By SALINA POST
Saline County Sheriff Roger Soldan will be one of five Kansas sheriffs accompanying U.S. Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) to the United States border with Mexico on Thursday, according to information from the senator's office.
In announcing the trip, Marshall's office reported that the senator and sheriffs will travel to the border on Thursday "for briefings, tours, and meetings with border patrol officials, within DHS and the state of Texas. The trip comes amid the pending expiration of Title 42 and the growing fentanyl crisis that is wreaking havoc in Kansas and across the nation."
May 10 marked the nation's first National Fentanyl Awareness Day. In a news release about the awareness day, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) noted, "Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is approximately 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. It is inexpensive, widely available, and highly addictive. Drug traffickers are increasingly mixing fentanyl with other illicit drugs—in powder and pill form—to drive addiction and create repeat customers. Many people who are overdosing and dying don’t even know that they are taking fentanyl."
The DEA St. Louis Division seized 180 kilograms of fentanyl in FY2021, nearly as much as the previous two years combined. The division includes the states of Missouri and Kansas, as well as southern Illinois.
In addition to Soldan, sheriffs scheduled to attend include Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden, Shawnee County Sheriff Brian Hill, Franklin County Sheriff Jeff Richards, and Jackson County Sheriff Tim Morse.