July 5, 2023 3:00 a.m.

Last week Senator Ron Wyden urged top federal officials to crack down harder on the flow of fentanyl and other drugs pouring into Oregon communities on the Interstate 5 and Interstate 84 corridors.

A Wyden release said in a letter to acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Troy Miller that followed the senator’s recent meeting with agency officials, Wyden noted that traffic stops along the two freeways in just one month this year revealed what he called “deeply disturbing” volumes of deadly fentanyl.

Among the recent seizures cited in the letter were 100,000 fentanyl laced pills and two pounds of powdered fentanyl outside La Grande, eleven pounds of powdered fentanyl and one thousand fentanyl laced pills in Marion County and eighty-six pounds of powdered fentanyl, along with methamphetamines, heroin and cocaine outside of Salem.

Wyden said, “Despite this diligent law enforcement work, overdoses and deaths from fentanyl and fentanyl-laced drugs in Oregon continued unabated”. Wyden said, “The volume of fentanyl caught on Oregon highways illustrates the urgent need for continuing and intensive efforts to stop fentanyl and its precursors at the U.S. border”.

Wyden’s full letter is linked: https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2023.06.30%20-%20CBP%20Fentanyl%20%20-%20Wyden.pdf