08.01.24

Cantwell-Championed Bipartisan Bill to Combat & Track Fentanyl Pill Manufacturing Introduced in Senate

The Fight Illicit Pill Presses Act would require all pill presses be engraved with a serial number & criminalize removal or alteration

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, a bill championed by U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) that will help combat and track illicit fentanyl manufacturing was introduced in the United States Senate.

The Fight Illicit Pill Presses Act, introduced by Cantwell and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), would require that all pill presses be engraved with a serial number and impose penalties for the removal or alteration of the serial number, as well as the knowing transport of any pill press with a removed or altered serial number.

“Last year, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized more than 80 million fentanyl-laced pills,” said Sen. Cantwell. “Creating a way to trace pill press machines and better track illicit manufacturing will provide law enforcement more tools to go after fentanyl traffickers.” 

Fentanyl can come in a powder form or in the form of a counterfeit pill. Counterfeit pills are particularly dangerous -- seven out of 10 seized pills contain a lethal dose of fentanyl. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized more than 80 million fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills in 2023 -- an increase of 37 percent from the 58 million pills seized the year before -- and has already seized over 23 million fentanyl pills in 2024.  The DEA also seized more than 12,000 pounds of fentanyl powder.  Since just 2 mg of fentanyl – the amount that can fit on the end of a pencil – can be a fatal dose, according to the DEA, that powder is equivalent to more than 381 million lethal doses.

Pill presses allow drug traffickers to fashion fentanyl-laced pills which look like legitimate prescription drugs. While legitimate pharmaceutical companies use pill presses to manufacture and brand prescription drugs, cartels acquire the equipment and use the same machinery to create dangerous counterfeit drugs. The use of pill presses makes fentanyl-laced drugs virtually indistinguishable from legitimate prescription drugs. 

The Controlled Substances Act currently requires companies to keep records and reports of the distribution of pill press equipment. Illicit pill presses have been seized in 43 states, but many reports suggest that the seizures only account for a small number of the illicit pill presses being used by cartels. DEA and other federal law enforcement agencies believe that serializing pill presses will help investigators trace the pill presses from the manufacturer to the original purchaser and to the cartels.

In 2023, the Washington State Legislature made the possession or sale of an illegal pill press a Class C felony.  The Washington state law is named for Tyler Lee Yates, who died at the age of 31 after taking a single pill laced with fentanyl.  Yates, who had suffered from pain following a motorcycle crash, died after taking a single pill that he believed to be legitimate pain medication.  Both chambers of the Legislature passed the bill unanimously.

In January, investigators in Spokane seized the first known commercial press associated with illegal fentanyl manufacturing in the Eastern District of Washington. The U.S. Attorney for Western Washington recently announced indictments against 27 people connected to a massive drug operation that included a Shelton couple found with 650,000 counterfeit fentanyl pills made with a pill press.  Tyler Lee Yates was from Shelton.

For the past 15 months, Sen. Cantwell has been traveling across the State of Washington hearing from people in 10 communities on the front lines of the fentanyl crisis, including first responders, law enforcement, health care providers, and people with firsthand experience of fentanyl addiction. She’s using what she heard in those roundtables to craft and champion specific legislative solutions – including the Fatal Overdose Reduction Act, which would expand an evidence-based, low-barrier fentanyl treatment pilot program across the United States, and the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, which will help U.S. government agencies disrupt opioid supply chains by imposing sanctions on traffickers and fighting money laundering.

In March 2024, Sen. Cantwell voted for a series of federal funding bills allocating $1.69 billion to combat fentanyl and other illicit drugs coming into the United States, including an additional $385.2 million to increase security at U.S. ports of entry, with the goal of catching more illegal drugs like fentanyl before they make it across the border.  Critical funding will go toward Non-Intrusive Inspection (NII) technology at land and sea ports of entries. NII technologies—like large-scale X-ray and Gamma ray imaging systems, as well as a variety of portable and handheld technologies—allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection to help detect and prevent contraband from being smuggled into the country without disrupting flow at the border.  The funding breakdown includes:

  • $201 million for construction and infrastructure activities for drive-through NII deployment;
  • $75.5 million for the Fentanyl Initiative for NII at ports of entry and for labs at eight ports of entry;
  • $65.3 million to procure and deploy new NII detection devices;
  • $14.4 million to procure advanced Computed Tomography scanners for deployment to mail and courier facilities;
  • $12.6 million for artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities; and
  • $12.1 million for system integration that brings together the use of the scanning, machine learning and other customs data.

Sen. Cantwell also cosponsored and helped advance the TRANQ Research Act of 2023, which President Joe Biden signed into law last year.  That measure will spur more research into xylazine and other novel synthetic drugs, by directing the National Institute of Standards and Technology to tackle these issues.

A full timeline of Sen. Cantwell’s actions to combat the fentanyl crisis is available HERE.