Presidential Commission Recommends Data Requirements, Legislation to Curb Illicit Opioid Imports
The President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis recommends the executive branch and Congress use advance electronic data on foreign mail shipments from high-risk areas to identify illicit opioid suppliers and domestic distributors, according to a report released by the commission Nov. 1. Already required for express shipments, such data includes sender and receipt names and addresses, shipment contents and quantity.
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The commission also recommends “support” for Ohio Republicans Sen. Rob Portman’s and Rep. Pat Tiberi’s respective versions of the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act in both chambers of Congress. The bill would make the U.S. postmaster general the importer of record for non-letter-class mail imported into the U.S., impose a $1 duty on each item of imported non-letter-class mail, and establish a process to require the postmaster general to “provide for” advance data transmission to CBP of certain information on non-letter-class mail imported into the U.S., the commission said.
Naming China the major foreign source of illicit fentanyl shipments, the report also recommends a presidential directive to key agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security and Justice, and the U.S. Postal Service, for processes to intercept fentanyl at mail processing distribution centers, and to strengthen detection through enhanced technology, more manpower and greater canine deployment. “We are miserably losing this fight to prevent fentanyl from entering our country and killing our citizens,” the commission said. “We are losing this fight predominately through China. This must become a top tier diplomatic issue with the Chinese; American lives are at stake and it threatens our national security.”