Washington Examiner: CBP doctor attempts to secure fentanyl lollipops for UN meeting
This article features Government Accountability Project whistleblower client disclosures and was originally published here.
The top doctor for Customs and Border Protection attempted to secure fentanyl lollipops ahead of last September’s United Nations General Assembly, according to a new whistleblower report on Friday.
Whistleblowers represented by the Government Accountability Project claimed Dr. Alexander Eastman said he was hoping to bring the fentanyl with him to the General Assembly because he wanted to be prepared to help in the case of an emergency. The fentanyl would help with pain management.
“Eastman spent copious hours of his and Office of the Chief Medical Officer staff time directing the OCMO staff to urgently help him procure fentanyl lollipops, a Schedule II narcotic, so that he could bring them on the CBP Air and Marine Operations helicopter on which he would be a passenger in New York City,” the whistleblowers said in the report obtained by NBC News. “Dr. Eastman claims that his possession of fentanyl lollipops was necessary in case a CBP operator might be injured, or in case the CBP Air and Marine Operations team encountered a patient in need.”
The whistleblowers said the staff attempted to tell Eastman that Narcan has been requested for CBP operations in the past but never fentanyl, which is at the heart of the country’s opioid crisis. Narcan can help save people who suffer a fentanyl overdose.
The staff also allegedly questioned how Eastman would store the fentanyl and how he would discard it at the end.
Eastman, who has been serving as the chief medical doctor for CBP since June 2023, responded to the questions by creating his own policy but did not include information on the storage of the drug or discarding the unused medication. He was unable to procure the lollipops in time for the event.
CBP is the lead agency in charge of stopping the illegal flow of fentanyl into the United States, which largely comes from Mexican drug cartels. However, enough fentanyl has snuck through the border that there is a crisis in the U.S. The crisis is partly because other illegal drugs are unknowingly laced with fentanyl, which is 50 times more deadly than heroin.
The whistleblowers also reported that Eastman was under an ethics investigation because of his alleged improper handling and ordering of narcotics for a friend in the CBP’s Air and Marines unit, who would have been in New York.
The report, which was shared with Congress on Friday, recommends that Eastman be thoroughly investigated and not be able to restructure or hire anyone for his office until the investigation is completed. It also suggets that the agency halts any controlled substance purchase approvals made by Eastman.