UPDATE 🧵ON FENTANYL BAN FIGHT: I’ve been quiet about #fentanyl for a min, but that’s because my days (and nights) have been very full since the start of 2021 working with a broad coalition of stakeholders to ensure that Trump’s hardline policy of class-wide scheduling of.../1
...fentanyl-related substances EXPIRES as scheduled on May 6th. ONE MONTH. That’s all that remains before Trump’s policy of class-wide scheduling of fentanyl-related substances is set to expire. This policy was first imposed by Trump in 2018 and was renewed by Congress .../2
... for 15 months. Congress must not renew this policy. It was implemented by Trump’s DOJ as part of an aggressive enforcement-first and anti-science agenda first by Trump’s AG Sessions and then AG Barr, an unprecedented policy that automatically placed on Schedule I of the .../3
...federal Controlled Substances Act *at least* thousands of substances that are chemically similar to fentanyl, essentially analogues of fentanyl. In doing so, some of the harshest federal drug penalties now can apply to these scheduled fentanyl analogues. How severe? Take .../4
10 grams of a substance, it could be anything, baking powder, for instance. 10 grams is equivalent in weight to 10 *paper clips* If even just a TRACE amount of one of these thousands of fentanyl analogues can be detected in this 10 grams of substance, that can trigger a .../5
... 5 YEAR mandatory minimum. A quantity of less than 10 grams containing a detectable or trace amount of a fentanyl analogue can also trigger a maximum of 20 YEARS federal incarceration. Given that Trump’s class-wide policy expanded the number of scheduled fentanyl .../6
...analogues by the thousands that can now be subjected to these extremely harsh sentences, including some of the most severe mandatory minimums for drugs imposed by Congress in the 1980s, the policy amounts to one of the most onerous escalations of the war on drugs and ... /7
...in years (probably decades). Trump’s DOJ not only exploded the number of substances subject to severe penalties including mandatory minimums, his DOJ also pursued a massive increase in prosecutions involving illicit fentanyl and fentanyl analogues. Between 2015 and 2019 .../8
... federal prosecutions involving fentanyl analogues skyrocketed more than 5,000%. Who has been prosecuted? Mostly young black men, street-level sellers and people in other minor roles in the drug trade, oftentimes not even aware the small amounts in possession contain .../9
...detectable amounts of these fentanyl analogues mixed in to illicit drug supplies. In 2019 alone 68% of defendants were people of color and more than half were street-level sellers. Among these thousands of different fentanyl analogues captured by Trump’s class-wide .../10
...policy, there is considerable variance in terms of potency yet the SAME severe penalties can apply. Trump’s class-wide scheduling policy was implemented under the assumption that all substances that are chemically similar to fentanyl must be at least as potent as .../11
... fentanyl, right? Well the scientific community would tell you that’s not true and in fact the scientific community was sidelined instead of advising which analogies should be scheduled. This is an anti-science policy that was imposed in reaction to waves of mythology ... /12
... and fear amplified by law enforcement & the media, giving Trump the justification he needed to deploy the hardline policies & rhetoric he wanted to from the beginning. Taken together the parallels btwn the government response to illicit fentanyl and crack cocaine is ... /13
... TRULY uncanny. Here are two substances decades apart but the fear and mythology, the reaction to that by policymakers, the policy response and the people who have borne the brunt of the enforcement have been roughly the same! We CANNOT AFFORD to repeat the same mistakes.../14
...with illicit fentanyl and fentanyl analogues as we saw with crack cocaine. President Biden and many members of Congress have acknowledged the reaction to crack was a disaster, and efforts to rectify that harm are still ongoing, including legislation to eliminate the ... /15
...remaining 18:1 crack and powder sentencing disparity. The Trump class-wide scheduling policy should be allowed to expire. We cannot be working to repair the damage with crack policy while simultaneously doing the same harm primarily to communities of color through ... /16
... fentanyl policy. Overdose deaths involving illicit fentanyl and fentanyl analogues have continued to climb since 2018 despite class-wide scheduling and these substances are still widely available. We must mitigate the overdose crisis and save lives through SCIENCE and ... /17
... and HEALTH based policy approaches to addressing harms associated with illicit fentanyl and fentanyl analogues. Legislation that removes barriers to evidence-based treatment such as the #MATAct that #XTheXWaiver would help reduce barriers to lifesaving buprenorphine .../18
... treatment. Legislation introduced just yesterday by @RepAnnieKuster and @RepLBR in the US House that proposes a comprehensive set of health and evidence based policies and programs targeting illicit fentanyl and fentanyl analogues is the appropriate response to this .../19
... in overdose crisis. This legislation would ramp up treatment, harm reduction and public health surveillance interventions to help people detect these fentanyl substances, reduce harms associated with substance use, and remove government red tape that has prevented .../20
... individuals from accessing effective opioid medication treatments buprenorphine and methadone. This legislation, the Support, Treatment, and Overdose Prevention of Fentanyl Act of 2021, is one of several viable alternatives that policymakers should be looking to if they.../21
...are serious about preventing overdose and mitigating harms associated with illicit fentanyl and fentanyl analogues. The bottom line is we MUST lead with public health approaches to drugs and we CANNOT make exceptions for drugs like fentanyl just because it’s potent or ... /22
... it’s analogues novel. We cannot let fear, racism and carceral approaches continue to shape drug policy. We have learned from these 50+ years of the war on drugs. This is a crucial moment of reckoning for the Biden administration and a Congress that has claimed to have .../23
... a lesson with crack cocaine and has talked a good talk of compassion and treatment when it comes to prescription opioids (even if enforcement-first policies and activities are alive and well there as well). ONE MONTH TO GO. Where will we be on May 6th? Stay tuned. /end
Info on the public health bills named above: #1 Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment Act - tonko.house.gov/news/documents…
# 2 - S.T.O.P. Fentanyl Act - kuster.house.gov/news/documents…
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