Watch: Jelly Roll's Powerful Testimony In Support Of Brown's Fend ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, at a hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee chaired by U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), artist and philanthropist Jason “Jelly Roll” DeFord delivered powerful testimony in support of Brown’s bipartisan Fentanyl Eradication and Narcotics Deterrence (FEND) Off Fentanyl Act. Watch his powerful testimony HERE.

A rough transcript of Jason “Jelly Roll” DeFord’s remarks follows:

Forgive me. I'm a little nervous. I'm used to having a rock and roll band behind me when I have a microphone in front of me. During the time that I've been given to share my testimony here, I think it's important to note before I start that in these 5 minutes I'll be speaking that somebody in the United States will die of a drug overdose, and it is almost a 72% chance that during those 5 minutes it will be fentanyl-related.

Having started that way, Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Scott, and esteemed committee members, thank you for having me. I know this is a bit of a curveball, but I like a little baseball myself. My name is Jason DeFord but to most I am known as Jelly Roll. It is important to establish earlier that I am a musician and that I have no political alliance. I am neither Democrat nor Republican. In fact, because of my past, my right to vote has been restricted, therefore I have never paid attention to a political race in my life.

Ironically, I think that makes me the perfect person to speak about this because fentanyl transcends partisanship and ideology, gentlemen and women. This is a totally different problem. And I was speaking outside to the media and I gave them a statistic that said 190 people a day overdose and die every single day in the United States of America. That is about a 737 plane. That's what about a 737 aircraft can carry. Could you imagine the national media attention it would get if they were reporting that a plane was crashing every single day and killing 190 people?

But because it's 190 drug addicts, we don't feel that way – because America has been known to bully and shame drug addicts instead of dealing and trying to understand what the actual root of the problem is with that. But the sad news is that that narrative is changing, too, because the statistics say that in all likelihood, almost every person in this room has lost a friend or family member or colleague to the disease known as addiction.

I've attended more funerals than I care to share with you all this committee. I could sit here and cry for days about the caskets I've carried of people I loved dearly, deeply in my soul, good people, not just drug addicts. Uncles, friends, cousins, normal people, some people that just got in a car wreck and started taking a pain pill to manage it.

One thing led to the other and how fast it spirals out of control, I don't think people truly, truly understand. So many people. Equally, I think it's important for me to tell you all that I'm not here to defend the use of illegal drugs. And I also understand the paradox of my history as a drug dealer standing in front of this committee.

But equally, I think that's what makes me perfect to talk about this. I was a part of the problem. I am here now standing as a man that wants to be a part of the solution. I brought my community down. I hurt people. I was the uneducated man in the kitchen playing chemist with drugs I knew absolutely nothing about, just like these drug dealers are doing right now when they're mixing every drug on the market with fentanyl and they're killing the people we love.

I'll be honest with you all. My desire is only get older and only do better and be better. I believed when I sold drugs genuinely that selling drugs was a victimless crime. I truly believed that.

My father always told me, “what doesn't get you in the wash will get you in the rinse.” Now I have a 15 year old daughter whose mother is a drug addict. Every day I get to look in the eyes of a victim in my household of the effects of drugs, every single day. And every single day I have to wonder if me and my wife, if today will be the day that I have to tell my daughter that her mother became a part of the national statistic.

History repeats itself, gentlemen. Even in the 1990s, crack cocaine had long made its way into my middle lower class neighborhood. And at that moment, even as a teenager, you could have never convinced me in that moment that there would be a far bigger problem on the horizon in the form of a pharmaceutical drug. And then I watched opioids and oxycontin burst onto the scene.

I'm here to tell you all that fentanyl is going to make the Sackler family look like a saint. And I want to let you all sit with that for a second. It is time for us to be proactive and not reactive. We were reactive with crack. We were reactive with opioids, and y'all are taking the first step at somebody in the Senate finally being proactive.

I truly believe in my heart that this bill, that this bill will stop the supply and can help stop the supply of fentanyl. But in part of being proactive, gentlemen and women and ladies, I have to be frank and tell you all that if we don't talk to the other side of Capitol Hill and stop the demand, we are going to spin our tires in the mud.

Y'all are taking the first step. But I encourage you to take it outside of this room and you take it to your colleagues and your constituents, and you give them the most that you can. I know I've got a few seconds here, and Senator Brown said I may or may not go over. All I want to say is that I not only encourage y’all to do this, I encourage y’all to take it a step further.

At every concert I perform, I witness the heartbreaking impact of fentanyl. I see fans grappling with this tragedy in the form of music that they seek solace in music and hope that their experiences won't befall others. They crave reassurance. These are the people I'm here to speak for, y’all. These people crave reassurance that their elected officials actually care more about human life than they do about ideology and partisanship.

I stand here as a regular member of society. I am a stupid songwriter, y'all, but I have firsthand witnessed this in a way most people have not. I encourage y’all to not only pass this bill, but I encourage you to bring it up where it matters at the kitchen table. Thank you for your time.

FEND OFF FENTANYL Act:

Last year, Chairman Brown and Ranking Member Scott introduced the Fentanyl Eradication and Narcotics Deterrence (FEND) Off Fentanyl Act, a sanctions and anti-money laundering bill, aimed at combatting the country’s fentanyl crisis by targeting the illicit fentanyl supply chain, from the chemical suppliers in China to the cartels that traffic the drugs in from Mexico. By strengthening current law and directing the Treasury Department to target, sanction, and block the financial assets of transnational criminal organizations, the FEND Off Fentanyl Act aims to stop the flow of deadly fentanyl into our communities by choking off the income source of those who traffic in synthetic opioids.

The bill passed out of Committee with unanimous support and has gained over 67 Senate sponsors. 

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