Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
News 5 Cleveland WEWS
Akron family fights against Chinese drug cartel responsible for son's death
By Clay LePard,
9 hours ago
Nine years after his son, 37-year-old Tom Rauh, died from acetyl fentanyl, Jim Rauh still fights.
After years of battling an opioid addiction, Tom died in 2015 when he unknowingly injected acetyl fentanyl into his body.
Since 2015, News 5 has continued to cover the high-profile case involving Rauh.
Photo courtesy of James Rauh. James Rauh pictured with his son Tom.
What happened to Rauh's son may be the most complete case, with federal investigators tracing the fentanyl found in his room to a manufacturing operation in Shanghai, China, led by a father and son known as the Zhang family.
In July, a federal judgment added another $30 million that the Zhangs must pay Rauh, not one penny Rauh told News 5 he’s seen so far.
"I don’t know if I ever will see any of it," Rauh explained. "If I ever collect any money, every bit will go toward fighting this fight; I will use it solely for stopping this kind of evil from infiltrating the United States."
With the nonprofit Families Against Fentanyl , Rauh continues his push for the government to declare fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.
With a background in chemistry and physics, Rauh worries it will only get easier for fentanyl to harm others.
"In the wrong hands, it's going to go from the slow motion weapon of mass destruction that's infiltrated the illicit drug supply, to the general public in the air, food or water supply," he said. "This can be dispersed in the most simple ways. There's an unlimited amount of material here."
In 2022, 18 attorneys general urged the White House and Department of Homeland Security for fentanyl to be classified as a weapon of mass destruction.
Despite these calls from Rauh, there has been no nationwide move to redesignate the powerful synthetic opioid.
"There's nothing is that's been here that's this dangerous besides our own nuclear weapons," Rauh said.
Nationwide, data from the Ohio Department of Health shows the number of Ohioans dying from unintentional overdoses dropped 5% in 2022, while the nation saw a 1% increase.
Aug. 31 marks International Overdose Awareness Day.
Clay LePard is a special projects reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on Twitter @ClayLePard or on Facebook Clay LePard News 5 .
Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.
Comments / 0