Chuck Grassley: “today is a good day for the Senate and a good day for the American people. The Senate will soon pass a bill that is…”

“today is a good day for the Senate and a good day for the American people. The Senate will soon pass a bill that is entitled ``HALT Fentanyl Act.'' The House is expected to take the measure up very soon and send it to President Trump, who is waiting with pen in hand to enact one of his campaign promises. The HALT Fentanyl Act permanently schedules these deadly substances that have been the main driver of overdose deaths in the United States. No longer does the Drug Enforcement Agency need to play this game of Whac-A-Mole every time a cartel develops a new fentanyl knockoff. In other words, today, a fentanyl knockoff might be illegal, and then they change the chemical makeup of it, and it becomes legal. It is a nightmare for law enforcement. So no longer will Congress be kicking the can down the road with temporary extensions. We have had many, many extensions over the last several years to keep fentanyl scheduled and its analogs scheduled in I. It also revises policies to research schedule I substances. These are changes the research community has welcomed. Drug overdoses in the United States have exploded to the highest levels we have ever seen, and, of course, this is thanks to fentanyl and fentanyl knockoffs. The Drug Enforcement Agency has called fentanyl and its knockoffs the ``deadliest drug threat the United States has ever faced.'' Since 2016, I have been raising the alarm on deadly synthetic drugs like fentanyl.…”