WASHINGTON, DC – In an effort to save lives and stop foreign actors that manufacture and traffic fentanyl from flooding America with illegal synthetic drugs, U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, teamed up with several colleagues to include targeted fentanyl sanctions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020.

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid analgesic that is 50 times more powerful than heroin.  It is classified as a schedule II prescription drug, and it is typically used to treat patients with severe or chronic pain.  It is most commonly manufactured in China and shipped to the United States through the mail or smuggled through ports or across international borders.  Often times, drug dealers mix fentanyl with heroin and cocaine, often without the user’s knowledge, to make the drugs more potent – and the consequences can be deadly.

This bipartisan provision to the NDAA will help hold China and other nations accountable for their commitments to crack down on producers and traffickers of fentanyl and other deadly synthetic opioids, pushing China’s government to honor its commitment to enforce new laws declaring all fentanyl derivatives illegal.  Additionally, this provision of the NDAA will provide the U.S. government with additional resources to sanction illicit traffickers from China, Mexico, and other countries to dismantle the synthetic drug trade and stop the rising rates of fentanyl overdose deaths.

“Congress has significantly increased funding for drug treatment and recovery programs, but to effectively prevent overdose deaths we must crack down on the illicit manufacturing and distribution of fentanyl and prevent it from reaching our communities.  This provision will help crack down on the operations of foreign traffickers of opioids and give the U.S. new tools to stop the flow of fentanyl,” said Senator Reed.  “The provision in the defense bill will ensure foreign countries do a better job of going after illicit fentanyl producers in their own countries, and will use targeted sanctions to hold them accountable for doing so.”

According to state Health Department data published on preventoverdoseri.org, the number of overdose deaths in Rhode Island related to illicit fentanyl has increased by almost 30-fold since 2009.  In 2018, over 70% of overdose deaths involved illicit fentanyl.

A senior member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Reed helped provide $6 billion over the last two years to address the opioid crisis and mental health treatment.  This included funding focused on states like Rhode Island that have been hit hardest by the opioid crisis through the State Opioid Response Grant program.  This fall, Rhode Island received $17.1 million in federal funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to combat the state's opioid epidemic and support prevention, treatment, and recovery programs.

On average, 130 Americans lose their lives to a drug overdose involving opioids every day, according to the CDC.  According to the Rhode Island Department of Health and statistics compiled by the state’s Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force, 314 Rhode Islanders died of accidental drug overdoses in 2018.