BAY AREA, Calif. & SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. & MONTEREY, Calif. & SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - ColoradoDesk -- We are living through one of the most devastating and asymmetric crises in modern American history, and we need the honesty to name it.

And, as a resident of CD19, which covers Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Luis Obispo Counties, I can speak firsthand to this issue.

Each year, tens of thousands of Americans — overwhelmingly young and working-age — are dying from illicit fentanyl and related synthetic opioids. That human loss rivals the toll of major wars. Families are shattered, communities destabilized, and our labor force is being hollowed out.

Every day I see the consequences: traffickers operating openly, hollow-eyed users collapsing in public spaces, and neighborhoods slipping into a modern dystopia.  I also see police departments unable to cope with the challenges, due to the poor policy decisions of elected officials and career bureaucrats.

But this issue isn't just local; it's a contest between two international rivals.  And one is clearly winning.

The burden of that catastrophe is not shared. It falls almost entirely on the United States and the West. China, which sits atop critical upstream supply chains that enable this poison to be manufactured and moved, bears virtually none of the human cost inside its own society.

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That is not a normal or acceptable strategic condition.

At the same time, the Chinese Communist Party is rapidly expanding its nuclear forces, hardening its military command structure, investing in deep underground facilities, and building the capabilities needed to blind, disrupt, and deter the United States in a high-end conflict. This is not abstract. It is the most serious long-term challenge our nation faces.

When you place these realities side by side — the mass death of Americans on the one hand, and the accelerating military preparation of a peer competitor on the other — the conclusion is unavoidable: the strategic balance of pain is profoundly asymmetric and dangerously unsustainable.

America must treat this as a national-survival issue. That means choking off the upstream supply of synthetic poisons, dismantling the financial networks that profit from them, aligning federal, state, and local enforcement, and restoring order and accountability in our communities — while at the same time strengthening our deterrence, protecting our technology, and rebuilding the industrial and social resilience that underpins national power.

This is not about rhetoric. It is about the scoreboard: American lives lost, year after year, on a scale no responsible government can tolerate.

Caught in the maw of this struggle is the American addict.  To be clear, my campaign rejects the false choice between compassion and order.

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Addiction is a medical condition, and Americans suffering from it deserve treatment, not a lifetime in jail. For personal drug use, incarceration alone has failed — and we will move toward treatment-first policies that actually restore lives.

But fentanyl is not a normal drug problem.  It is a mass-casualty threat.  Its supply chain is transnational, cartel-driven, and foreign-enabled.

The result is tens of thousands of American deaths every year — a strategic and moral catastrophe.

So my campaign takes a two-handed approach:

Mercy for the addicted — and iron resolve against those who traffic and profit from this poison.

We will advocate for the following:

• Disincentivize personal possession while enforcing mandatory treatment and strict public-order laws
• Dismantle trafficking networks and their financial systems using the full power of federal law enforcement and national-security tools
• Restore public order in our cities
• Treat upstream supply as a core national-security priority

This is how we reduce death, restore safety, and defend the nation — without surrendering either our humanity or our civilization.

To conclude, strength and clarity do not equate to hostility. They are the foundation of stable relations and lasting peace.

For more information: please go to peterverbica.com

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Paid for by Verbica for Congress.