“I think China has a lot to do with this … It seems like they’re trying to kill us,” said one mother whose son died as a result of fentanyl.
Marquita Berry remembers hearing music playing softly as she walked into her son’s bedroom last October.
She found him sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed, leaning forward, with one earbud resting on his shoulder.
“I reached out to touch him, and I could tell that he was no longer….” Ms. Berry said, her voice trailing off.
It has been less than a year since fentanyl stole the life of her eldest son, James Stafford, 30, who had been going through some rough times and struggling with an addiction to pain pills.
She believes her son, a father of three, went looking for pain relief in the small town of Richburg, South Carolina, only to find death in a fentanyl-laced pill.
Death came for many of his friends as well, Ms. Berry said. Twelve died from fentanyl in 2022.
Ms. Berry was one of hundreds who gathered at the “Lost Voices of Fentanyl” event in Washington on July 13.
She and others who lost loved ones to the deadly drug demanded policy changes to save lives.
“Hey, hey, ho, ho, fentanyl has got to go,” they chanted on their march to the White House.
Ms. Berry believes China has become a merchant of death and blames the communist country for her son’s overdose, because that’s where most fentanyl comes from.
“I think China has a lot to do with this,” she said, adding that her sadness has turned to anger.
“It seems like they’re trying to kill us. I would like [lawmakers] to stop all ties with China.”
Ms. Berry believes an open border has helped cartels smuggle the deadly drug into the country via Mexico.
Many in Congress agree. In April, lawmakers passed the FEND OFF Fentanyl Act, which sanctions people and international drug trafficking organizations that are linked to trading illicit fentanyl and fentanyl precursors. But critics say more needs to be done because China and the cartels appear to be purposely targeting Americans.
