The GOP-sponsored Halt All Lethal Trafficking, or HALT, Fentanyl Act (H.R.27) will permanently classify drugs that are only slightly chemically different from fentanyl as Schedule I substances, the category reserved for the most dangerous types of drugs. The bill passed 312 to 108.

Stopping the flow of fentanyl across the United States’s southern and northern borders was a plank of President Donald Trump‘s 2024 campaign platform. The opioid crisis is a matter that was particularly important to voters in Rust Belt swing states that have been hit hard by the epidemic.

“Fentanyl does not discriminate between what socioeconomic background or what family it destroys,” Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-PA) told the Washington Examiner ahead of Thursday’s vote. “I’ve actually had a family member that passed away very tragically because of a fentanyl-related situation when she was 16 years old. So I’m a big believer in stopping and halting the flow of fentanyl that is literally killing our people.”

Two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal, depending on a person’s body size. Drug dealers increasingly mix fentanyl with other illicit drugs because of its high potency and low cost. 

Schedule I drugs, as defined by the Drug Enforcement Agency, are those that have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse” and include heroin, marijuana, and ecstasy.

Fentanyl itself is a Schedule II drug, meaning that it has a high potential for abuse but also a recognized medical purpose to treat severe chronic pain or following surgery. However, fentanyl copycats, called fentanyl-related substances, do not have the recognition of medicinal properties. 

Criminal charges for Schedule I drug-related offenses are severe at both the federal and state levels, with the manufacturing or sale of small amounts of Schedule I drugs resulting in five to 40 years in prison for a first offense federally.

In 2018, under the first Trump administration, fentanyl-related substances were temporarily classified as Schedule I, orders which were re-upped by lawmakers several times subsequently. 

If the bill does not pass both chambers, the temporary classification will expire at the end of March, creating a loophole in prosecuting people for possession of fentanyl-related substances.

A similar version of the HALT Fentanyl bill that passed Thursday also passed the House in 2023, with 74 Democratic supporters and the assent of former President Joe Biden. However, the legislation stalled in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

“This bill should have passed both chambers last congress. It should have passed with unanimous support,” Bresnahan said in his first House floor speech during debates over the bill Thursday.

This time, the Senate version of the legislation, introduced this week by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA), is co-sponsored by several Democrats, including Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and Maggie Hassan (D-NH).

In 2021, the Government Accountability Office published a report indicating that one negative consequence of classifying all fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I would be the increased difficulty in medical research. The current bill carves out specific exemptions for medical research if the project is conducted or funded by the federal government.

The legislation has endorsements from various state and federal law enforcement associations, but critics argue that reclassifying fentanyl analogs will do nothing to address the demand-side factors of the opioid epidemic. 

Illicit fentanyl poisonings are now the leading cause of death for adults under age 49, beating cancer, heart disease, and car crashes. 

In 2022, over 109,000 people in the U.S. died of drug overdoses, roughly 76,000 of which were caused by synthetic opioids such as fentanyl or its copycats. Overdose death rates decreased slightly in 2023, down to 107,000 overall and roughly 75,000 from synthetic opioids

Usage rates of synthetic opioids, however, have increased in recent years by more than 4% between 2021 and 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Part of the reason for the paradoxical increase in use but the decrease in deaths is the expansion of access to naloxone, which was made over-the-counter in 2023. A recent 2024 study found that, although naloxone treatment for overdose emergency calls has decreased by about 6% between 2020 and 2022, lay person-administered naloxone before EMS arrival increased by more than 43%.

An amendment to the HALT bill was put forward by Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA), which would have required the secretary of Health and Human Services and the attorney general to certify that the measure would indeed decrease overdose deaths before it was fully implemented.

The amendment failed by 226 to 182, with 24 Democrats siding with Republicans.

Associate Editor Hailey Bullis contributed to this report.