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National Fentanyl Awareness Day

Floor Speech

Date: May 9, 2023
Location: Washington, DC

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today, May 9, is National Fentanyl Awareness Day. In the last 12 months, over 108,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses, mainly from fentanyl and its analogues. Fentanyl overdoses are the number one cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45, so I come to the floor to do two things.

First, I am here to introduce a bipartisan resolution supporting the goals of National Fentanyl Awareness Day. The resolution aims to increase awareness of the impact of fake or counterfeit fentanyl pills on families and young people. And it applauds the work of Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies that combat the proliferation of counterfeit pills.

And second, I am here to reintroduce my bipartisan legislation, the Stop Pills That Kill Act. This bill creates new penalties for counterfeit pill production. There is a surge throughout the United States of counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl and fentanyl analogues. People unknowingly take these counterfeit pills. Many of them die. Drug traffickers have been marketing and selling these fake pills using social media. The Stop Pills That Kill Act will ramp up criminal penalties to deter this illegal activity and save lives.

Later this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will mark up another bill I cosponsor, the Cooper Davis Act. This bipartisan bill requires social media companies, the same places where these fake pills are being sold, to report information to Federal Agencies relating to illicit online fentanyl on their platforms. The reporting requirements will help law enforcement root out and dismantle international crime networks and save lives. I look forward to reporting the bill out of committee and quickly getting it to the President's desk.

Whether it is at my roundtables in Iowa or during my 99-county meetings, parents continue to come up to me and tell me about the children they have lost to fentanyl poisoning. It is heartbreaking to see the pain on their face and hear it in their voice, as they share what the fentanyl crisis has done to their family.

I hope we see action to move these bills and permanently schedule fentanyl related substances. I am as committed as ever to cracking down on fentanyl and its analogues, and I hope my colleagues will join me soon.

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