Families Against Fentanyl Thanks VP Harris for Addressing Fentanyl Crisis in Presidential Debate

Families Request Meeting With Harris on Her Plan to Address Fentanyl Deaths

Read full Letter to Vice President Harris here.

Akron, OH – Today, Families Against Fentanyl issued a letter to Vice President Kamala Harris thanking her for addressing the illicit fentanyl crisis and grieving families in the Presidential Debate on September 10th. The letter noted that Harris was “the only candidate” to mention the fentanyl crisis in the debate, “a distinction that did not go unnoticed.” Families Against Fentanyl (FAF) also requested a meeting between Harris and families who have lost loved ones to fentanyl poisoning to hear more about her plans to address the crisis.

FAF was founded by the Rauh family who lost their son to fentanyl poisoning in Akron, Ohio in 2015. The non-profit has become a leading national organization dedicated to raising awareness of the fentanyl crisis and advocating for solutions.

“There is no bigger calling for today’s leaders than stopping the number one killer of our young adults,” said Families Against Fentanyl founder Jim Rauh. “We are thankful that Vice President Harris made a point to discuss fentanyl and the thousands of families affected by it during the debate. We hope to meet with her to hear more on her plans to address the crisis and save American lives.”

“Every seven minutes on average, another family like mine is losing a loved one to illicit fentanyl and experiencing gut-wrenching, life-altering grief. Unsuspecting Americans are being poisoned. People are taking street drugs and pills that unbeknownst to them contain this deadly chemical and they are dying at an unprecedented rate,” added Rauh, whose son Tommy was killed by fentanyl shipped from China directly to a dealer in Ohio, according to a US Department of Justice investigation.

In 2023 alone, more than 75,000 Americans died as a result of fentanyl poisoning, according to the latest CDC estimates. That’s the equivalent of more than 200 deaths per day -- or two 9/11 attacks every month.  Fentanyl deaths last year were more than double those just four years earlier in 2019.

Rauh and other families affected by the fentanyl crisis have expressed frustration that the issue has not been a more prominent focus in the campaign despite the enormous death toll. Families Against Fentanyl issued a public service awareness video and posted billboards in dozens of locations across Chicago and Milwaukee during the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Families Against Fentanyl is also the organization behind groundbreaking research that found that fentanyl poisoning was the number one killer of Americans 18-45.

More than 80,000 people have signed on to FAF’s petition calling for the US to designate illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.Bipartisan leaders including former Homeland Security Secretary and PA governor Tom Ridge and former Obama Administration CIA Director John Brennan joined with Families Against Fentanyl to warn of the threat posed by illicit fentanyl and urged President Biden to designate illicit fentanyl and its analogues as weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The bipartisan Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking found that illicit fentanyl is a “slow-motion weapon of mass destruction” with devastating loss of life and economic impact on the United States.