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The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee held a hearing last week on “policies to protect our communities from illicit drug threats.”
The details: The hearing focused on more than a dozen bills, including ones to:
- Schedule xylazine as Schedule III and nitazenes and 7-OH as Schedule I controlled substances, and prohibit marketing of tianeptine
- Increase enforcement around counterfeit pills and pill press machines
- Increase fentanyl testing in emergency rooms
- Increase access to non-opioid pain treatment in Medicare
- Expand research and funding for fentanyl and xylazine test strips and provide schools with naloxone
- Impose new requirements on states to report data related to medication diversion as part of the Substance Use Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Block Grant, which risks redirecting limited resources away from treatment and recovery services
- Undo Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) final rules allowing increased flexibilities for MOUD (e.g., expanded methadone take-home doses, telehealth initiation, eliminating the one-year history of OUD requirement for methadone), which would re-institute additional barriers to treatment
Meanwhile: The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a markup of bills including the No Fentanyl on Social Media Act to require a report to Congress on minors’ access to fentanyl through social media and the Stop the Scroll Act to require social media platforms to display a mental health warning label.
Read more: Lawmakers push for crackdown on animal tranquilizer mixed with illicit drugs; Health Care Markup
Published
April 2026