A mayor in Southern California has caused outrage by suggesting that giving homeless individuals ‘all the fentanyl they want’ could be a solution to eradicating them.
The mayor of Lancaster, R. Rex Parris, made this controversial statement during a city council meeting earlier this year. Recently, a video of his remarks surfaced, shocking both residents and council members.
Many parts of California are facing a fentanyl crisis, with the potent and dangerous drug becoming increasingly prevalent and affordable on the streets.
Just a tiny, two milligrams dose of the drug is enough to kill a human.
Most of California is also in the grips of a housing crisis, as home costs soar and new developments stagnate – made exponentially worse by the devastating bushfires which tore through Los Angeles in January.
The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count registered as many as 6,672 people experiencing homelessness in Lancaster and its surrounding areas in 2024.
Asked about his vision to tackle the crisis, the 73-year-old Republican mayor did not mince his words.
‘What I want to do is give them free fentanyl,’ Parris told the February 25 meeting, to the bewilderment of everybody else in the room.
‘I mean, that’s what I want to do. I want to give them all the fentanyl they want.’
The stunned resident he was addressing at the time told the mayor, who has served in his role since 2008, that his comments ‘were not kind.’
Parris’ social media channels have been inundated with furious responses to his proposal, particularly after he shared a biblical message on Easter.
‘You’re a disgusting piece of s**t. Take Christ’s name out of your filthy hateful mouth. You’re no Christian. Jesus welcomed the homeless. You want to murder them,’ one said.
‘Rex Parris said the quiet part out loud. That’s their ‘solution’ to homelessness,’ another critic fumed on X.
Even still, he has not backed down from his controversial opinion, although he has pivoted slightly to insist he was referring to homeless criminals.
‘I made it very clear I was talking about the criminal element that were let out of prisons and have now become 40-45 percent of what is referred to as the homeless population,’ he told Fox.
Going one step further, Parris said he wished President Trump would agree to ‘a purge.’
In the 2013 movie ‘The Purge’, citizens are granted one night a year where all crime – including murder – is legal.
‘I wish the president would give us a purge,’ he said. ‘Because, we do need to purge these people.
‘Is it harsh? Of course it’s harsh. But it’s my obligation to protect the hardworking families and I am no longer able to do it.’
Critics said his ‘solution’ essentially would amount to ‘murder’ or allowing the homeless population to ‘kill themselves.’
Democrat Johnathon Ervin, who lost to Parris in the last mayoral race, said: ‘Anyone willing to give homeless people all the fentanyl they want, or to suggest that President Trump should allow a purge of the homeless population, has no business in public office.’
But Parris argued that it is ‘so easy to get fentanyl on our streets that it wouldn’t have made any difference if we did give it away.’
‘There is nothing that we can do for these people,’ he said. ‘They are responsible for most of our robberies, most of our rapes and at least half of our murders.’
During the city council meeting, the lawmakers were debating moving the city’s homeless population into an abandoned golf course, sparking protests from nearby residents.
‘I don’t think anybody took me literally,’ he said of his controversial remarks.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has been outspoken in his desire to rid the United States of fentanyl, going to extraordinary efforts to spark a tariff war with both Mexico and Canada in an effort to stem the flow of the drug across borders.
Speaking of both nations, Trump said in March: ‘They’ve allowed fentanyl to come into our country at levels never seen before, killing hundreds of thousands of our citizens.’
A bill was also introduced in the Senate that month calling on American lawmakers to ‘use every tool at our disposal to cut off the flow of fentanyl.’
Prior to his career in politics, Parris was a high profile trial lawyer with his own legal firm, and has a school named after him in California on the back of his significant philanthropy.
He has been elected to six consecutive terms as mayor.
