Attorney General Pam Bondi Urges Congress to Close Deadly Fentanyl Loophole

By  //  August 25, 2018

Attorney General Pam Bondi, as part of a bipartisan group of 52 attorneys general, sent a letter to Congress today in support of The Stopping Overdoses of Fentanyl Analogues Act.

TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA – Attorney General Pam Bondi, as part of a bipartisan group of 52 attorneys general, sent a letter to Congress today in support of The Stopping Overdoses of Fentanyl Analogues Act.

If passed, the SOFA Act would close a loophole that allows those who traffic deadly fentanyl to stay a step ahead of law enforcement.

Fentanyl is currently a Schedule II controlled substance and when used as prescribed by a doctor, can be a safe painkiller. Outside of careful supervision, however, illicitly manufactured fentanyl and its analogues are often lethal when taken directly or when mixed with other drugs.

The SOFA Act would eliminate the current loophole that keeps the federal controlled substance scheduling system ‘one step behind’ by utilizing catch-all language allowing the Drug Enforcement Administration to proactively schedule all newly-modified fentanyl analogues.

Since taking office, Attorney General Bondi has emergency scheduled more than 133 novel chemical substances via emergency orders. In 2016, Attorney General Bondi worked with the pharmaceutical industry, government labs and private chemists as well as the Florida Legislature to pass into law the Florida Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 2016to reclassify synthetic drugs into drug classes, thereby enabling state law enforcement to be proactive towards stopping novel synthetic compounds being trafficked into the state.

Florida joins this effort led by Connecticut and Wisconsin, along with attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

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