Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 3201. Without this 15-month extension, dangerous fentanyl analogues will fall through a legal loophole in just 8 days. If there ever was a must-pass bill, this it is. Importantly though, the scourge of fentanyl analogues needs to be addressed permanently. Drug traffickers are increasingly savvy and sophisticated; they can alter the chemical composition of these drugs, creating analogues that don't fall under the drug-scheduling protocol. DEA has taken emergency steps to combat these analogues which we will temporarily extend today, but we owe it to our constituents to permanently schedule these drugs. This is about saving lives. I have legislation, the Stopping Overdoses of Fentanyl Analogues Act, or SOFA, to place these drugs on schedule I and to give the DEA the authority to combat new analogues that arise. We need to pass SOFA to protect our communities, and we need to pass SOFA to save lives. I want to highlight how dangerous these substances are. One teaspoon of fentanyl is enough to kill 2,000 people. This lethality puts fentanyl and its analogues in a class with chemical warfare agents like VX nerve gas and ricin. Scheduling fentanyl analogues is a matter of life or death. We must choose life. The attorneys general of all 50 States and the Attorney General of the United States have all called for the passage of SOFA and the permanent scheduling of fentanyl analogues.…”