Booker Reintroduces Legislation Requiring Scientific and Medical Studies to Develop Treatments for Opioid Overdoses

TEST Act will expand the period for which new fentanyl analogues can be temporarily scheduled and encourage research, require DOJ to conduct scientific evaluations.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice & Counterterrorism, reintroduced the Temporary Emergency Scheduling and Testing (TEST) of Fentanyl Analogues Act, legislation that would expand the period for which new fentanyl analogues can be temporarily scheduled and require the Department of Justice to conduct a scientific and medical evaluation of these substances to encourage research so that the scientific and medical communities can study and develop treatments for fentanyl-related substances. The bill is supported by a diverse coalition of groups working to tackle the nation’s opioid crisis.

“Placing fentanyl analogues on the list of scheduled substances without corresponding efforts to address the root causes of the opioid epidemic isn’t turning the tide of the crisis because as long as there’s demand and money to be made, cartels will continue to produce these drugs,” said Senator Booker. “That’s why over the past five years that fentanyl analogues have been placed on Schedule I, overdoses and fatalities have continued their upward trajectory. Temporary scheduling has also preemptively criminalized potentially life-saving antidotes to fentanyl overdoses and impeded the medical, research, and scientific community’s ability to develop the solutions we need to effectively tackle the crisis.”

Booker continued, “A more complete approach driven by data, science, and medicine will save lives. The TEST Act, which is supported by a broad spectrum of groups working to end the opioid crisis, will expand the period for which new fentanyl analogues can be temporarily scheduled and streamline research, while also requiring a scientific evaluation like every other controlled substance, so we can better understand fentanyl analogues’ pharmacological effect and open up new, promising avenues to developing therapies that can combat addiction and the devastation it causes.” 

Last September, members of the scientific and medical communities urged President Biden to reconsider making permanent the temporary class-wide scheduling of fentanyl-related substances until data related to the pharmacological effect and epidemiological data are publicly reported.

The full text of the legislation can be found here.