Every year more than 2,000 people in Georgia die from an overdose. More than half of overdoses are from fentanyl.
There is a concern as fentanyl deaths continue to grow. Fentanyl is 50 times more powerful than heroin.
Georgia Republican Congressman Mike Collins sponsored a resolution to ask the National Institute of Standards and Technology to research and find new tools to detect opioids. He’s hoping that with new information about detection, law enforcement, and first responders can be equipped to handle drugs.
“We’ve got to take a hard look. And we’ve got to secure our border and make sure that bad agents and bad products are not just streaming across that border,” said Rep. Collins.
The Representative is calling the resolution the TRANQ Research Act. TRANQ stands for the Testing, Rapid Analysis, and Narcotic Quality (TRANQ) Research Act.
Tranq is a new opioid, an elephant tranquilizer, that is becoming more commonly mixed with fentanyl. It’s immune to naloxone, which can reverse an overdose.
“I hate to have to require that a federal agency go out there and research and come up with remedies to help protect our law enforcement, our border agents, and our first responders because when they show up on the scene, they don’t know what’s in this fentanyl. And so they’re, they’re vulnerable,” said Rep. Collins.
The resolution passed out of the House unanimously and passed out of the Senate unanimously with some recommendations. Collins said he supports those changes and hopes the bill will get to the President’s desk soon.
Source : ATLANTANEWS