It’s hard to believe that Democrats could not rally around the danger of fentanyl in the country today. There was a bill presented that would permanently put fentanyl-related substances in schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, but it was blocked on Wednesday by 220 House Democrats.
They voted against considering the legislation that would have helped the government crackdown on this massive criminal enterprise.
The legislation is fairly straightforward, its goal is to classify drugs that are similar to fentanyl — but have been chemically modified to avoid being identified. It states that these mimicking drugs should be on the same schedule as the deadly drug that is the basis of any of those analogs.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, ”Synthetic opioids, especially those substances related in chemical structure to fentanyl, a potent opioid analgesic with approved medical use, have resulted in an unprecedented number of overdoses in the United States.”
It’s hard to argue that fentanyl and its analogs are anything but a national crisis right now. Biden’s own DEA commissioner has warned the drugs are killing Americans “at rates never seen before.”
There is a recent reworking of fentanyl and such drugs’ appearance that is being called “rainbow fentanyl.” So it now appears similar to candy for targeting children. New warnings are being issued that the rainbow fentanyl or other lethal variants of the drug may find their way into trick-or-treater candy hauls.
And still, Democrats defeated the GOP-authored bill to permanently put fentanyl-related drugs in schedule I, something that needs to be done soon if the drugs are going to remain criminalized.
Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) noted that “these thousands of people lost lay bare the denial, the weakness, and the lack of compassion that this administration and my colleagues across the aisle have shown through their ambivalence towards border security, our nation’s security, as literally tons of fentanyl is trucked and walked across the southern border and into our communities.”
FLOOR ALERT: Fentanyl is pouring across Biden's open border & claiming American lives at rates never before seen. We need to secure the border & fully prosecute traffickers, but @HouseDemocrats blocked @HouseGOP requests to consider a bill to keep fentanyl a controlled substance. pic.twitter.com/qONsf1t89H
— House Rules Republicans (@RulesReps) September 28, 2022
