Griffith bill takes aim at fentanyl-related substances

BIG STONE GAP, Va. (WJHL) — Congressman Morgan Griffith hopes law enforcement and Virginians as a whole will stay vigilant as fentanyl continues to threaten lives.

News Channel 11 spoke with Griffith after a check presentation in Big Stone Gap on Wednesday . During the interview, Griffith addressed his concerns regarding the dangers of fentanyl and other drugs.

“We’re glad that the fentanyl use in Virginia is down,” Griffith said. “I have a bill called the HALT Fentanyl bill that’s made it out of the House. They’ll do a little bit of good to try to slow down the flow across the southern border.”

If the Halt All Lethal Trafficking (HALT) of Fentanyl Act were to pass the House and Senate and become law, it would permanently classify fentanyl-related substances as Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act.

Fentanyl-related substances are currently only temporarily classified as Schedule 1 due to an order issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration. That order is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2024.

“There’s 4,800, roughly 4,800 analogs of fentanyl,” Griffith said, referring to similar substances that go by other names than fentanyl. “This bill would make it permanently illegal to bring in any of the analogs, make those a Schedule 1 drug. But it leaves open the possibility of research because we want to see if there’s something that’s a fentanyl analog that works to help people with less consequences than the actual fentanyl does. So we’re going to let our universities and our health care providers do research with appropriate licenses.”

Griffith said the bill would not only address the dangers of fentanyl but also create an avenue to find safe, medical uses for some patients.

“You do a lot of little steps to try to work on the fentanyl problem and recognize that it does have legitimate medical use for people who are in severe pain or are in the end stages of their life,” he said.

While Griffith’s bill is aimed specifically at fentanyl, he cautioned Virginians to be on guard against other substances as well.

“We’ve got to make sure we’re looking at all substances, not just fentanyl, not just the opioids,” Griffith said. “Sometimes when one goes down, another one rises up. So we have to be ever vigilant and making sure that people know that a lot of these substances are very, very dangerous.”

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