Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I am going speak in support of S. 3201, the Temporary Reauthorization and Study of the Emergency Scheduling of Fentanyl Analogues Act. It is a critical reauthorization. It is imperative to maintaining our Nation's efforts to fix the opioid epidemic. In February of 2018, the Drug Enforcement Administration used its authority--not legislative authority, but administrative authority--to place nonscheduled fentanyl-like substances temporarily into schedule I for a period of 2 years. We are now up against that deadline, and it is important that we do not let this authorization lapse, as fentanyl and its analogues are still an imminent threat to Americans. {time} 1245 The Drug Enforcement Administration testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 2019 that: The positive impacts in the 15 months since this administrative scheduling change were significant. Prior to this action, DEA observed a rapid and continuing emergence of new fentanyl-like substances each time it scheduled a fentanyl-like substance into schedule I. We really cannot return to that reality. Let me speak a little bit about what that reality is. Someone who is buying what they think is their standard fentanyl product from an illicit Chinese chemist and now buys a fentanyl analogue because it may not be illegal, those additional molecules change the potency of fentanyl so that some of these analogues are significantly more potent than the base molecule.…”