TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Sep 19, 2022

U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett, a Republican from the Knoxville area, is calling on Congress to pass a bill he introduced earlier this year known as the “Fentanyl Traffic Elimination Act.” It’s an effort to bring forward more serious penalties after a smuggler is caught. “It really is going after the drug cartels and the heavy pushers that are doing it, and if they’re caught it increases their criminal penalty to life in prison,” Burchett said. WATE News reports that Tennessee ranks fifth in the country for overdose deaths. The Centers for Disease Control say nearly 106,000 people across the country died from drug overdoses in the last year.