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The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives tightened its fence around fentanyl derivatives on Thursday, passing a bill that permanently puts them in the most restrictive federal drug category.
The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives tightened its fence around fentanyl derivatives on Thursday, passing a bill that permanently puts them in the most restrictive federal drug category.
The resolution was adopted by 289 votes in favor and 133 against, and now its consideration must be continued in the Senate. While the Democrats control this second chamber, the Conservatives are hoping to garner enough bipartisan support to get it passed.
The bill is being promoted by conservative lawmakers Morgan Griffith and Bob Latta and will also promote research to better understand the drug’s impact on people’s health, facilitating necessary procedures.
Fentanyl, as Republicans recalled this week, is the leading cause of death in the United States among adults aged 18 to 49. “Something needs to be done immediately,” Latta said on Thursday ahead of the vote.
In 2022, more than 109,000 people died of overdoses in the country, about 75,000 of them from synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl or its derivatives.
“Every day in the US, about 300 young people die from overdoses. Imagine that every day a plane with 300 passengers falls from the sky. We won’t live until the end of the week before we stop everything to find out what’s going on,” Steve Scalise, conservative number two in the lower house, stressed at a press conference on Tuesday.
Republicans blame President Joe Biden and what they call an “open door” policy on the Mexican border.
However, more than a hundred nonprofit humanitarian and medical organizations warned this week that the bill now approved is misguided.
“This may unfairly encourage the criminalization of harmless substances. This is another iteration of ineffective and punitive drug war strategies,” groups such as Human Rights Watch or Equal Justice USA told congressional leaders Tuesday. EFE
Source: Aristegui Noticias
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