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Jun 13, 2025  |  
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Anna Giaritelli


NextImg:Fentanyl to be deemed the most dangerous drug

Congress handed President Donald Trump a victory in his administration’s fight against the fentanyl epidemic with the passage of legislation imposing steep penalties on smugglers caught moving fentanyl analogs into or throughout the United States.

The House voted 321-104 on Thursday afternoon on the Senate-passed Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act. The bill will now go to Trump’s desk to be signed into law.

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Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) introduced legislation to permanently classify fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act, the highest possible rating. The bill was a rare example of bipartisan legislation.

“This is not the end-all, be-all. There is no silver bullet short of national revival, universal revival to end the fentanyl epidemic, but there is silver buckshot,” Cassidy, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, said in March. “We do this, we do this, we do this, we do this. And you put it all together, and you begin to push back upon the terrible toll fentanyl and other drugs are having upon our society.”

The HALT Fentanyl Act would update federal law to permanently list fentanyl knockoffs in the same category as heroin or LSD. Legal fentanyl used in medical settings would keep its Schedule II rating.

Since 2018, fentanyl has been rescheduled temporarily as a Schedule I drug.

The bill would also allow medical researchers to take fentanyl analogs and use them for research.

Republicans and Democrats have labored behind the scenes for years to pass the bill.

The bill passed the House in February, attracting 98 Democratic votes, but small differences in the Senate version meant the House had to vote again for it to be sent to Trump’s desk.

The bill would hand Trump another bipartisan legislative victory since returning to the White House in January. His first, the Laken Riley Act, requires federal authorities to detain illegal immigrants accused of theft-related crimes.

The Senate’s push against the fentanyl epidemic comes as Trump has forced Canada, China, and Mexico to crack down on border security and fentanyl seeping into the U.S.

Republicans have used the bill to reinforce Trump’s crackdown on the southern border in the first 50 days of his second term. Trump initially imposed 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico in March in response to what the White House called “unchecked drug trafficking.”

Nearly 90% of fentanyl seized was at U.S. ports of entry, primarily between the U.S. and Mexico, where body smugglers, commercial trucks, and passenger vehicles attempted to transport it through customs inspection booths. However, plenty of it has managed to get through.

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In 2022, more than 109,000 people in the U.S. died from drug overdoses, including 75,000 who died from synthetic opioids, including fentanyl. Fentanyl-related substances are the No. 1 cause of death in U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 45, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Drug Enforcement Administration considers 2 milligrams of fentanyl, an amount that could fit on the tip of a pencil, lethal because it can put a user in a coma or cause death.