Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 27, the Halt All Lethal Trafficking (HALT) of Fentanyl Act, with Congressman Steve Womack’s (AR-3) support. He’s a cosponsor of the measure, which permanently extends President Trump’s 2018 Schedule I classification of fentanyl-related substances to give law enforcement the tools they need to keep Americans safe from dangerous illicit drugs.
Congressman Womack said, “Far too many Americans have fallen victim to the horrific illicit drug epidemic. We can save lives and prevent families from experiencing this heartbreak by securing the border and making the HALT Fentanyl Act law. This commonsense legislation cracks down on criminal drug traffickers and keeps these lethal substances off our streets.”
Details:
Fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances (substances that have a similar chemical structure to fentanyl but are not identical) are 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and easier to produce than cocaine or heroin.
Currently, fentanyl-related substances temporarily fall under Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act due to an emergency order that expires on March 31, 2025. If the emergency class-wide scheduling order expires:
Many fentanyl-related substances will become street-legal, meaning law enforcement has no authority to seize these extremely lethal drugs.
Drug traffickers will be empowered to push deadlier drugs on our streets, skirting federal law by changing as little as one molecule in the fentanyl formula to create legal variations.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection will lose the authority to seize these substances when crossing the border.
To protect American communities from these deadly and dangerous drugs, H.R. 27 makes the temporary class-wide scheduling order for fentanyl-related substances permanent.
Notably, this legislation ensures practitioners can research fentanyl-related substances to better understand their overall effects on human health.
