FENTYNAL: One-sided reporting on crisis

Your reporter, Bill Buley, should have done a better job reporting on the accountability for the fentanyl crisis.

Buley merely repeated Idaho’s legislative leaders’ assertion that President Biden has “exacerbated the crisis at our border and undermined the efforts of those trying to secure it.”

Did Buley question this assertion? No. He accepted it at face value. He didn’t recount Republican failures to adequately fund drug treatment programs, jobs programs, mental health services, pay for tech equipment, drug sniffing dogs and increased personnel at the southern border, at ports, and international airports. Nor did he report on the Drug Interdiction Program and what efforts have been made by our State Government to aggressively disrupt the transportation of illegal drugs into Idaho under that program.

The president has overseen more seizures of fentanyl in the last 2 years than in the last 5 years combined. Dozens of high level traffickers and cartel leaders have been arrested and prosecuted. Over 300 corporate entities and individuals have been sanctioned for financing the drug trade.

The president called on Congress to enact border reform legislation that would address fentanyl trafficking.

In fact Congress agreed to a comprehensive border reform bill, but candidate Donald Trump made complicit Republicans kill it to keep the issue alive during his campaign.

One could reasonably argue that Trump and weak Republican congressional members are most responsible for fentanyl deaths.

If Buley had taken a few moments to visit WhiteHouse.gov and typed fentanyl into the search function, he could have more fully reported the story. We deserve less one-sided spin and more balance in the news.

CAROLYN F. MATTOON

Hayden