Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolution

Floor Speech

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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, we are facing momentous issues in the Senate and in Washington and in our Nation.

Today, we are debating a spending bill to keep the government funded past the end of this month. There are ongoing negotiations to help provide additional relief to those most affected by the coronavirus.

With the sad news of the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there is now a Supreme Court vacancy as well.

As momentous as these issues are, we ought not miss what is happening on the streets of America, though, as too many in Washington missed for years as Americans were dying by the thousands as a result of the opioid epidemic that hit this country, from prescription pills to heroin, to synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

Now, in recent years, Washington has gotten the news, and we have taken action to try to stem the tide of drug overdoses around our country.

But the fight continues, so I want to call the Senate and the Nation's attention to a new threat: isotonitazene. It is harder to pronounce than fentanyl, but it is equally deadly. It will kill you in a heartbeat, and it also comes from China. Reports of iso--as this hard-to-pronounce drug is often called on the street--are still scattered.

A shipment was seized in Canada early last year. Now it has been popping up in Europe, in countries as far flung as Belgium, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, and, at about the same time, iso has found its way to America as well. It has turned up in both pill and powder form, seemingly shipped in concentrated, small quantities that escape detection too often. Once it is here, it is usually cut with other drugs, like heroin and cocaine, to make them more powerful and much more deadly.

An unsuspecting drug user can inject a tainted dose or take a counterfeit prescription pill and be dead within minutes. Iso is just like fentanyl in that regard.

According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, iso is confirmed to have killed at least 18 Americans in 4 different States and has been encountered in at least 48 confirmed incidents across 9 States.

However, it has likely killed many more. We don't know for sure because tests for iso still are not widely available, given its novelty, and overdose deaths due to a cocktail of iso mixed with heroin, cocaine, or other drugs may be inadvertently attributed only to the known substance.

What we do know is that iso is just the latest weapon that the Chinese drug dealers are using in their opium war against America. First, they developed designer fentanyl analogs, which have killed--and continue to kill--Americans by the thousands.

However, we have taken strong action against fentanyl. Last year, we passed my legislation, the Fentanyl Sanctions Act, to punish Chinese drug dealers, and the President--equally important--pressured China's leader to crack down on underground drug labs in their own country, which sent nine fentanyl smugglers to prison.

These efforts have made a difference, but the fight is not over. China's drug dealers have developed a new poison to send to America.

Iso has no recognized medical or industrial use. It is nothing more and nothing less than a way to profit off of addiction and death. These Chinese drug dealers want iso to be the new fentanyl, so we have to take strong action to make sure they fail before more Americans are killed.

The DEA has already taken swift action by classifying iso as a schedule I controlled substance, its most restrictive classification. But this is only a temporary measure that will last 2 years, at most.

Congress should, therefore, act to ensure iso stays on that list for good. That is why I am introducing legislation to permanently classify iso as a schedule I controlled substance. This will ensure iso receives the strictest regulations under our drug laws, and it will help our brave drug enforcement agents keep this deadly drug off of our streets.

Furthermore, I call upon the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party to crack down on the production of iso in the Chinese mainland. If the leaders of the party wish to reduce tensions, if they wish to improve relations, they ought not to allow their own criminals to manufacture drugs with no legitimate purpose specifically designed for smuggling into America to poison our citizens.

I urge my colleagues and the administration to join in this effort to stop iso before it spreads even further. This drug has already killed too many of our fellow citizens. We need to stop it before it kills even more. ______

By Mr. SCHUMER:

S. 4653. A bill to protect the healthcare of hundreds of millions of people of the United States and prevent efforts of the Department of Justice to advocate courts to strike down the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; read the first time.

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