John Thune Touts HALT Fentanyl Act, Urges Support For Permanent Classification Of Analogs

2 hours ago

During remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) spoke about the HALT Fentanyl Act.

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Transcript

00:00Mr. President. I recognize the Majority Leader. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be suspended. Without objection.

00:09Mr. President, Zach Didier was a good student, an athlete, and musician.

00:15He was an Eagle Scout, starred in a school play, and he was hoping to attend Stanford University.

00:20But two days after Christmas in 2020, Zach's dad found him dead in his bedroom with fentanyl poisoning.

00:27He was 17.

00:30Zach and his friends had gone to the mall to meet a drug dealer they had found through social media.

00:34He bought what he thought was Percocet. But it wasn't.

00:39The counterfeit pills he bought contained fentanyl.

00:43And what was a bad decision became deadly.

00:46Mr. President, Zach was one of the more than 90,000 Americans who died of an overdose in 2020.

00:53Many of those deaths from fentanyl poisoning.

00:56He was one of countless victims of fake pills being peddled on our streets.

01:01Pills that too often find their way into the hands of young people and steal their futures.

01:06Courage Mittens is another tragic story.

01:10Adopted from Ghana, Courage was pursuing his dream of becoming an airline pilot.

01:15He had attended flight school, interviewed for a job just days before he died at age 23.

01:20Courage's parents found him on their couch after a night out with friends, seemingly asleep until he stopped breathing.

01:28As they later found out, Courage had taken a pill with two times the lethal dose of fentanyl in it.

01:34Ashley Romero, a 32-year-old mother, took half of what she thought was a painkiller.

01:40But that half a pill contained a deadly dose of fentanyl.

01:44And the dealer who had supplied Ashley's boyfriend with the pill that took her life is believed to have sold pills that killed several other people.

01:51One of those individuals was Jonathan Ellington.

01:54Jonathan had become addicted to OxyContin when it was prescribed to him for a high school soccer injury.

02:00He got clean and stayed clean for about a decade until another injury and another prescription got him back on it.

02:06When his prescription ran out, he bought some pills from an acquaintance.

02:10It only took one pill with a lethal dose of fentanyl to take Jonathan's life.

02:15Mr. President, these are just a few of the stories that families have shared with the Judiciary Committee in support of the HALT Fentanyl Act.

02:24Unfortunately, there are many more like them.

02:27Lives lost. Futures destroyed. Families changed forever.

02:34One in three Americans knows someone who has died of a drug overdose.

02:38We're losing young people. Teenagers. Young parents. People with bright lives ahead of them.

02:50Mr. President, when the Trump administration temporarily classified all fentanyl analogs as Schedule I substances,

02:57law enforcement gained a critical tool to combat fentanyl and go after the people who were bringing this poison into the United States.

03:03Congress has extended this temporary classification several times because it works.

03:09Now we need to make it permanent by passing the HALT Fentanyl Act.

03:14I was very pleased at the strong bipartisan vote this bill received last Thursday.

03:19And I hope the vote on final passage will be equally robust.

03:23As I said, classifying all fentanyl analogs as Schedule I substances gives law enforcement a critical tool

03:28to go after the criminals bringing this poison into our country and selling it on our streets.

03:34And it joins other efforts to end the fentanyl crisis in our country.

03:38President Trump is taking significant steps to halt the supply of drugs flowing across our borders.

03:44Senator Blackburn has done great work bringing attention to the role of social media,

03:48which is often the link between teenagers and drug dealers.

03:52And the Senate will continue working to stop fentanyl from taking more American lives.

03:58Mr. President, fentanyl has caused too many tragedies.

04:02I'm grateful to the families who have lost loved ones to this deadly drug for sharing their stories.

04:07And the HALT Fentanyl Act is moving forward due, in no small part, to their support.

04:13Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

John Thune Touts HALT Fentanyl Act, Urges Support For Permanent Classification Of Analogs

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