Officials respond to issue of illegal drugs being shipped through U.S. Postal Service
Shipping illegal drugs through the mail happens every day all over the world, without efficient security measures in the U.S. Postal System to stop it. Now congress is calling the on the Obama Administration to come up with a way to combat the movement of these items.
47 ABC spoke with Dorchester County States Attorney William H. Jones and he says, “As long as there are these substances out there that are ruining people’s lives, we as a society are going to have to do what we can to fight that.”
According to the U.S. Senate committee on Finance, non-letter class mail that comes into the U.S. through foreign postal services, is not subject to the same screening standards as packages entering through private carriers. Therefore, illegal drugs such as heroin are being brought into the country almost every day. Congress is now calling on the Obama Administration to do something about it. As far as why the issue is being brought up now, Jones says it’s just getting more attention.
Jones tells 47 ABC, “Heroin has been a real problem and it’s killing people in addition to ruining lives. The question is, can we do it better and always the answer to that is yes we’re going to be looking for ways to do it better.”
Jones says there are many steps in trying to combat this issue. Figuring out what packages have the substances, what can be done to identify them, knowing what investigative resources we have, and ultimately figuring out what can be done to intercept them.
Jones tells 47 ABC, “We’re always going to have to look at new ways of being better at fighting that problem just the way they’re looking at new ways to be better at moving their product and making money. One of the special challenges we have is to try to make sure the way we identify the proper person, either the person who was involved in the smuggling of those substances at least on the local level into this county. I don’t think as a society we’ll ever stop.”
When asked if he thinks this issue will be taken seriously by the Obama Administration, Jones says absolutely. “I don’t think that there’s anyone involved in the drug enforcement problem if you will who’s not taking fentanyl seriously.”
Jones adds that law enforcement can do its part on a local level, but doesn’t expect federal change too soon. Jones tells 47 ABC, “Like a lot of things in government, it’ll take some time. So in the mean time we just have to keep pushing and hope that the interdiction authorities do a good job of catching these things, that are screening processes are in place so that we can try to catch more of that and hope that in time the regulations are changed so that we can catch even more before it gets here or maybe even prevent them in other countries that would be ideal.”
47 ABC also reached out to a number of agencies on Delmarva to see if they were aware of the issue and many said they weren’t.
