In a contentious vote on Thursday, the House of Representatives passed the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act, a bill that permanently classifies fentanyl-related substances (FRS) as Schedule I drugs.
This classification would subject offenders to the harshest federal prison terms and penalties.
The bill easily passed with 289 representatives voting in favor and 133 opposing it. Surprisingly, the majority of Democrats voiced their objections to the legislation despite White House support.
“The HALT Fentanyl Act would permanently schedule all fentanyl-related substances (FRS) not otherwise scheduled into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act as a class and expedite research into fentanyl-related substances, which the Administration has long supported,” the White House said this week.
Democrats split on the vote, 132 opposed the bill while 74 supported it. Only one Republican representative voted against the measure.
Advocates for the bill argue that there are numerous fentanyl analogues that are difficult to analyze swiftly, making it challenging to distinguish between harmful and non-harmful substances. Consequently, they contend that all fentanyl-related substances should be classified as Schedule I drugs.
Since 2018, FRS has been temporarily classified as such on an emergency basis, and the House bill aims to establish this classification permanently.
During the floor debate, several Democrats criticized the bill, expressing concerns that the penalties for producing and selling fentanyl analogues would disproportionately affect minority communities.
Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove from California stated that the legislation mirrored the failed “war on drugs” from the 1980s.
“Did we learn nothing from the war on drugs? I guess not,” she said.
“Back then we enacted ineffective and punitive laws that only worked to expand mass incarceration, mostly of Black and Brown folks,” she continued. “This legislation will enact ineffective and punitive drug laws that only work to expand mass incarceration.”
Representative Frank Pallone from New Jersey echoed this sentiment, emphasizing that Democrats support the permanent classification of FRS as Schedule I, provided the bill is “carefully designed to avoid exacerbating inequities in our criminal justice system.”
Pallone and other Democrats argued that the bill should have included provisions for mandatory minimum sentences only in cases where the fentanyl analogue led to “serious bodily injury or death.”
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Republicans, on the other hand, dismissed these concerns, underscoring the urgent need for tough penalties against FRS due to the rising number of fentanyl and FRS overdose deaths in the United States.
Pallone also commented on the Biden administration’s support on policies aimed at ensuring tougher drug sentencing rules don’t “exacerbate existing inequities.”
“We simply cannot incarcerate our way out of a public health crisis,” he said. “The HALT Fentanyl Act does not provide any resources for research, prevention, treatment, recovery, or harm reduction.”
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif, concurred. “We need to be tough on inequality, but for true, systemic change, we have to be willing to consider different roads,” Lee said.
“We have to be willing to consider community-based, trauma-informed, and harm-reducing policies. We must resist the urge to hearken back to tough-on-crime rhetoric,” she added.
Fentanyl deaths is enormous in the United States, burgeoning on an epidemic. The bill’s report language stated that more than 71,000 Americans died from such overdoses in 2021.
Representative Brett Guthrie from Kentucky responded to Democratic arguments, stating, “If you are selling fentanyl to our kids, you deserve to be incarcerated. We don’t apologize for that.”
“Fentanyl is the top cause of death for Americans 18 to 49 years old,” Guthrie added. “In my home state of Kentucky, illicit fentanyl overdoses represented 70 percent of all overdoses in 2020 and 2021.”
“The fentanyl crisis is one of the foremost problems that the American public faces and has been made worse by the crisis at our southern border,” he said.
“Illicit fentanyl is turning virtually every community into a border community, with these poisons flooding streets across America and taking innocent lives, including the lives of our kids,” Guthrie continued.
With the bill’s passage in the House, it now moves to the Senate. However, it is likely the Senate will do nothing with it given the significant opposition from Democrats in the House, despite the White House’s support.
It is hard to understand rejecting a law that takes direct action to hinder one of the most tragic and leading causes of death in our country based on equity.