Chairman Goodlatte Statement at Hearing on "Synthetic Drugs, Real Danger"

Chairman Goodlatte: Thank you, Mr. Buck.  I am pleased to be here today as the Judiciary Committee continues its efforts to protect the American people from the real and growing danger of drug abuse. Last week, this Committee moved five bills through the House that will help law enforcement and the treatment community address the opioid epidemic, so this hearing is very timely.  I want to focus my remarks today on the threat of synthetic opioids, which present a critical threat to the American people. As we all know, the principal driver of the opioid epidemic in this nation has been the overabundance of prescription pain pills in the hands of consumers, especially opioids like oxycodone and hydrocodone.  America’s addiction to opioids has, of course, been noticed in the criminal underworld, and malefactors have taken big steps to profit off America’s pain. One way they have done this is through the production of synthetic opioids, including counterfeit prescription medications laced with fentanyl and fentanyl derivatives.  For those who have been paying attention to this Committee’s work, fentanyl is an opioid pain medication which can be 100 times more powerful than morphine.  To put that into perspective, heroin is typically three times as powerful as morphine.  Fentanyl is intended to be used to treat extreme pain associated with late-stage cancer and other significant health problems.  It is not intended to be used recreationally.  Yet it is, and with the rise of synthetic opioids, it is increasingly being used unknowingly. Often, drug traffickers will “cut” heroin with fentanyl to produce a more potent high.  That has led to a rash of deaths across the country, because of fentanyl’s potency.  In recent legislation, this Committee included language to provide for a sentencing enhancement for any offender who traffics in heroin “cut” with fentanyl. With respect to synthetic opioids, fentanyl is also widely used.  The profit margin is shocking.  Less than a milligram of fentanyl can be lethal.  That means a kilogram of fentanyl can generate enormous profits for the illicit trafficker – sometimes upward of a million dollars. So we have a problem.  Between 2013 and 2014, the rate of drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids nearly doubled.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a “substantial portion” of this increase appears to be related to the availability of illicit fentanyl. According to the DEA’s 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment, Mexico is the primary source country for illicitly-produced fentanyl in the United States.  However, pharmaceutical fentanyl has also been diverted from the legitimate supply chain and into the illicit market.  Some derivatives and analogues of fentanyl are manufactured in China and shipped to the United States. Drug traffickers and associated profiteers are continuously developing new ways to exploit the American market.  Evidence of new opioid drugs, some much more powerful than fentanyl, are turning up on American street corners – for example, “W-18,” a synthetic opioid potentially 100 times more powerful than fentanyl, which law enforcement has called “the next deadly synthetic street drug.” We are under siege.  It is time for Congress to act, and this hearing represents a good first step. I thank the witnesses for their testimony, and look forward to their responses to our questions. For more on today’s hearing, click here.