Press Releases

WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman French Hill (AR-02) issued the following statement after supporting the Stop the Importation and Trafficking of Synthetic Analogues Act, which helps combat synthetic drug epidemic threatening Arkansas and America:

“I was proud to support this bill to give more resources to law enforcement to stop killer drugs from coming into the United States and because it is a good compliment to my bill to increase screening resources for the U.S. Postal Service. The opioid epidemic is plaguing Arkansas and our nation. With 45,000 deaths last year and more than 100 people dying each day, we in the House are acting because we can’t let another Arkansas family be devastated by this crisis.”

Background:

The Stop the Importation and Trafficking of Synthetic Analogues Act, H.R. 2851, updates the Controlled Substances Act to provide swifter action to stop the unlawful importation and distribution of synthetic drugs and gives law enforcement effective tools to help keep our communities safe.

Instead of taking three years to bring a drug under control, the Stop the Importation and Trafficking of Synthetic Analogues (SITSA) Act gives the Attorney General the power to quickly and temporarily schedule a new dangerous drug in a matter of months when it is virtually identical to a currently scheduled drug. It will get these deadly substances out of the hands of drug traffickers and off the streets. The bill also requires the Attorney General to work with the Department of Health and Human Services so that the synthetic drugs can be studied by qualified researchers studying addiction and developing the latest cures for serious illnesses.

In 2016, over 64,000 Americans died from drug overdoses. Nearly 20 percent of these deaths resulted from an overdose of synthetic opioids like fentanyl, which can be as much as 100 times more powerful than painkillers such as morphine. Additionally, synthetic analogues with street names like K2, Spice, Bath Salts, or Molly are designed to mimic other street drugs like marijuana, LSD, and Ecstasy and can be more potent and deadly than the real thing.

Criminal drug manufactures, largely from China and Mexico, work continuously to stay ahead of U.S. drug laws by altering the molecular structure of their drugs as soon as the government bans them. The Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which was signed into law over 40 years ago, was designed to protect the public from the dangers associated with drugs and drug use. However, the CSA was not designed to handle the magnitude and speed with which these new psychoactive substances have emerged in our communities. It currently takes three years to schedule a drug, but criminals can skirt the law by quickly changing one molecule in a drug and get it to U.S. streets. The resulting chemically-altered drug is just as dangerous, and often even more so.