Attorney General Josh Stein today joined Vice President Kamala Harris and other state attorneys general at the White House to discuss the fentanyl crisis. The conversation continues Attorney General Stein’s efforts to help combat drug trafficking and fight the fentanyl crisis.

“The only way to end this deadly scourge of fentanyl is to attack it on all fronts and at all levels — local, state, and federal,” said Attorney General Josh Stein. “We have to break up fentanyl trafficking rings and stop it from coming through our borders, and we have to expand treatment and recovery services for people in need. I’m grateful to Vice President Harris and the Biden administration for cracking down on international illicit fentanyl supply chains and increasing health care options for people.”

Attorney General Stein has been working to confront the fentanyl epidemic by:

  • Winning $56 billion for treatment, harm reduction, and recovery from the pharmaceutical companies that opened the floodgates to illicit fentanyl.
  • Asking the legislature for funding to create a Fentanyl Control Unit so DOJ prosecutors can assist local district attorneys and handle large-scale fentanyl trafficking, wiretap, and overdose cases.
  • Working with Sen. Tom McInnis in the North Carolina Senate to draft the Stop Counterfeit Pill Act, which is now law. It updates North Carolina law to address the growing threat of counterfeit pills containing fentanyl, methamphetamine, or other dangerous drugs.
  • Working with Rep. Hugh Blackwell to draft language to update state law to protect North Carolinians from nitazines, a class of opioids 40 times more powerful than fentanyl.
  • Opening the renovated Drug Chemistry and Toxicology sections of the North Carolina State Crime Lab’s Raleigh location. Fentanyl was the number two drug found in evidence tested at the Lab in 2022.
  • Leading bipartisan attorney general efforts to urge the federal government to make it easier for health care providers to prescribe opioid treatment medication through telehealth and increase the availability of treatment for people who are incarcerated.