Securing the International Mail Against Opioids Act of 2018
Floor Speech
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Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5788.
Mr. Speaker, there are many facets of opioid abuse and overdoses. We are going to need many pieces of legislation to deal with all of them. This is a particularly important piece of legislation. It deals with the use of the U.S. mail service to import synthetic opioids.
As an anesthesiologist, I have used synthetic opioids for over 30 years, especially the synthetic opioid fentanyl. After it was discovered, it was widely used in a very important drug, especially to treat our sickest patients; but now it is a killer drug, frequently used illegally, mixed with heroin.
Because of its very specific pharmacologic action, it is highly lethal when misused. To add to that, Mr. Speaker, now there is a derivative called carfentanil that is 100 times more potent.
Why is it so important that we secure our mail system?
A grain of rice is 29 milligrams. That is the weight of a grain of rice. Fentanyl the size of a grain of rice will kill 29 people. That is how lethal it is. If it is carfentanil, it is 100 hundred times more potent. That grain of rice-sized piece of carfentanil will kill 2,900 people.
Obviously, the mail system can be used to transport these drugs. Because these are so highly lethal, in Maryland, half our overdose deaths now involve fentanyl or a derivative.
Because these are so small, so concealable, so highly lethal, we have to secure all mechanisms by which these drugs can be transmitted to be used illegally. The mail system right now, because of loopholes that exist that we have heard about today, can be used to transport those drugs to kill our youth. They are imported from foreign countries, where, without any remorse, these drugs are shipped to the United States and result in overdose deaths here.
Mr. Speaker, we have to pass H.R. 5788. We have to secure our mail system and take the scourge of these fentanyl, carfentanil, and other synthetic opioids off our streets where they are killing young Americans.
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