[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 43 (Thursday, March 6, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Page S1601]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HALT FENTANYL ACT

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I voted today to oppose cloture on the 
motion to proceed to the HALT Fentanyl Act. Our Nation and my State of 
Maryland are experiencing a crisis with synthetic opioids like fentanyl 
and related drugs, and I strongly support action to combat drug 
trafficking and prevent overdoses. We need public health solutions that 
will help American families and our communities, but instead, the bill 
before us could lead to harmful unintended consequences, including 
limiting the potential for less addictive pain therapies and treatments 
like Naloxone that could prevent and reverse overdose. It also expands 
mandatory minimums, which increase incarceration but do not reduce 
crime, and applies them to a broad class of drugs regardless of their 
actual physiological effects, so that someone could be incarcerated for 
a decade or more for drugs that are effectively harmless.
  It is my hope that we will have the opportunity to amend this 
legislation, including with amendments put forward by my colleague 
Senator Booker. However, as we have no guarantee that amendments will 
be permitted by the majority despite the urgency of the issue before 
us, I voted against cloture today. I urge my colleagues to work to 
improve the bill in the coming days in order to address the possible 
unintended consequences of this legislation so, instead, the bill 
focuses on tackling dangerous drugs and allows for lifesaving research 
and development of potential treatments.

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