House passes bill elevating fentanyl to Schedule I drug — joining heroin, LSD and marijuana
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill Thursday classifying the powerful opiate fentanyl as among the most dangerous drugs — opening the door to traffickers facing mandatory minimum sentences for disseminating the highly addictive and deadly chemical.
The Halt All Lethal Trafficking of (HALT) Fentanyl Act passed by a 312-108 vote, with 98 Democrats joining 214 Republicans to vote “aye.” Thomas
The legislation permanently reclassifies fentanyl as a Schedule I drug, meaning it has no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.
Other drugs with Schedule I classification, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), include heroin, LSD, marijuana, ecstasy and peyote.
The bill would also close the so-called “analogues loophole,” which permits traffickers to tweak a chemical component of the opioid to circumvent restrictions on pure fentanyl.
“According to the DEA’s 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment, fentanyl remains the primary cause of the ongoing epidemic of drug poisoning deaths in the United States,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), one of the authors of the bill, said in a statement.
“HALT Fentanyl helps the DEA pursue traffickers of fentanyl-related substances and protect American communities.”
The first Trump administration temporarily gave fentanyl a Schedule I classification in 2018 and that designation was extended repeatedly. The temporary classification is set to expire on March 31.
Back in 2023, the House passed the HALT Fentanyl Act in a 289-133 vote, only for the bill to falter in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
“It’s the most obvious thing in the world to be in support of,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said in a speech backing the bill. “Fentanyl is supposed to be used in the operating room, it is supposed to be used on the battlefield. It is not meant to be laced into street drugs and sold online to kids.”
Critics of the bill argued that it could lead to a spike in domestic prison populations and that it wasn’t an effective method of curtailing fentanyl overdose deaths.
Fentanyl has ravaged communities across the country and emerged as a key political issue during the 2024 election cycle.
In 2023, there were an estimated 74,702 overdose deaths from synthetic opioids — primarily fentanyl, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It empowers law enforcement to seize those deadly drugs and go after their producers and distributors and stop the flow,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters during a press conference Thursday.
“It’s an unspeakable tragedy that has now gone on for over four years. We have more than 200 Americans losing their lives every single day, on average, to fentanyl.”
On Tuesday, the Trump administration imposed 10% tariffs on China, where so-called precursor chemicals to fentanyl are manufactured before being shipped to Mexico, where they are synthesized.
