Country star Jelly Roll makes emotional plea to Congress for anti-fentanyl law

Saying he was “once part of the problem” but now “wants to be a part of the solution”, the country singer Jelly Roll – who overcame drug addiction and imprisonment to achieve stardom – appeared before US lawmakers and urged them to pass an anti-fentanyl law.

“I’ve attended more funerals than I care to share with y’all,” the musician who was born Jason DeFord recently told the Senate banking, housing and urban affairs committee. “I could sit here and cry for days about the caskets I’ve carried of people I love dearly, deeply in my soul. Good people, not just drug addicts. Uncles, friends, cousins, normal people.”

He said: “I brought my community down. I hurt people. I was the uneducated man in the kitchen playing chemist with drugs I knew absolutely nothing about, just like these drug dealers are doing right now when they’re mixing every drug on the market with fentanyl and they’re killing the people we love.”

DeFord’s impassioned remarks on Capitol Hill came as Congress weighs approval of the Fentanyl Eradication and Narcotics Deterrence Off Fentanyl Act.

Colloquially referred to as the Fend Off Fentanyl Act, the measure proposes to implement sanctions and anti-money laundering strategies to curb the flow of the potent synthetic opioid, which generally comes into the US after being manufactured in Mexico using Chinese precursor chemicals.

Officials say fentanyl – which is mixed with other drugs to make them cheaper and more addictive – kills nearly 200 people daily in the US and is the leading cause of deaths among American adults younger than 45.

The Senate banking, housing and urban affairs committee voted to pass the Fend Off Fentanyl Act in June. But, as ABC News reported, US House member Patrick McHenry blocked it from