Make fentanyl the top drug policy priority
What the document says“The next President’s top drug policy priority must be to address the current fentanyl crisis”
The chapter states that more than 100,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2021 and says addressing the fentanyl crisis must be the next President's top drug policy priority. It says the Administration must reaffirm a commitment to preventing drug use, providing treatment leading to long-term recovery, and reducing the availability of illicit drugs, and that the Director should consult federal border enforcement officials.
What the document actually says“The next President’s top drug policy priority must be to address the current fentanyl crisis”
The next president's first job on drugs must be the fentanyl crisis.
Fentanyl is a very strong drug. It killed more than 100,000 people in one year. The book says this should come first. It wants work on stopping use, on treatment, and on the border.
Imposing Duties To Address the Flow of Illicit Drugs Across Our Northern Border
2025-02-01 · 90 FR 9113
Executive Order 14193 declares the influx of illicit opioids a national emergency and imposes tariffs on Canadian goods on the ground that fentanyl is reaching the United States across the northern border, which acts on the third of the three commitments the passage names, reducing the availability of illicit drugs, and treats the flow across the border as the priority the passage says it should be. The fit breaks down because the order is a trade measure taken under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and aimed at another country's conduct: it sets no drug policy priority as such, gives no direction to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and does nothing on the other two commitments the passage names, preventing drug use before it starts and providing treatment leading to long-term recovery.
The order calls the flow of these drugs an emergency. It then puts a tax on goods from Canada to stem it. That covers one of the three aims the chapter named. It is a trade step, and it does nothing on stopping drug use or on treatment.
3 agency rules
- Medicaid Program; Community Engagement Requirement for Certain IndividualsHealth and Human Services Department, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · June 3, 2026
- Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption for Mail Shipments and New Postal Informal Entry ProcessHomeland Security Department, U.S. Customs and Border Protection · June 24, 2026
- Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption for Merchandise Arriving Through All Modes Other Than the International Postal NetworkHomeland Security Department, U.S. Customs and Border Protection · June 24, 2026
Each of these names the order above in its own summary, preamble or filing. That is a fact about the document, not a finding that it carries out this proposal: it is one step further away than the order is, and what it does about the proposal is a reading nobody has made here.