Jelly Roll calls for stronger legislation against fentanyl crisis in powerful congressional testimony

Jason DeFord, the rapper and country star known as “Jelly Roll,” testified during the Senate’s banking, housing and urban affairs committee hearing on Thursday where he lobbied for stronger legislation against the ongoing fentanyl crisis in the United States.

Jason DeFord, the rapper and country star known as “Jelly Roll,” testified during the Senate’s Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday where he lobbied for stronger legislation against the ongoing fentanyl crisis in the United States. DeFord began his testimony during the committee’s “Stopping the Flow of Fentanyl: Public Awareness and Legislative Solutions” hearing by sharing various figures on the rising number of fentanyl- and drug overdose-related deaths in the country, and stated his bipartisan position as he fights for a cause that is personal to him. “I’ve attended more funerals than I care to share with y’all, this committee. I could sit here and cry for days about the caskets I’ve carried of people I love dearly, deeply, in my soul,” he said. CNN reported in October that new estimates from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics project that more than 112,000 people died from a drug overdose in the 12-month period ending in May 2023, an increase of more than 2,700 from the previous year. Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids were involved in the vast majority of overdose deaths, according to the provisional data. On Thursday, DeFord urged the Senate to pass the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, which is a “sanctions and anti-money laundering bill to help combat the country’s fentanyl crisis by targeting opioid traffickers devastating America’s communities,” according to a description of the bill on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee’s website.