Fentanyl killed their kids. Now these moms are supporting Casey's fight against the deadly opioid

Peggy Heidish’s son, Zachary, died last June of a fentanyl overdose just two months after he completed an inpatient recovery program to combat his opioid addiction.

Heidish, of Edgewood, said her 35-year-old son came back home that spring in high spirits and was ready to move on with his life when he decided to use drugs again.

This time, though, his drug concoction was laced with deadly fentanyl.

“He was happy about the possibility of finally getting free and getting his life back,” she said Monday. “My husband and I had so much hope. But for some reason, and I have learned this is not unusual, Zach decided he wanted to use again. But unfortunately what he used was full of fentanyl and para-fluorofentanyl,” a synthetic opioid.

Heidish shared her son’s story during a press conference with U.S. Sen. Bob Casey to advocate for bipartisan legislation recently passed by the Senate to battle the opioid crisis.

Casey said that the FEND Off Fentanyl Act would extend and increase sanctions and enhance anti-money laundering laws meant to disrupt fentanyl supply chains. He said that more action must be taken to combat the fentanyl crisis in Western Pennsylvania.

He said Allegheny County and other parts of the Pittsburgh region are suffering from high overdose death rates, and fentanyl makes up a vast majority of those deaths. The national average of overdose deaths is about 32 per 100,000 people, while that figure is 58 per 100,000 in Allegheny County, said Casey.

Lawrence County had the highest overdose rate in the state in 2022, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

“The scale of this is almost unimaginable,” Casey said.

Janet Morrison-Heberling of Pine, who joined Casey and Heidish at Allegheny County Police Department headquarters in Green Tree, understands the toll all too well.

She lost her daughter, Brianna Sanner, 30, in 2022 to a fentanyl overdose and is now part of Stop the Judgment Project, a Franklin Park-based advocacy group raising social awareness of addiction.

“I have learned that this disease is so widespread,” she said. “It is every kind of family, every neighborhood, every profession.”

Morrison-Heberling thanked Casey for listening to her story and advocating on behalf of overdose victims. She said more legislation is needed to fight the crisis locally and nationally.

Casey said the FEND Off Fentanyl Act is meant to punish fentanyl dealers and smugglers by hurting their bottom line with sanctions and allow the U.S. Treasury Department to combat the money laundering that run rampant in fentanyl dealing.

The bill passed as part of a Senate package that includes $95 million in supplemental funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. It garnered bipartisan support and passed by a 70-29 margin.

Casey urged the U.S. House to pass the package, not just to provide funding for Ukraine and others, but also to address the growing overdose deaths that have hit Southwestern Pennsylvania particularly hard.

The spending package faces an uncertain future in the U.S. House, where Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he does not feel “rushed” to pass the aid package, according to The Associated Press.

Casey said if Johnson allowed the bill to come to the floor, he believes it would pass the Republican-controlled House, given its bipartisan support.

“The question is will the speaker hold it up for some bizarre reason,” Casey said. “But it’s essential we pass that bill.”

Casey has also introduced bills to fund high-tech inspection machines that can better detect fentanyl inside vehicles and cargo. That initiative would carry a $1 billion price tag, according to Casey.

In the last fiscal year, U.S. law enforcement seized 1.1 billion doses of fentanyl, according to the senator.

He called it a “good start” but said that the country needs to seize several billion doses of fentanyl annually to make a real dent.

Casey also wants to see more money go to hire additional law enforcement and border patrol agents on the U.S-Mexico border.

He said the sanctions and anti-money laundering provisions, if passed, should hurt drug cartels in Mexico and producers in China, but added that a high percentage of fentanyl smuggling has been done by U.S. citizens across the border. Casey said more tools are necessary to address the nation’s fentanyl epidemic.

“If we are doing a combination of that in addition to other border provisions, then we can greatly reduce fentanyl, and prevent it from even getting to the streets of Allegheny County and any other community,” Casey said.

Heidish said addiction in many forms is hard for any family to fight, but that the dangers of fentanyl can make recovery impossible. She said rooting it out is key to saving lives.

“It’s a battle for anyone to make it through recovery,” Heidish said. “The presence of this poison, this fentanyl, makes it even harder to win that battle. No one makes it through recovery when they are dead.”