Klobuchar Urges Action at Senate Judiciary Hearing on Fentanyl Epidemic Featuring Minnesota Mom’s Testimony

WATCH KLOBUCHAR QUESTIONS HERE WASHINGTON – At today’s Senate Judiciary hearing on the fentanyl epidemic, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) highlighted the need for Congress to take action to stop online drug trafficking to save children’s lives and give law enforcement what they need to combat the crisis. Bridgette Norring of Hastings, Minnesota testified about her son’s death from illicit fentanyl. Norring's 19-year old son Devin died in April 2020 after buying a pill online for tooth pain that he thought was a painkiller but turned out to be a fentanyl laced counterfeit. Bridgette founded the Devin J. Norring Foundation to raise awareness about the dangers of fentanyl and advocate for stronger drug prevention measures. “My husband and I are no different than every American parent doing the best we can to protect our kids from the constant threat that social media poses. We did our due diligence in spot-checking our children's accounts when they were minors. We preached constantly about internet safety and etiquette. None of that stopped Snapchat from allowing my children to open multiple new accounts to avoid our scrutiny. It did not stop them from pushing products designed to addict and exploit America’s young people. It did not stop them from blaming parents when our kids died. And it is no different than when opioid companies created a product they knew was extremely harmful and addictive, told the public that it was safe, and then blamed the parents when kids died as a result,” said Norring at the hearing. “Social media has been a gateway to drugs for too many kids, and we must meet this threat with the all-hands-on-deck response it requires. We need to crack down on the sale of fentanyl through social media platforms and pass the Cooper Davis and Devin Norring Act. And we need to stop these illicit drugs and fake pills from entering our borders in the first place, by making sure law enforcement has the resources they need, including cutting-edge technology to detect and intercept fentanyl at our borders. Thank you to Bridgette Norring for her bravery in coming forward and sharing her story,” said Klobuchar in a statement. In 2023, nearly 75,000 Americans lost their lives to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, including nearly 950 opioid-related deaths in Minnesota. In Hennepin County, fentanyl kills an average of one resident every day. The number of Minnesotans who died from opioids last year was more than double the total number of people who died from car accidents. Senator Klobuchar is a leader in the fight to pass the Cooper Davis and Devin Norring Act, which would require social media companies to report to the DEA when they know of the sale or distribution of illicit drugs including fentanyl, methamphetamine, or a counterfeit controlled substance on their platforms. Witnesses at the hearing include: Bridgette Norring Survivor Parent and Founder Devin J. Norring Foundation Hastings, MN; Jaime Puerta President and Co-Founder of Victims of Illicit Drugs (“V.O.I.D.”) Co-Chair of Project Facing Fentanyl Santa Clarita, CA; Timothy W. Westlake, M.D., FFSMB, FACEP Emergency Physician ProHealth Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital Oconomowoc, WI; Cecilia Farfán, Ph.D. Affiliated researcher Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California San Diego San Diego, CA; Donald Barnes Vice President of Homeland Security, Major County Sheriffs of America Sheriff-Coroner of Orange County, California Orange County, CA. A transcript of Klobuchar’s full questioning is available below. Video is available HERE. Senator Klobuchar: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Norring, I think everyone was touched by your story and your bravery for coming forward. I've been honored to get to know you, and I want to thank you for everything that you've done. As you said, “all the hopes and dreams we as parents had for Devin were erased in the blink of an eye, and no mom should have to bury their kid.” Those were your words. And I know the words of your all of your friends there that stand there to support you and have had their own pain. All he did was buy a pill off Snapchat. Thought it was a Percocet. You were there for that testimony with the tech executives, and there's a bunch of us here that have had some battle wounds going after them when we just want to put some sensible rules in place or get rid of this legal protections that they have that other companies do not have, as you so well pointed out, but no wounds compared to what you have. You heard their testimony back then in January 2024. Do you think the social media companies are doing enough to stop the sale of drugs to kids online? Bridgette Norring: I do not think that they are doing enough. In fact, it's still continuing. I was introduced to two new families just last week from Minnesota, both with ties to fentanyl, with their children passing, so no, they're not doing enough. They could be doing more. I was just informed that Evan Spiegel is in support of the Cooper Davis and Devin Norring Act. And I must ask then if you are in such support of it, all these companies are in support of the Kids Online Safety Act. Why? Why aren't they implementing those features and doing the job now? Why do we have to come before Congress and … have you make them do that? Klobuchar: Good point, thank you. Mr. Puerta, do you think we should get rid of or reform Section 230 in some way? Just to make this very clear. Jaime Puerta: Absolutely, Senator Klobuchar. In 1996, as we all know, this legislative body came up with Section 230 C of the Communication Decency Act, and what it was meant to do was to protect free speech. But what's happening right now cannot be free speech. When you have a drug dealer selling illicit fentanyl to unsuspecting children, that's not free speech. Or a grown man sending unwarranted pictures to young ladies, sexual exploitation. This is not free speech. This is criminal behavior. And like Ms. Norring said, if it's criminal, if it's a criminal act in the real world, then it should be as well in the social media world. Klobuchar: So you're looking for that reform, which also I appreciate you bringing up Senator Cruz and I have this TAKE IT DOWN Act. There's a number of other bills involving pornography as well. Sheriff Barnes, … thank you for your testimony and being here. Funding, as we look into this next year, funding for law enforcement, do you think that that is important to take on this Fentanyl crisis, as well, as well as the HIDTA program that helps your deputies get fentanyl off the streets? Donald Barnes: Senator, yes, thank you for the question. The HIDTA funding has been stagnant and still for the last 10 years. Hasn't grown. If you look at the time value of money, it's about 1/3 reduction over the last 10 years, and our costs have gone up, so it's about 50 cents on the dollar. It's not a fully funded program. My HIDTA program is funded at about 1/6 of the costs that we put into it and mostly subsidized through my investment of stabilizing that as other municipal agencies have withdrawn personnel. So yes, I think at this, the nation's worst time in history, we have to reinvest those monies. We have to look at the use of those monies. And I think we have to look at what I call a Super HIDTA, the original intent of the gateway HIDTA, to invest on the greatest offense, which is our border HIDTA, and stop as much as drugs as we can at the border before they make it into the content of the United States. Klobuchar: Thank you. Dr Westlake, why does class-wide scheduling reduce the incentives for drug cartels to create new fentanyl variants? Timothy Westlake: So the incentives were there before because when they initially created these without under the normal Controlled Substances Act, they were legal. So they could modify it. Instead of putting an ethyl group in, you could put a methyl group in. It's a legal substance. I was on the controlled substance board in Wisconsin 2015. We had nine different fentanyl variants, fentanyl-related substances that were killing people. We could schedule them immediately, and then they were illegal. And when you schedule them and make them illegal, there's no incentive for them to be created anymore, and there's a cookbook of changes that you can do easily, look up the research to find what different chemicals to use. So, it literally just stops the incentive. It doesn't stop illicit fentanyl incentive, but it closes the speculative fentanyl substances. Klobuchar: Thank you. One last point. Ms. Norring, and we'll talk more in this committee. I am so pleased that Senator Grassley and Durbin will lead this together on some of the social media issues that go way beyond the ones we've talked about now. But you've also embarked on an education campaign, along with a lot of our sheriffs in Minnesota, that I think has been pretty effective going back in the schools with “One Pill Can Kill.” Ten seconds on that, and I'm out of time. Norring: We have to do it because nobody else is doing it. It falls back on us. If we sit by and say nothing, children continue to die. So we feel it's our obligation to get out there educate our community and the children because, as the ranking chair mentioned, the conversation really begins at home. It really has to begin at home. Klobuchar: Thank you. ###