There is no choice but to stop the flow of drugs coming into the United States from Mexico, as 70,000 Americans a year are dying from the crisis, drug czar James Carroll said Wednesday.
"We have to do something," Carroll, the director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, told Fox News' "Fox & Friends." "Business as normal can't go on."
Carroll said he and President Donald Trump are committed to saving lives, and if there would be a secure southwest border, Americans would be protected.
Carroll added drug cartels are using the influx as migrants to help get their drugs across the border.
"I get a classified briefing every morning," he said. "What I can say on the air is these drug traffickers, they are smart, they know what they are doing. They send the immigrants through. They wait until Customs and Border Protection is manned up dealing with them, and then it's an open border and they sail the drugs in, flood the zone with drugs."
He also rejected calls to decriminalize drugs, saying doing that will make matters even worse.
"We are committed to saving lives," Carroll said. "A million pounds of drugs were seized at the southwest border. We don't know how much came through that we couldn't seize."
Meanwhile, approximately 200 Americans die every day from drug use, Carroll said, or the equivalent of "an airliner going down every single day."
"The president is committed to (stopping) it, God bless the president," Carroll said. "The people out there. Our law enforcement, they are doing a great job. At the same time, we have to get people to treatment and make sure we are reducing demand."
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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