Throughout my long career in law enforcement, I’ve witnessed the damage drug use can inflict on communities. This leaves me deeply concerned about new congressional proposals to allow the importation of prescription medicines into the United States.

Counterfeit and illegal medicines already kill Americans by the hundreds each year. Existing penalties are not enough to stop them, and that’s even before we open the door to importation. The existing problem of counterfeits laced with substances like fentanyl (a powerful and widely abused synthetic opioid) could be scaled up one hundred-fold if we let down our guard. We are in the grip of our most severe drug epidemic since crack cocaine swept cities across America in the 1980s. Allowing medicines to flow unregulated into our country is a recipe for disaster that every public official must work to avert.