in prison for the amount of opioids that he put on the streets. It took us less than 10 months to go from identifying him to getting him sentenced and locked up. It’s the data that allows us to do that.

>> A high level answer on the data analysis. We’re hiring more and more data scientists which we were competing with every other government agency out there because we recognize the inflow of data and the ability to digest, consume, and disseminate what is necessary. It’s almost undoable right now. It’s almost unsustainable. We’re trying to hire more and more folks with that sillset. The second thing is we search for clusters and working with our state and a local partners. We will oftentimes deploy our intelligence analysts out into. So state and local venues and have them work together with them. I think it’s important to recognize that in the state and local problem there is between 18,000 and 19,000 police departments out there. We think of the nypd, LAPD, and small and medium. There are a lot of very small department that is have clusters in their area not well prepared or resourced. That’s how we bring in resources and identify clusters and work with them and with the D.E.A. and our partners to address that issue. Finally, I would say searching for the anomalies. Particular on the health care front side. This is where you, you will identify some of these physicians that are abusing their licenses. And abusing their control over these narcotics. I was recently presented a case down south where an individual walked into a doctor’s office. The doctor looked at him literally for about 30 seconds and said you have neck pain, right? And the guy said yeah. And he said we have to be careful. That doctor was doing this for thousands of people. Vast majority of these medical professions are incredibly diligent and doing the right thing for society. But there are abusers out there. And the data allows us to identify those anomalies and attack them, that problem. And hold them accountable.

>> On the administrative side, one way we use data analytics is what deputy director was talking about. We look at, for example, a pharmacy and look at where people are coming from to get their prescriptions filled. And you might see a rural pharmacy or pharmacy that’s not located in a heavily populated area. You’ll see people traveling hundreds of miles for hours to get to that pharmacy. Why would anybody travel that far? The answer is, that tells us that that pharmacy is a place that’s very friendly to certain folks who want — certain types of prescriptions or maybe don’t have prescriptions at all. That’s one of the way that is we use data to identify those folks who are registered by the D.E.A. and who are improperly distributing prescription drugs.

>> Thank you very much. I want to thank this panel. I would just note, you are looking at four people up here who are at the frontlines of addressing this crisis, but they are representing the hundreds of people that work for them getting up every day and thinking about how we meet the challemming, the president and Attorney General have set for the department, which is to drive the death toll down. Many people here in this audience and home watching this streaming are doing that as well. Thanks to all of you. Thanks to all of the men and women of law enforcement that you represent. Appreciate everybody’s attention to this panel. Thank you very much.

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>> OK, ladies and gentlemen. Will try to stay as close to on schedule as we can. I would like to introduce our third panel. It is called The Evolution of the Crisis and Challenges on the horizon. I will moderate this panel with three of our residents experts here at the department to discuss the enforcement challenges we are facing today. I will introduce them in order. Matthew is an assistant U.S. attorney in the district of Ohio where he focuses on prosecuting transnational criminal organizations and drug and the money laundering crimes over the dark net. He is a lead prosecutor on some of the most significant dark net cases including the case announced the by the Attorney General just this past august. In that case, the department charged leaders of one of China’s largest and that — large synthetic drug corporations. Michelle is the department of justice’s first ever digital currency counsel. She has more than 25 years of law enforcement experience and she is a subject matter expert on cases involving crypto currency and provides legal advice best practices to attorneys, investigators, and regulators. Finally, MJ is the heroine and federal projects coordinator for organized crime drug enforcement task force. In Colorado, she served as an AUSA for 12 years and also previously served as a state district court judge and a longtime state prosecutor. She is helping the department solve problems with including expediting the identification and analysis of synthetic opioids. Please welcome our panelists.

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>> Welcome, everybody. I’m going to ask MATT if he can talk a little bit about how drug trafficking has evolved with new technology and how it has become more dangerous.

MATT: Sure. Good morning, everybody. I want to think of the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, and their staff and everyone here for all of the hard work you are doing combating the Opioid crisis. It might seem like a bit of abstraction, but I can tell you someone on the front lines investigating these cases, prosecuting, sitting in the room with grieving parents and relatives, what you are doing is making a difference. Thank you. What we are talking about today are emerging threats and I was asked to focus how these technologies are changing the nature of drug trafficking. I would like to play out a scenario that is happening every week in most districts around the country. A young man sits down in front of a computer. He logs in to a dark web marketplace. He finds and orders 10 grams of a synthetic opioid for $5,000 paid for in BITCOIN. A laboratory in China fulfills the order and the standard smuggling routes, it goes to the young man’s front door. Think about that. Five minutes of work, $5,000, this young man has ordered approximately 5000 lethal narcotics that have gone directly to his home. He wants to make money and if he properly cuts those narcotics, which is a big if, he could make potentially millions of dollars. A potent ial return on investment. Why is this happening? Why is it happening now in greater frequency? The answer is technological innovation and greed. This year is called the the fusion of — when a new device or procedure enters the marketplace that offers new abilities, it will supplant everything before. An example, the Internet and smartphone. Early on, essentially no one used them. Nowadays, you are weird if you do not. We are seeing something similar happening in the criminal marketplace. These are a series of killer apps, both literally and figuratively, that entered the marketplace around the same time. The Toro browser and the dark net, and that is the Mosaic map of the darknet. Each of those dots are criminal websites. It gives you Internet anonymity. You can use the Internet without fear and you can put up servers containing criminal conduct. Next, you have end-to-end encryption. The going dark problem. Criminals can communicate freely and do not have to worry about retaliation. Finally, crypto currency and Michelle at talk about in more detail. It gives perceived transactional anonymity. Criminals believe they can use this and launder their money without the law enforcement getting involved because there is no central authority involved in the transactions. No bank or no Federal Reserve. This is the last killer app, which I think everyone here I seen this slide and it talks about lethality. That is true but there is more to it. What this also shows is how little you need to produce and how little you need to smuggle to get a similar amount of potent drugs into the United States. It makes a difference. Put all of these together and see how based upon and sensitives, criminals are changing. This is the mass distribution system. Each one of those has 10 to 15 steps, it involves a lot of people you have to pay, and it is expensive. Now, think about a new system where you have a synthetic laboratory in China that needs to get some Precursors, lab techs, you do not eat hundreds of acres, and you can send the highly potent drugs directly to consumer or through an intermediary in the dark net and they pay for through crypto currencies. This new system is what is driving a lot of deaths. I will say going back to this diffusion innovation model, that is my guess of where we are. We are approaching that, and that is a cause for concern and a cause for hope. Concern because we will see more of this behavior due to market incentives. Hope, because we are not there yet at the mass adoption point. If we get ahead of this technology and become the owners of this technology, we can divert a lot of crime that would otherwise take place. How do we respond? What I just said, we need to to get ahead of it. We need to become the masters of this. Consider this, this is not the first time we have had to innovate. One of the first cell phones and a letter discussing one of the first wire transfers. Nowadays, if my agent rushed over to me and said, oh no, a criminal using a cell phone for wire transfers. using a cell phone for wire transfers. I would say, that only gives us data. It is bad for the criminal that he is using these technologies. At some point, the opposite was true. We do not know how to respond. The faster we innovate, learn and develop techniques, the earlier we can stop the crisis. Essentially now, I want to talk for a few minutes before turning it overm about some of the actions we are taking. We are already at a point that we are giving prosecutors and agents the tools they need. We are updating agency policies and creating new task forces. We have successful current initiatives. We have had significant darknet prosecutions. We have been holding Chinese drug manufacturers accountable, we have been prosecuting them based upon evidence that we could use to prove entirely in U.S. courts. We have been establishing that Chinese manufacturers are violating Chinese law, and trying to put China to account as attorney general sessions mentioned, and try to get China involved to prosecute people committing crimes when they are hurting U.S. citizens. We’ve had tremendous crypto currency seizures thanks to Michelle and her colleagues, great early work in JCODE, and we have had fantastic interagency coordination because this is a multilevel threat and requires a combined response. The last thing here, there are more steps that we need to take. This is an open event, so I do not feel comes talking about the DOJ playbook, but there’s a lot more that needs to happen. We are going to make the darknet unsafe for criminals, use cryptocurrencies to our advantage, we are going to change the incentives. Criminals will know that it will lead to us coming to their door, and through that, we can help to end the crisis. Thank you.

>> Thank you, Matt. Michelle, we touched on the threat of crypto currency. Can you tell us about your work and — in digital currency.

Michelle: sure. As MATT discussed, that is really loud — crypto currency is a really important part of this, trying to attack this problem with all vectors. Thankfully, the prosecutors in the field working in the U.S. Attorney’s offices and the criminal division and the investigators in the federal law enforcement agencies, they know how to conduct financial investigations. Ultimately, what we are looking at is crypto currency as a way of following the money and trying to exploit the various pieces of evidence that script a currency transactions can lead us to. As far as the aggressive training and trying to give the resources to the field that they need, we have this digital currency initiative money laundering section. What we have been doing is training across the country all the way from regulatory agencies, U.S. Attorney’s offices and their prosecutors, task forces and meetings, and even in regional areas, we have a talented army of subject matter experts to understand this and can teach your local officers who are making car stops, knocking on doors, that may stumble upon darknet and crypto currency cases, teaching them to recognize these things, and knowing that there are resources that can help them to further the cases. It is not just the training for all of you who are U.S. attorneys out there, there are talented prosecutors to know the subject matter well within your offices, and they are very gracious with their time in helping others. I think you with supporting them in saying yes when they go out and train others. We work as a team trying to multiply our forces, train the trainers so when there is a small drug case that happens in a district and the agent walks into the door and says this is involving the darknet and Bitcoin and the attorney has never been exposed to that, there is someone they can call and there are resources available so we can work on those cases effectively. Ultimately, I want to bring the good news. The good news is that although this is a new and sometimes mysterious technology that really we are just looking at an electronic transfer of funds. A law of the activity is occurring on Bitcoin on a public block chain, so we have the ability to trace transactions to locations where data is being collected and evidence is there to send subpoenas to and at– and seize assets. Rest assured, we are being creative, we are trying to streamline policy used to make the job easier for the prosecutors to get the records from the on and off ramp types of institutions and also to seize these assets in particular, the suppliers and a large level vendors so we can take away the financial incentive and also take those funds and use them towards programs to further investigations and prosecutions in this space. One last thing guy would mention ice — thing I would mention is I’m encouraged that we are seeing a lot more money laundering cases because tracing these transactions is an excellent way to develop attribution evidence were we have folks behind computers and following the money separate from wanting to seize their assets, often it will land us in a place where we can actually identify these folks out in, I do not want to say the real world, but the world that we know well that is in financial institutions and other cryptocurrency service providers.

>> Thank you, Michelle. I’m going to turn it over to MJ to talk about her work in the identification and analysis of new synthetic opioids as well as the cross-border threat.

MJ: thank you. I’m going to bring the good news that the end of this, but I am all about starting with the reality and diagnosing the problem where it is and then work into the solution. So yesterday, Bloomberg had a headline that said “cocaine deaths of 22% in the United States. Opioid overdoses have leveled off.” Today as I sit in this meeting, the Health and Human Services director has said Opioid Deaths are leveling off. I am not here to question them but I am here to ask you to do one favor and that is to go deeper and go under and find out whether in your community, that is really true. What do I mean by that? Well, Opioid overdoses, if we look at the death certificates, if we look at what is being tested for in toxicology, we see one set of data. But the death numbers are complex. The tox icology that is being done by the medical examiner’s is costly, time consuming, and many do not have the ability. They have run out of money to do autopsies so they ebb and flow. I am not saying that we should not have hope, and we should particularly have hope now. What this is is a CDC headline and everything I’m going to talk to you about today is online. Much of what I learn about this crisis I learn online. I google congressional testimony opioids once a week just to learn something new. This is a CDC publication from July. “Rising numbers of deaths involving fentanyl an increased usage and mixing of non-opioids.” This headline you will see here, the second block down, “a lack of awareness about the potency of synthetic opioids, their availability, and the increased adulteration of illicit drug supplies pose substantial risk to individual and public health.” Synthetic opioids are being increasingly found. When I first heard that, I called the medical examiner in the Northern District of Ohio and I said, what. I know cocaine is dangerous but it does not kill people in those numbers, and the metal examiner said, that is the fentanyl killing the people, MJ. We need the science to lead us. If the U.S. attorneys go home and do one thing, called the metal examiner’s office — medical examiner’s office and ask them what their capabilities are and what you can do to work within their capabilities. What do I mean with the emerging data. What do we really know? Again, open sores. The DE — open source. If you go on to the network and sign up, NDEWS, you can see the latest drug report. There were 283 synthetic opioids identified in the beginning of the year. Some are e fentanyl compounds which are just as deadly.141 cathanoids, and these are drugs that were det ecte for the first timed in2018. That is the one set of data that comes from seized drugs. The work I do with my partners and we sit in the Department of Justice, my partners that I work with often our Homeland security investigations and custom and border protection’s. Customs and border protection are in the first the line of this — the first line of this at the mail facilities and FEDEX facilities. We have partnered with them where we are a funded strategy that sits over the whole of government to dismantle and disrupt the major drug trafficking organizations. We have a partnership with the centers of disease control that when a substance comes through a poor and we cannot detect it, it is sent to a specialty lab and we are getting identifications down to 21 days thanks to funding from the centers from disease control. These have been found in our project and this is open source. It is on the centers for forensic science and research education network. We have found five hallucinogens, five cap unknowns– five cata hanones. Out of this list, 22 of them are different than what the DEA has on their list. What is this telling us? This is the rate. This is the evolving. Why does that matter to your scientists? Find them because they are there– that is a very difficult thing to do and it takes testing by half $1 million, million-dollar equipment, you often have to tell the machines what to look for you cannot find them. You need a reference standard to be able to do a positive identification. Those are the challenges, some of the challenges with this poly drug epidemic. Where is it coming in? It is coming in through postal and through FedEx. I am not an apologist for either of those, but I have been to the FedEx facility now, what, 20 times. It always looks like that.155,000 a month coming from China. And the customs people charged with protecting this are also charged with keeping us safe from explosives and all other things coming through that port. Try to find the drugs and pulled them out of there. That JFK today, 2 million packages are coming in from China. They carry dresses and shoes along with fentanyl. But, I do have good news. I get passionate when it comes to the FedEx hub because I think of it now is my second home. You have heard from our colleagues about the dark web. I want you to know that with postal — postal is looking at the dark web, the high web. The open web is also a place where the drugs are coming into the school. If everyone goes home to tell their principals and parents to check web browsers and histories — I want to be careful there, but they are your kids and your privacy rights — that is where we see what is going on with some of this fentanyl coming in. The postal slide I showed you, an audit has been done. It says they have been doing great work to put together analytics. The bill that just passed Congress, it is going to require advanced electronic data. We have progress going into that, postal working on their own to reach collaborative agreements with international shippers to get voluntary advanced data. We have great collaborations between customs, FedEx, DHL, UPS to put analytics in place to help targeting. There is a lot of good going on, but what I have heard today, I could not agree with Moore. While all of this goes on at the federal level where this is going to be solved, it is at the state and local level. We need — when we see a cluster outbreak, we need to recognize that it is probably not fentanyl alone. These days, we are seeing in the weirdest, nations.– weirdest combinations. We saw an outbreak, fen tanyl, heroin, and I am not a scientist. They hold the keys to this. This was diagnosed in 36 hours due to aggressive work by state and local law enforcement and by this scientific partner, by DEA, by public health — everyone got together and we found these identifications, and those went out the public health, and those without to law enforcement,? And what difference did that make it made it so that emergency room doctors knew how to treat them. They knew what blood tests to run. When people are waking up, they were going to be angry and aggressive because of the K2, but those are the kinds of things as to why the drug identifications are so very, very important, and how state, local, DEA, public health, public safety can band together, and whenever you see a cluster outbreak, it can be solved. This is from congressional testimony 2018, I say that so you know what is open source data, this is beating Boehner abilities through the whole of government approach. We are all partnering with the Postal Service on advanced data and using the data in a way that is prioritized and used to the fullest extent. Detection of the substances at the ports, that is the poor project — port project I discussed. If you want to get on the list, see me when we are done. As you can see here, all of the federal agencies, public health, public safety, locals to put analytics in place to disrupt and this mantle. Only two more slides. Dissemination strategies. Once you get a new identification, these have to go out the public health, your federal partners, and the networks that talk about those things like NDEWS. To local law enforcement crime lab is, to everybody — this is all an interrelated hole. Sometimes, I think folks make me last because I am half cheerleader. I do not know anymore more about synthetic opioids or anything than you. I got to this share because I do not want to hear Mr. REIGN say anymore, my son is dead. I do not want Kevin to say, that share is empty. And I sure do not want any of us sitting in this room to say, are you sure you want me? If you have a heart and you are here, and if you are here, you have a heart, you have a brain, computer, a telephone, you go home and tell people, this matters to me. We start solving this crisis there. Take us out with you, it is my quote that I keep on bedroom door. The people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones that do. I’m going to be one of those folks, you coming with me? I bet you are.

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>> Thank you. Thank you, MJ. You always inspire me whenever I talk to you. And thanks to all of my panelists. I have a question. The DEA scheduled fentanyl as a class which helped us prosecutors not have to rely on the analog which can be burdensome to prosecute, but it is still there and available to us in the United States to meet the threat of all these substances. China, which we know is supplying pretty much all of these substances, lacks an equivalent law criminalizing the distribution of chemicals. How does the lack of China analog act impact trafficking in the United States. This question starting with Matt.

>> Mary, you hit the nail on the head. China this cousins how they’ve been in trolling this area of substances and we are extremely grateful for their help. But as noted, with the lack of an analog act, it is virtually impossible to catch up. There was a state report that quoted a U.N>. report that discussed that there are a hundred — 800 analogs. You can have a gigantic drug trafficking organization and they will have carfentanyl. They will sell it for 29 days and then they just add a molecule with a slight difference in the get even more deadly, and then they sell the plus version. Then they keep doing it indefinitely. In that sense, China can schedule all the drugs they want, but without scheduling entire types of chemicals, it is an impossible task no matter how much China wants to help.

MJ: I want to share with you, if you are sitting there thinking, if we were able to schedule fentanyl bio core structure, why don’t we do that and get that done? The difference is that those substances do not have like core structure. All of the analogs, you have a five-part core structure that is reflected in the DEA scheduling and you take one piece or two pieces away, it still has a fentanyl core. Other substances do not work like that. My friend in the criminal division, he has done great work to get our sentencing guidelines to understand though while we cannot to do scheduling by fentanyl related substances, by the chemical structure, we can do it by effect on the human body. He got those changes through last year. So the analog act — China does not have one, but ours remains problematic because you have to show the chemical similarity and also the effect on the human body. It is a problem, but as MATT pointed out and what our partners who talked to the Chinese want you to know is that when they go over and have dialogue with our international partners, with those international partners want to know is what is the exact time that is caused, what drug caused it, where did it come through, how did you know that, how people are dead, and what else do you know about the seizures? When they have hard data, that is when they will act to schedule and that is when they will act to take whatever actions they are taking. Please, when you are getting — I am back to the medical examiners, they are the most underappreciated and under resourced communities that we work with today. We want all of their data to be able to identify what is killing people, but they are state-funded and from a federal perspective, they only work with grants. If you can go home and talk with your Medical examiners about what they are able to do, you would take this a long way and we have got to do those types of things to get the hard data until China gets an analog act.

>> Thank you. I’m going to shift over to Michelle. What are some of the challenges with cases involving crypto currency.

Michelle: Although we are very confident it is tracing financial transactions, we are constantly playing catch-up because the technology is changing quickly. Has been the big challenge and why the training portion and the talking to each other about what we are seeing across the country and internationally is really important. One of the things you may have heard about that is increasing is the use of what we call anonymity enchanced crypto currency. These are crypto currencies the unlike Bitcoin, they operate on private or partially private block Jane’s. We either cannot or does is very hard to trace those transactions. We are having a harder time identifying those suppliers that are receiving these funds as well as the money launderers supporting them. The good news is, all the federal law enforcement agencies in partnership with academic institutions and commercial companies, we are always trying to think ahead of things to be creative to recruits mathematicians, to defeat some of these technologies out right, and until we can, being creative about the things we know how to do well and that is following these things to the on and off ramps because ultimately, you cannot pay your mortgage or your grocery bill or by a fancy car with MINERO, but you can with Bitcoin. You have to cash this out at some point and that is what we try to focus sign in at the same time that we are pursuing answers to the new technologies that are adjusting as we get very good at our job. As law-enforcement is effective, these folks just like with the changing of the drugs, they changed their tools in order to get around what we do well, but we stay on top of them and again, the time and the academic articles that help everyone and saying yes to small title 31 prosecutions in the offices, sometimes it is the people out on the street facilitating the cashing out of the stuff that is allowing this to continue. They may seem like small cases, but looking at it from the micro to the macro level with this crypto currency is really important to furthering the successful prosecutions of these dangerous drug cases.

>> Thank you. It looks like we are out of time, but I would like to thank all three of you for participating. These are challenges that are prosecutors and investigators are facing every single day and you three are leaders in this field and are going to help our prosecutors and investigators stay on top of this. Thank you all very much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. It has been very productive and I hope that it leads to ideas about the Opioid crisis and it will enforce our prevention and treatment efforts. I want to thank our partners and especially want to thank the individuals from the office of the Attorney General, the office of the deputy of Attorney General, the office of Public affairs, the executive office of legal attorneys, the Office of Justice Programs, and the justice management division, and I’m sure I am missing some of the components who helped. Thank you for all that you have done. Please, remember that Saturday is DA’s national prescription drug takeback day and I hope you will participate. Thank you.

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