Congressional Democrats are facing backlash due to opposition to bipartisan laws aimed at closing loopholes in US drug laws utilised by fentanyl traffickers.
The suspension fentanyl law, which creates temporary schedules that make fentanyl analogs permanent, has been opposed by George Soros's drug policy nonprofit that argues that the bill exacerbates mass incarceration and limits research into these types of opioids. Democrats such as Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey are pushing for the same debate and are trying to block the passage of the bill with various amendments and procedural manipulations.
In comments from the Senate floor on Tuesday, when he called for an extension of temporary scheduling of fentanyl analogues, Booker argued that the suspension law would implement “a more severe penalty for drugs” and “doesn't stop this body from working until it does more than mere scheduling.” Other Democrat senators, including the Sheldon White House in Rhode Island and Ed Markey in Massachusetts, said the suspension law would hamper research into fentanyl analogues and worsening mass prisoners among minority communities.
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Booker cited testimony from parents who lost their children to fentanyl overdose during his remarks on Tuesday, but the same sad parents who pointed out are calling on Congress to stop the move to permanently scheduling fentanyl analogs as Schedule I substances.
“A continuous solution to address the scheduling aspects of fentanyl analogues Jaime Puerta, who lost his son Daniel to a fentanyl overdose that lost his son Daniel in 2020, wrote in a letter to Booker on Wednesday and obtained by Fox News Digital. “Fentanyl and its analogues were the leading cause of overdose deaths in the US, with synthetic opioids accounting for more than 74,000 deaths in 2023 alone.
Another parent, Lauri Badura, who lost her child to fentanyl in 2014, wrote in another letter to a top member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that if she fails to pass the suspension law, “How can the public hope for the bigger issue of illegal fentanyl that crosses our boundaries every day?”
His son, Bridget Norling, of Devin J. Norling, died in 2020 from a pill that he thought was Percoset but actually fentanyl, but is comforted by the Senate Judiciary Committee entitled “America: The Need for Fentanyl, Its Analogues, and the Permanent Class Scheduling.” The void drug, which his son Daniel died in 2020 from fentanyl tablets he thought were OxyContin, appears on the left. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, Getty Images)
“I am not alone in encouraging the passage of the Stop Fentanyl Act,” Badura wrote. “Families across America – in your state – those who lost children or loved ones addicted to fentanyl, want this bill to be passed. Our children didn't want to die.”
The debate raised by Democrats against this bipartisan bill reflects that of the Soros-backed drug policy alliance.
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Earlier this month, after the House passed the suspension law with a 312-108 vote, the nonprofit warned that the bill would “create a new mandatory minimum sentence for fentanyl-related substances,” blocking studies that could reveal new overdose drugs.”
Keith Humphries of Stanford, a former senior policy advisor to Stanford's National Drug Management Policy Office, argued that the permanence of scheduling of the suspension law increases the imprisonment rate in minority communities — as well as the impact of the crack cocaine law during the war on drugs —
“I don't think so [the HALT Act] Humphreys said. “It's illegal now and we can't run fentanyl analogues… and the market size is not comparable to the number of players we had cracks.”
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Humphreys added that getting approval to investigate Schedule I substances may be “hard” but that's “not impossible.” However, he pointed out that there are ways to schedule fentanyl analogs as class I substances and how to remove these barriers. “We want to start scheduling drugs for use, start for science and have two indicators.”
According to its sponsors, the suspension law will help reduce bureaucratic hurdles by streamlining the registration process for Schedule I researchers, opening the door for more scientists to study fentanyl analogs.
Officials said an estimated 58,000 fentanyl tablets packed in gallon-sized plastic bags had been seized. (Multnomah County Sheriff's Office)
“Law enforcement needs permanence. We need critical changes to combat the opioid crisis and to pursue criminals as they are struggling communities with deadly drugs,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, former physician who introduced the suspension laws alongside Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Martin Heinrich, Chuck Grassley and Martin Heinrich. “The inaction of Congress will only burn China, drug cartels and other criminals who exploit our community.”
But some Democrats like Booker want to do more.
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“This cannot be done in all Congress. The whole bill is not our only response because the entire bill is forever scheduling what we already had temporarily scheduled,” Booker said Tuesday. “I've just looked at it for at least three Congresses who worked to get a bigger approach to dealing with the fentanyl crisis,” he continued. “And three Congresses, this body could not stand up to the challenge. When a colleague told me, 'I told you so,' I'm here and dying – and I'll give him permission to do it – this body will do something beyond mere scheduling. ”
Fox News Digital reached out to Booker and other Democrats for the purposes of this story, including Whitehouse and Markey, but was not responded at the time of publication.
