Officials fear loss of critical narcotics law

The Drug Enforcement Administration may soon lose what agents consider an important tool in its fight against those trafficking synthetic Fentanyl, if the U.S. Congress doesn’t act.

For the last two years, the emergency scheduling act has classified synthetic Fentanyl and any analogs as schedule I controlled substances, meaning they have no medical use and are highly addicted, explained William Callahan, the special agent in charge of the DEA’s St. Louis division.

“The emergency scheduling act allows us to grab it all,” anything that falls in the Fentanyl category and prosecute the traffickers, Callahan said. “The expiration of that now tells us, ‘OK, you can grab this, but these other things fall outside’” what are classified as illegal.

The act is set to expire Feb. 6. It has passed the Senate and now is in the House of Representatives.

Callahan met Wednesday afternoon with Poplar Bluff Police Chief Danny Whiteley and Lt. Josh Stewart, Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kacey Proctor and Butler County Coroner Andy Moore to discuss the act and Fentanyl/opioid-related deaths.

Fentanyl can take different forms, Callahan said.

“Fentanyl is a drug that is used in the medical community. We’re talking about synthetic Fentanyl now being made in laboratories, primarily coming out of China and Mexico,” Callahan said.

Drug traffickers, he said, have been modifying the compounds in Fentanyl “ever so slightly,” so it wouldn’t fall within the prohibited substances.

That, according to Whiteley, is a “tactic that the bad guys use, change up (the substance) just a little bit, where the prosecutor doesn’t have the tools he needs” to prosecute them.

The Fentanyl being seized by local police, Stewart said, is “different compounds put together. It’s never strictly one type.

“It’s multiple compounds all the time. It’s constantly changing.”

That is a “great example” of why the emergency scheduling act is needed, Callahan said.

“It allows us … no matter what the trafficker has changed up in the Fentanyl and those analog compounds … to investigate, seize,” arrest and prosecute the traffickers, Callahan said.

If the act expires, Callahan said, traffickers again will be allowed to “change up maybe by just one molecule, making that small change to the Fentanyl,” which would hinder investigations and prosecutions.

“We want to put as many tools in our tool belt as we can to combat drug traffickers and drug trafficking organizations,” Callahan explained. “We’re not looking to lose any of our tools

“ … Anything that is taken out … makes our jobs a little bit more difficult.”

Proctor said it is “very important for this bill to pass, otherwise, the criminal could just change the substance ever so slightly, then all of sudden Fentanyl is no longer illegal.”

Whiteley said he already has contacted Congressman Jason Smith’s office and “certainly encouraged our law enforcement support” for the passage of the act,

“He, and also, I think, the president is on board with getting those things done,” Whiteley said. “It’s just a matter of getting the other 434 people in Congress to go along with it.”

The DEA, he said, is committed to “attacking alleged drug traffickers, those that are bringing the poison into the area and using our resources to connect it back to the sources” to St. Louis, another state, across the country or Mexico.

Identifying and bringing those to justice “is what we are going to do,” Callahan said.

It also is a public safety issue, Callahan said.

“We are concerned about drug trafficking,” but also the effects it has “on families, the effects on those caught up in the substance abuse disorder, the effects on the community” and law enforcement.

“Our primary concern is the person, the families in this area,” Callahan said.

Butler County deaths

Butler County had seven opioid-related deaths in 2019, down from 12 in 2018, Moore said.

“We were thankfully down five for the year, but it still should be zero,” said Moore, who indicated awareness has increased the last two years after the county had “six cases in nine days in 2018.”

There already have been several overdoes in 2020, but no deaths, said Whiteley, who indicated the department’s supply of Narcan is getting low. Narcan is the antidote for opioid overdoses.

“(Narcan) saves lives and helps people,” but it’s also “an indication that we haven’t defeated the problem. It’s still coming in here,” Whiteley said.

This opioid crisis cuts through all socioeconomic levels, according to Callahan.

“It doesn’t effect one group out there; it’s across the board,” Callahan said, adding, that is why, “we need the help from the feds to do this, and we need the help from the congressmen/senators in Washington to give them (DEA) the tools” they need.

New crisis

The DEA, Callahan said, is facing a new crisis involving counterfeit pills, which contain primarily Fentanyl, as well as other substances.

Callahan said the pills are produced in Mexico to look like real prescriptions pills and are sold on the streets.

The issue with these pills is they aren’t made in some laboratory under strict guidelines and standards,” Callahan said.

One pill may contain “very, very little Fentanyl,” while another could have enough Fentanyl to “take down a large person,” he said.

DEA officials, he said, are looking at different strategies to stop the pills before they reach Missouri.

Like the DEA, Whiteley said, his department is going to target those who “supply the dope, not the person who is addicted.

“We have been looking at some of our older cases where we’ve had deaths from Fentanyl,” Whiteley said. “When we get the right case, we are going to be asking the federal government or Kacey or both to charge somebody with murder. It’s coming.”

Whiteley said officers “know who a bunch of them are; we’re going to hunt them down and find them.”