Amendments to the Controlled Substances Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in support of S. 223, a bill that amends the Controlled Substances Act to fix a technical error in the definitions. This legislation, sponsored by Representatives Burchett and Cohen here in the House, would clarify the definitions of the different types of recidivist enhancements in the statute.

When the First Step Act was first signed into law in 2018, it created two new types of recidivist enhancements: serious drug felony and serious violent felony.

In the statute, however, both are numbered as paragraph 57, and this technical error has caused confusion between the two definitions. To prevent any further confusion with the interpretation of the statute, this bill corrects this technical error and properly numbers these definitions as different paragraphs.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this legislation to prevent potential costly mistakes in Federal criminal court cases, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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