Democrats in Congress are facing backlash for their opposition to bipartisan legislation aimed at closing loopholes in U.S. drug laws taken advantage of by fentanyl traffickers.
The HALT Fentanyl Act, which would make the temporary Schedule I classification for fentanyl analogs permanent, has been opposed by a George Soros-backed drug policy nonprofit that claims the bill will exacerbate mass incarceration and limit research on these types of opioids. Democrats, such as Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, have pushed the same arguments, while also seeking to impede the bill’s passage with various amendments and procedural maneuvers.
During comments Tuesday from the Senate floor, as he called to extend the temporary scheduling of fentanyl analogs, Booker claimed that the HALT act will implement “harsher penalties for drugs” and that he would “not stop working until this body does more than just scheduling.” Other Democratic senators, such as Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse and Massachusetts’ Ed Markey, have said the HALT Act will impede research on fentanyl analogs and exacerbate mass incarceration among minority communities.
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Booker cited testimony Tuesday from parents who lost their children to fentanyl overdoses during his remarks, but the same grieving parents he pointed to are calling on Congress to quit stalling the move to permanently schedule fentanyl analogs as Schedule I substances.
“Continuing resolutions to accommodate the scheduling aspect of fentanyl analogs is simply a method of kicking the can further down the road,” Jaime Puerta, who lost his son, Daniel, in 2020 to a fentanyl overdose, wrote in a letter to Booker Wednesday and obtained by Fox News Digital. “Fentanyl and its analogs have been the leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States, with synthetic opioids accounting for over 74,000 fatalities in 2023 alone. Your reluctance to support the HALT Fentanyl Act disregards the escalating death toll and the devastating impact on families and communities nationwide.”
Another parent who lost their child to fentanyl in 2014, Lauri Badura, wrote in a separate letter to the top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that if they can’t pass the HALT Act “how can the public hold out hope Congress will fix the larger problem of illicit fentanyl crossing our borders every single day?”
“I am not alone in urging passage of the HALT Fentanyl Act,” Badura wrote. “Families across America – in your states! – who have lost a child or loved one to fentanyl poisoning want this bill passed. Our kids did not want to die.”
The arguments put forth by Democrats against this bipartisan bill mirror those of the Soros-backed Drug Policy Alliance, a New-York-based 501(c)3, which declined to provide comment for this story.
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Earlier this month, after the House passed the HALT Act with a vote of 312-108, the nonprofit responded with a statement warning the bill would “create new mandatory minimum sentences for fentanyl-related substances” and block “potential research that could uncover new overdose medications.”
Stanford University’s Keith Humphreys, a former senior policy adviser in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, argued that claims the HALT Act’s scheduling permanency will increase incarceration rates among minority communities – similar to the impact of crack cocaine laws during the War on Drugs – are likely unfounded.
“I don’t think [the HALT Act] is going to make a big difference,” Humphreys said. “It’s illegal now, you can’t go around doing fentanyl analogs … also the market size is just not comparable to the number of players that we had with crack.”
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Humphreys added that while it can be “hard” to get the approval to study Schedule I substances, it is “not impossible.” But there are ways to schedule fentanyl analogs as Class I substances to remove these barriers, he noted. “You want to start scheduling drugs for use and for science and let them have two indicators.”
According to its sponsors, the HALT Act would serve to reduce bureaucratic hurdles by streamlining the registration process for Schedule I researchers, opening up the door for more scientists to study fentanyl analogs.
“Law Enforcement needs permanence. It needs a definitive change to combat the opioid crisis and to go after the criminals flooding communities with deadly drugs,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R–La., a former physician who introduced the HALT Act alongside Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. “Congress’ inaction only emboldens China, drug cartels and other criminals who exploit our communities.”
But some Democrats, like Booker, want more done.
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“This can’t be all Congress does. The whole bill cannot be our only response, because the whole bill permanently schedules what we have already scheduled temporarily,” Booker said Tuesday. “I’ve watched now, for at least three congresses that I’ve worked on trying to get a larger approach to meet the fentanyl crisis,” he continued. “And three congresses, this body has failed to rise to the challenge. I’m dying to be here when my colleague tells me, ‘I told you so” – and I give him permission to do that – that this body will do something beyond just scheduling.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Booker and other Democrats for purposes of this story, including Whitehouse and Markey, but did not receive any responses by publication time.
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