Providing for Consideration of H.R. Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Mental Health Matters Act; and Providing for Consideration of S. Pava Program Inclusion Act; and for Other Purposes
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the previous question so that we can immediately consider my bill, H.R. 6184, the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act.
Every Member of this body knows someone who has been affected by the drug overdose epidemic plaguing our country.
Recent provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that during 2021 there were more than 107,000 overdose deaths that occurred in the United States, an increase of nearly 15 percent from the previous year.
These record numbers are due in large part to the increasing presence of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues, which are approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin.
Because fentanyl has a proven medical use, it is considered a schedule II narcotic. But illicit derivatives of fentanyl, also called fentanyl analogues or fentanyl-related substances, do not often demonstrate a medical value. Right now they are considered schedule I substances, but only because of a temporary scheduling order which expires on December 31.
My bill aims to curb overdose deaths by permanently scheduling fentanyl analogues as schedule I substances. This will strengthen law enforcement's ability to prosecute fentanyl traffickers and act as a deterrent.
The HALT Fentanyl Act also promotes research by removing barriers to that research. In the Energy and Commerce Committee, we heard there are as many as 4,800 analogues. Our experts at the NIH, the FDA, and other agencies have studied roughly 30 of these 4,800 analogues.
By encouraging research of schedule I substances like fentanyl analogues, we can better understand how these substances work and how we can prevent potentially harmful impacts in the future.
The problem is that if this law expires and doesn't become permanent, those 4,800 analogues are arguably legal--I would submit they are legal--and we have to pass a law on each one of them. The HALT Fentanyl Act makes it so we don't have to do that.
Should we discover that one of those 4,800 or maybe two have a legitimate medical purpose, then we can come back in and consider that, but it is a whole lot easier to figure out what we have already done research on when we have done research on 30 of 4,800 analogues than it is to say, wait a minute, we are going to make all of these legal, and then figure out which ones of them are the most dangerous to the American public. I would submit they are all dangerous and that Congress must pass the HALT Fentanyl Act now.
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