Title

The Opioid Crisis and the Dark Web

Wednesday, March 28, 2018
3:30pm
Russell Senate Office Building, Room 485
Washington, DC
United States
How Transnational Criminals Devastate U.S. Communities
Official Transcript: 
PDF icon OpioidCrisis&DarkWeb.pdf
Unofficial Transcript: 
PDF icon 0328 The Opioid Crisis and the Dark Web.pdf
Moderator(s): 
Name: 
Paul Massaro
Title Text: 
Policy Advisor
Body: 
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Witnesses: 
Name: 
Kemp Chester
Title: 
Associate Director of the National Heroin Coordination Group
Body: 
Office of National Drug Control Policy
Name: 
John Clark
Title: 
Vice President and Chief Security Officer, Global Security
Body: 
Pfizer Inc.
Name: 
Louise Shelley
Title: 
Director, Terrorism, Transnational Crime, and Corruption Center (TraCCC)
Body: 
George Mason University

The opioid crisis is devastating the health and well-being of Americans. Following a dramatic increase in the use of prescription opioid painkillers in the late 1990s, the crisis now kills more than 40,000 people in the United States annually. Experts estimate that millions more abuse prescription opioids each year, many of whom later turn to heroin.

Transnational criminal organizations are one of the driving forces behind the intensity of the opioid crisis. By taking advantage of anonymous online marketplaces and legal delivery services, they can smuggle deadly drugs like fentanyl into the United States in a low-risk, high-reward way.

This briefing traced the criminal networks that produce these drugs, market them on the dark web, and smuggle them into the United States to better understand how the public and private sectors can more effectively respond to this crisis and save thousands of American lives.

Relevant issues: 
Corruption
Economic Cooperation and Trade
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