Government affairs

Legislative Updates

Bill introduced to curb shipping of opioids through the mail

Today, Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI), Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), and Mitt Romney (R-UT) introduced the U.S. Postal Service Opioid & Illicit Drug Strategy Act (S. 2974) that would require USPS to develop and publish a comprehensive organizational strategy to combat the use of the mail in illicit drug distribution including areas for improvement and coordination across federal departments.

According to the legislation, the Office of National Drug Policy (ONDCP) - who USPS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) partner with – will provide information to USPS for use on reporting on their current/existing strategies to ONDCP and Congress every two years. This bill would better allow USPS to assist in combating the spread of opioids and without placing a further financial burden on the agency.

The illicit trafficking of opioids, such as fentanyl, have contributed to a deadly epidemic and while the majority of it is either made here or brought over the border, many drug traffickers take advantage of shipping and mailing organizations like the Postal Service and private shipping companies.

 “Every year, thousands of Michiganders lose their lives to the opioid epidemic. We must fight the opioid crisis on all fronts, which includes stopping drug traffickers from exploiting our Postal Service to distribute deadly narcotics into our communities,” said Sen. Peters. “This commonsense bill would ensure that the Postal Service does everything it can to help address this epidemic and stay one step ahead of drug traffickers as the opioid threat continues to evolve.”

“Utah continues to have a higher opioid overdose death rate than the national average, and our rural communities – particularly Carbon and Emery counties – are disproportionately harmed,” said Sen. Romney. “As we work on solutions to the opioid crisis in our state and the nation, we must develop a multi-front approach that combats the illicit flow of opioids into our neighborhoods. After finding that the U.S. Postal Service does not have in place an overarching strategy to combat illicit drug distribution, we are introducing legislation that will fix that and help USPS be proactive and accountable in reducing the distribution of opioids.”

NALC supports this legislation and is fully committed to working with Congress to fight the epidemic in any way we can.

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