House passes bill to make sanctions permanent for fentanyl-related drugs

The House of Representatives passed legislation on Thursday that would make permanent harsh criminal penalties and strict controls on fentanyl-related drugs, with dozens of Democrats joining nearly all Republicans in a vote that reflected the political challenges of addressing what both sides view as America’s Most Urgent Drug Crisis.

The bill, passed by a vote of 289 to 133, would permanently place fentanyl-related drugs on the Schedule I controlled substances list, a designation that carries heavy prison sentences for highly addictive, non-medicinal chemicals, and which now expires at the end of 2018. 2024.

The bipartisan vote reflected agreement between Republicans and a solid bloc of Democrats that tougher penalties for fentanyl-related drugs are a necessary part of the federal response to the crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl-related drugs were the cause of most of the approximately 75,000 synthetic opioid overdose deaths that occurred in 2022.

“We should vote to advance this bill that we agree on and that helps stop the bad guys,” Representative Morgan Griffith, a Virginia Republican and an author of the bill, said on the House floor. “Once fentanyl analogs are made permanent in Schedule I, Congress can build on that and address the illicit crisis.”

But there are deep divisions over the implications of this, leaving the fate of the legislation unclear in the Democrat-led Senate.

Many Democrats, along with public health and civil rights groups, note that harsh punishments for fentanyl-related drugs have resulted in jail terms and have disproportionately affected people of color. They argue that further criminalization of them will only exacerbate the crisis and have called for a public health response, including better public education, more addiction treatment and recovery services, as well as overdose prevention.

The White House last week backed the House bill while urging Congress to consider its other recommendations, including stricter mandatory minimum penalties that would apply only to cases where the substance could be linked to the death or serious bodily injury.

But on the House floor on Thursday, Representative Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, broadly rejected the GOP bill, calling it “one-sided” and a futile attempt “to lock our way out.” of a public health crisis.”

“This war on drugs — mandatory sentencing, locking everyone up — hasn’t worked,” Pallone said. “It didn’t work on other drugs.”

Still, a large group of Democrats, some from competitive districts, lined up to support the measure, eager to show they were working to tackle the synthetic opioid crisis at a time when Republicans have tried to paint their party as weak on the market. problem.

Representative Angie Craig of Minnesota, one of 74 Democrats who crossed party lines and supported the bill, said she “wouldn’t let perfection be the enemy of good here.”

“We’ve got an American crisis on our hands here, and I think what you saw from the White House is they recognize that this is a crisis,” Ms Craig said, pointing to Thursday’s bill “is what the House can pass , and we’ll see what happens in the Senate.”

The debate was just the latest and most focused fight over fentanyl in Congress, where the synthetic opioid crisis has figured prominently in other politically charged policy battles, such as how to deal with mounting threats from China and a bitter deadlock over border security and immigration. . Republicans in particular have often cited the rise in fentanyl-related deaths across the country as a reason to clamp down on immigration and impeach Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, even as most of such drugs brought in through gateways. by US citizens.

Under Schedule I, a person caught trafficking 10 grams of fentanyl would receive a minimum sentence of five years, while a person carrying 100 grams would receive a minimum sentence of 10 years. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, with some fentanyl analogs, a few milligrams can be a lethal dose.

The legislation makes exceptions for drugs already listed elsewhere — such as fentanyl itself, which is an ingredient in several federally approved Schedule II drugs — and for institutions researching fentanyl analogs for potential beneficial uses.

But Democrats expressed concern that the bill does not include instructions for eliminating fentanyl-related drugs that later proved to be beneficial, or reducing or vacating the sentences of people convicted of related crimes.

A companion bill in the Senate has only Republican support so far, and Democratic leaders weren’t sure how many of their members would support the effort — especially after the White House statement backing it.

The administration has proposed linking the permanent List I designation of fentanyl-related drugs to the stricter application of mandatory minimum penalties, as well as a mechanism for delisting fentanyl-related drugs found to have medicinal properties and for reducing or abolition of related criminal penalties. . It has also called for an investigation into the impact of the permanent planning on research, civil rights and the illicit production and trade of fentanyl analogues.

Many of those proposals are contained in bipartisan bills still pending in Congress.