President Trump signed Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) and Rep. Morgan Griffith’s (R-VA) HALT Fentanyl Act into law on Wednesday to reclassify fentanyl as a Schedule I Substance and increase penalties for fentanyl-related offenses.
“The HALT Fentanyl Act permanently classifies lethal fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I substances, closing a dangerous loophole traffickers are exploiting. The temporary Schedule I designation was set to expire in September 2025,” according to a press release from Griffith’s office.
“The bill also enables a streamlined registration process for medical research into fentanyl-related substances.”
The President was joined by Angel families who lost their loved ones to the poisonous drug.
During the ceremony, President Trump declared another victory over the “vicious” cartels and drug traffickers who have been flooding our country with product and killing Americans for decades.
Watch below:
Trump: Today, we strike a righteous blow to the drug dealers, narcotic traffickers, and criminal cartels that we’ve all been hearing so much about for so many years, and very little has been done. And we take a historic step toward justice for every family touched by the fentanyl scourge as we sign the halt fentanyl Act into law. Good job. Good job.
Trump: And now, with the signing of the halt fentanyl act in just a few moments, we are delivering another defeat for the savage drug smugglers and criminals and the cartels, who have a tremendous amount to say about Mexico. If you want to be nice about it. I’m trying to be nice about it. They have very strong control over Mexico. We have to do something about that. Can’t let that happen. The Mexican authorities are petrified. They’re petrified to show up at their office. They’re petrified to go to work because the cartels have a tremendous grip on Mexico and the politicians and the people that get elected. For years, the monsters who manufacture illicit fentanyl have sought to skirt legal restrictions by making minor variations of the chemical compound, and in the process, they’ve developed even more toxic versions of the drug. One common variant, known as Carfentanil, is a very— it’s becoming more and more common. It’s 100 times more potent than the original version of fentanyl. Can you imagine? Look at what you have to suffer with the original. I mean, this is 100 times more potent.
President Trump also slammed Joe Biden for letting millions of illegal aliens into our country, including rapists, murderers, and drug traffickers, and he touted his day-one actions to secure the southern border.
Trump: For four long years, Joe Biden surrendered our borders to the most evil and vicious traffickers, networks, everything else on the planet Earth, allowing foreign drug cartels to carve out a massive footprint on American soil. We were doing nothing. This open borders nightmare flooded our country with fentanyl and with people that shouldn’t be here, some of the worst people on earth, and illicit drugs decimated American communities and left us with the largest law enforcement challenge in our country’s history, and hopefully it will always be the largest. I can’t imagine anything being worse. They allowed millions and millions of criminals into our country, 11,888 murders, 50% of whom murdered more than one person. On day one of the Trump administration, we declared an all out war on the dealers, smugglers, traffickers, and cartels. Within moments of taking office, I deployed the US military to our border and unleashed the patriots of ICE and border patrol to defend our country from an invasion. This was an invasion. This wasn’t people coming in. This was an invasion of our country allowed to happen by people either that didn’t care or were just stupid people, stupid people. I also designated the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
According to the House bill summary for HR27:
This bill permanently places fentanyl-related substances as a class into schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. A schedule I controlled substance is a drug, substance, or chemical that has a high potential for abuse; has no currently accepted medical value; and is subject to regulatory controls and administrative, civil, and criminal penalties under the Controlled Substances Act.
Under the bill, offenses involving fentanyl-related substances are triggered by the same quantity thresholds and subject to the same penalties as offenses involving fentanyl analogues (e.g., offenses involving 100 grams or more trigger a 10-year mandatory minimum prison term).
Additionally, the bill establishes a new, alternative registration process for certain schedule I research.
The bill also makes several other changes to registration requirements for conducting research with controlled substances, including
- permitting a single registration for related research sites in certain circumstances,
- waiving the requirement for a new inspection in certain situations, and
- allowing a registered researcher to perform certain manufacturing activities with small quantities of a substance without obtaining a manufacturing registration.
Finally, the bill expresses the sense that Congress agrees with the interpretation of Controlled Substances Act in United States v. McCray, a 2018 case decided by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. In that case, the court held that butyryl fentanyl, a controlled substance, can be considered an analogue of fentanyl even though, under the Controlled Substances Act, the term controlled substance analogue specifically excludes a controlled substance.
The post WATCH: Trump Signs HALT Fentanyl Act into Law – Says Bill Strikes a “Righteous Blow to the Drug Dealers, Narcotic Traffickers, and Criminal Cartels” – SLAMS Biden for “Surrendering our Borders” to Invasion appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.