On the recordApril 28, 2021
I thank my colleague from New Jersey for these remarks. Time is not on our side. This emergency scheduling order expires next week. The Senate is not in session next week. I know that we want to empower addicts, as the Senator from New Jersey said; that we want to help give them the treatment they need to get back on their feet. That is a goal I share. We are talking, though, about drug dealers, drug traffickers, cartels, Chinese superlabs. If we do not pass an extension--in my bill, a permanent extension of this emergency scheduling order--it is the addicts who will be hurt because the drug dealers and these cartels and superlabs will simply begin to flood our streets, once again, with the synthetic fentanyl analogs, which I remind you, again, can be 150 times more potent than fentanyl itself, which is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. I hope my Democratic friends will reconsider in the short time we have this week, and we will be able to pass a permanent extension of this scheduling order. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from New Jersey.
