NASHVILLE – U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke at the 2025 Rx and Illicit Drug Summit in Nashville on Wednesday.
The event brings together stakeholders to address the opioid crisis and drug addiction recovery.
She said a large quantity of dangerous drugs are coming across the border and the Justice Department, DEA, FBI and Homeland Security are working together to do everything they can to stop it.
“In 2025, just this year we have seized 21.5 million fentanyl pills. That’s crazy. And 3,100 pounds of fentanyl. But think of how many millions of lives were saved by taking that off the street,” Bondi said.
She also spoke about what she saw when she visited the border in September.
“Drugs were flowing across our border. People were walking across our border. 18 to 35-year-old fighting-aged men. I saw first-hand passports, driver’s licenses and photo I.D.s just dropped at the other side of the border. And without an I.D., they could walk right in. A Chinese national carrying fentanyl could say ‘I’m from Cuba’ and they would have to believe him and let him into our country. It was horrific.”
She says the Trump Administration is working to secure the border and make it a lot tougher for cartel members to get into our country.
Bondi’s appearance at the Drug Summit in Nashville also comes after Walgreens agreed to pay up to $350 million in a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, which said that it illegally filling millions of prescriptions in the last decade for opioids and other controlled substances.
In 2018, while Bondi was serving as Florida Attorney General, she announced plans to sue five major pharmaceutical companies and four distributors as part of a crackdown on the opioid epidemic contributing to a surge in overdose-related deaths.
