Combating Illicit Xylazine Act

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I thank Senator Cortez Masto for being such a leader on fighting the opioid epidemic. She is on the frontline of conducting that battle against this scourge. We are both here on the floor today in an effort to find the best solutions for addressing this crisis.

We lost over 105,000 Americans to overdose last year. That is over 1 million people in a decade who have died,

at that pace. And to put this in more concrete terms, we lost more Americans in a single year to overdose than in the entirety of the Vietnam war or the Korean war--in just 1 year, 105,000 people.

For every death, we unleash waves of grief and hurt on families and communities that lose one of their own. Now, 105,000 deaths is more than unacceptable; it is a tragedy. And this epidemic is made worse by the scourge of xylazine. The tragedy does call for immediate, full- scale solutions. Americans need solutions that work.

In developing those solutions, we must be conscious about any unintended consequences, and I am concerned about the unintended consequences of passing the Combating Illicit Xylazine Act.

The bill would require scheduling xylazine under the Controlled Substances Act as a schedule III drug. And these schedules are meant to create restrictions based on a balance of the substance's legitimate medical use and their potential for abuse. It is a balance. And in the United States we actually have a process to schedule xylazine and other drugs. We have a process that is time tested, that requires the Department of Health and Human Services to provide a scientific and medical evaluation.

And as the Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA, has indicated, they have already started that process. So instead of waiting for the scientific and medical evaluation to be completed, this bill would actually require we skip the process and let Congress decide what scheduling is the most appropriate.

But, ultimately, this process is something which I believe has to be given due respect. If we schedule this without waiting for the experts, this could lead to more people struggling with addiction, having a hard time asking for help, and less research into xylazine testing, overdose reversal, and treatment.

So, from my perspective, I just don't think we should be skipping over expert recommendations that would help us avoid those unintended consequences. And efforts to skip medical and scientific evaluation should certainly not be supported by the DEA, working to undercut the administration's own health experts in their role in developing a scheduling recommendation.

So there is a tension here that exists between the DEA and between our health officials in terms of the processes that we should be using. And I understand that part of the justification for a legislative solution is to create exemptions for veterinary medicine to avoid unnecessary interference in legitimate uses of xylazine. We can do that once we have a complete medical and scientific recommendation, and I look forward, obviously, to working with my great friend Senator Cortez Masto--she is, again, a great leader in this battle against the opioid epidemic--to identify the appropriate legislative solution once we have obtained that medical recommendation from the medical experts.

I also look forward to working with the Drug Enforcement Administration in making a serious effort to support Americans who are struggling with addiction, and that includes increasing access to medication treatment, including methadone, for opioid use disorder.

Senator Cortez Masto and I agree xylazine is dangerous. Our overdose epidemic is unacceptable, and we need solutions. I am honored to work with Senator Cortez Masto in this fight. We have solutions that we can pursue. We need to pass the Support Act Reauthorization. We need to give communities the tools to test and respond to substances coming into their communities. We need to train and support law enforcement and health providers responding to overdose after overdose. We need to break down old War on Drug structures that make it nearly impossible for Americans to get treatment they need without being criminalized, penalized, and stigmatized. But in pursuing these goals, we cannot provide solutions that offer the potential of undermining the process that has been in place to rely upon medical and scientific evaluation and then work in coordination with the Drug Enforcement Agency.

For that set of reasons, at this time, I object.

Mr. President, I absolutely respect my colleague from Massachusetts and look forward to working with him.

Let me just put on the record here the concern in why this legislation is so necessary. Time is of the essence here. We are talking about saving lives.

Never, ever would we want to undermine the process to move forward, but unfortunately, in this case, the process of moving forward is going to take, one, time that we know is very bureaucratic; two, the process moving forward, if we are to wait for it, does not take into consideration our veterinarians, farmers, and ranchers. If we wait for the proposal to come forward from the DEA, that proposal will not carve out and still allow this particular drug, xylazine, to be utilized by our veterinarians and farmers. It will absolutely make it a schedule III and take it off completely.

That is why this legislation was essential. That is why, working with our veterinarians and working with the DEA and the entire executive branch, we wanted to bring them into this process, without undermining that process, to make sure we were doing everything possible to address this in a timely manner.

It is also why, earlier this year, the executive branch issued several legislative proposals in its ``Detect and Defeat'' Counter- Fentanyl Proposal, which was shared with Congress. Those proposals made a provision to make xylazine a schedule III drug. That legislation proposed to place xylazine in schedule III by the executive branch is supported by the entire executive branch, including specifically the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration. They have been brought into the process. Those are the health experts.

That is what this is about. The goal was to bring everybody together now, to bring all the key stakeholders so we can make this timely legislation and move it because time is of the essence if we are to save lives. That is why, honestly, many of the veterinarian associations across the country, including in Massachusetts, support this process. They do not want to be left out.

If we are to wait for the DEA process to go forward, there is not going to be a carve-out for veterinarians to access this drug.

This was my attempt and Senator Grassley's and so many of us working with all the key stakeholders on good legislation that makes sense, that is common sense to move forward here. Nobody was left out of the process, including the health experts.

I am disappointed we can't move this today, but I am hopeful, working with my colleague from Massachusetts, that we can provide him with the necessary information that he is seeking to move this legislation in a timely manner. I know he cares about this issue, about saving lives, as well.