BATON ROUGE – U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), today held an event in Baton Rouge to honor angel families and celebrate President Trump’s signing of his Halt All Lethal Trafficking (HALT) Fentanyl Act, which gives law enforcement another tool by permanently scheduling fentanyl-related substances (FRS) as Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act. Cassidy was joined by local law enforcement, Louisiana families affected by the fentanyl crisis, and local officials at the event.
“If it looks like fentanyl, addicts like fentanyl, and kills like fentanyl—then the drug dealer pushing it should go to jail like it’s fentanyl,” said Dr. Cassidy. “That’s exactly what this bill does.”
Background
President Trump signed Cassidy’s bill in July. The U.S. Senate passed Cassidy’s bill in March. In February, Cassidy spoke on the U.S. Senate floor amid Senate Democrats’ attempt to undermine his HALT Fentanyl Act.
Drug overdoses, largely driven by fentanyl, are the leading cause of death among young adults 18 to 45 years old. Synthetic opioids like fentanyl account for 68 percent of the total U.S. overdose deaths. In the last two fiscal years, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized record amounts of fentanyl—nearly 50,000 pounds—enough to produce more than 2 billion lethal doses. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2023 there were an estimated 107,543 drug overdose deaths—74,702 of which were attributed to fentanyl. This was primarily fueled by synthetic opioids, including illegal fentanyl, which are largely manufactured in Mexico from raw materials supplied by China. In 2022, there were over 50.6 million fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills seized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), more than doubling the amount seized in 2021.
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