Sec. 2. Findings

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The Congress finds the following: The number of annual drug overdose deaths in the United States has quintupled since 1999. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths involving illicit fentanyl are on the rise, and the number of overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids in 2020 was more than 18 times the number in 2013. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that in 2020 more than 56,000 people died from overdoses involving synthetic opioids (other than methadone) in the United States, accounting for over 82 percent of all opioid-involved deaths.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (such as fentanyl) increased 56 percent, from 11.4 in 2019 to 17.8 in 2020 per 100,000 standard population. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that reports on increases in synthetic opioid-involved deaths are being driven by increases in fentanyl-involved overdose deaths, and the source of the fentanyl is more likely to be illicitly manufactured than pharmaceutical .

In August 2021, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission published an issue brief noting that, in response to China’s May 2019 fentanyl scheduling announcements, Chinese illegal fentanyl producers began seeking new ways to evade authorities, including developing new fentanyl precursors, working with traffickers in other countries, and using technology to avoid detection . According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, fentanyl is being mixed with other illicit drugs to increase the potency of the drug, sold as powders and nasal spray, and increasingly pressed into pills made to look like legitimate prescription opioids.

In an August 2022 op-ed, Dr. Rahul Gupta, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, wrote, While clandestinely produced drugs such as fentanyl hardly ever leave China in their final form, precursor chemicals for these drugs often are imported by criminals from China to Mexico, where lethal synthetic drugs are produced and trafficked to countries across the globe, including the U.S. . In fiscal year 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 12,900 pounds of illicit fentanyl, which was primarily manufactured in foreign laboratories and smuggled into the United States through Mexico—a sufficient quantity to kill over 2.9 billion people.

Current policies to counter the continued proliferation of illicit fentanyl have been shown to be inadequate at protecting the Nation’s communities.