Synthetic Drugs Coming To U.S. Through U.S.P.S

From Senator Rob Portman’s office:

On Sunday night, CBS News’ 60 Minutes aired a report on dangerous synthetic opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil and how they are shipped into the United States from China through the U.S. Postal Service.

The report highlights the efforts by Senator Portman in his role as Chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which conducted an 18-month investigation into this issue and released a stunning bipartisan report detailing how drug traffickers exploit vulnerabilities in our international mail system to easily ship synthetic drugs from China into the U.S.

Portman authored bipartisan legislation – the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act – designed to help stop dangerous synthetic drugs like fentanyl from being shipped from countries like China to drug traffickers here in the U.S. through the Postal Service.

President Trump signed the measure into law on October 24, 2018.

Recently, Portman sent a letter to Postal Service and the Customs and Border Protection on their failure to fully comply with the STOP Act’s initial deadlines.

The law requires the Postal Service to refuse any shipments without the required advance electronic data received after December 31, 2020.