WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued the following statement:
“The opioid epidemic in America is shattering communities across the country and throughout New Jersey. I’ve advanced and supported numerous efforts to address the opioid crisis over the years because we in Congress have an urgent responsibility to enact laws that will ensure no more families have to mourn the loss of a loved one to a drug overdose. Unfortunately, the HALT Fentanyl Act fails these families because it doesn’t address the root causes of the crisis and it will make matters worse.
“The HALT Fentanyl Act creates a blanket classification of all fentanyl-related substances—even those that do not yet exist—as Schedule I drugs without pharmacologically assessing their potential harms or benefits. Some fentanyl analogues may hold promise as antidotes to opioid overdoses or other medical treatments. By permanently scheduling these substances without more robust exceptions for research, this legislation could stifle innovation in developing life-saving therapies, sacrificing scientific progress for political expediency.
“It also borrows a page from the War on Drugs playbook that ushered in excessive mandatory minimum sentences under the misguided notion that giving more people harsh prison sentences would somehow reduce the availability of drugs. We now know that this approach just doesn’t work. As lawmakers, we must learn from the lessons of the past. And where laws that we passed failed, we should not repeat their mistakes.
“Families broken by the scourge of drug overdose, or by an overreaching, unjust criminal justice system—have been begging for public health solutions that may have actually saved their children. Criminalization alone cannot stem the crisis of overdose deaths. We need to prevent overdoses before they happen, but this bill does nothing to curb demand, stem the flow or emergence of new drugs, or help people free themselves from the darkness of addiction. My colleagues and I fought to include dozens of amendments, many of which had bipartisan support, designed to address the opioid crisis through these public health measures, but none were adopted.
“I cannot, in good conscience, support a bill that I believe cruelly offers false hope to the families and communities who have been visited by the destruction of the opioid epidemic. I hope that my colleagues in Congress will join me to work on legislation that addresses the opioid epidemic as the public health emergency that it is.”