Booker Blocks Bill to Increase Sentences for Fentanyl Dealers on Second Annual Fentanyl Awareness Day

Tuesday marked the second annual Fentanyl Awareness Day in the United States, on which Senator Cory Booker (D., NJ) blocked the Fairness in Fentanyl Sentencing Act of 2023.

“Fentanyl is the greatest threat to Americans today. It kills more Americans between the ages of 18 to 45 than terrorism, than car accidents, than cancer, than COVID. It kills nearly 200 Americans every day. And the number of children under 14 dying from fentanyl poisoning has increased at an alarming rate,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in a press release. The CDC estimates that there were over 80,000 opioid-overdose deaths in the United States during 2021. 

On the first Fentanyl Awareness Day in 2022, the DEA opened the “Faces of Fentanyl” exhibit, which features photos of individuals who died of fentanyl poisoning. The exhibit had extended hours for Fentanyl Awareness Day this year. 

In March, Senator John Kennedy (R., La.) introduced the Fairness in Fentanyl Sentencing Act of 2023, which would lower the threshold for minimum sentencing to reflect fentanyl’s potency. The bill was co-sponsored by Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Katie Britt (R., Ala.). 

“[The bill] will reduce the amount of fentanyl that a fentanyl dealer has to possess before facing the mandatory minimum of five years of prison. . . . When you’re dealing with fentanyl, the amounts really matter,” Kennedy said.  

“Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin. Not five, not 15, 50 times more potent. It only takes two milligrams to kill you. . . . The amount of fentanyl that you can put on the point of a pencil will kill you,” Kennedy continued, while holding a pencil. 

Senator Booker blocked the bill, citing high incarceration rates in the United States. 

“This is the challenge I have. We have now seen generations of the so-called war on drugs. And the solutions that we seem to come up with are about more, and more, and more incarceration, longer, and longer, and longer sentences. And if that would solve the problem, count me in for continuing to go down that pathway,” Booker said. “We now incarcerate more people than any country on the planet earth.”

“Louisiana has seen fentanyl’s carnage. I wrote a bill to get fentanyl dealers out of our communities, and Senate Democrats just blocked it from passing. Today is National Fentanyl Awareness Day,” Kennedy later tweeted.

Although the bill was blocked, Republican governors recognized Fentanyl Awareness Day in their states. 

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin commemorated Fentanyl Awareness Day by signing Executive Order 26, which launches various programs for education, prevention, and treatments related to opioids. The order directs the Virginia Department of Health to develop a “cost-effective plan” within four months to fund “wastewater surveillance” for fentanyl potency and use. 

“The number of fentanyl overdose deaths in the Commonwealth has grown over 20-fold since 2013, with 1,951 Virginians killed by fentanyl in 2022. Since 2020, more Virginians have died from fatal drug overdoses than motor vehicle and gun-related deaths combined. Drug overdose is the leading cause of unnatural death in Virginia,” the executive order states. 

“It’s National Fentanyl Awareness Day. Biden’s open border policies fuel the growing national fentanyl crisis. Texas law enforcement has seized over 385 MILLION lethal doses of fentanyl smuggled into our state. That’s enough to kill every man, woman, & child in America,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted. 

In April, Abbott announced a 10 million dollar multimedia fentanyl-awareness campaign and a plan to distribute Naloxone, a medication for opioid-overdose reversal, throughout all Texas counties.