Found in this overlap with drugs with potential legitimate therapeutic use. For this Lateral Group of compound requirements using schedule one may act as a disincentive. To echo michael botticelli, we believe by performing significant review we can balance the risks posed by illicit risk of these compounds well preserving the need to develop new understanding. Theyre committed to working with other partners on science in this area to understand and enhance the timely and appropriate assessment of these. We hope that as the Committee Explores ways of addressing the problem we will continue to give the relevant federal agencies an opportunity to share perspectives including solutions that would address the threat to Public Health and safety posed by these dangerous compounds. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am happy to answer any questions i can. I would ask my colleagues who will take five minutes and we wont have second round because we have five witnesses on the second panel and i want to make sure that they have their opportunity to testify before the committee as well. We will start with mr. R tuning in. It appears from your written testimony that you and some of your colleagues have had success prosecuting cases pursuance of the controlled substance analogue enforcement act despite the challenges opposed by proceeding under that statute. So you are to be commended for that. My question, with that in mind, despite complaints about the scheduling process being too slow and cumbersome, do you have an opinion on the utility of continued scheduled dangerous synthetic substances or should we just rely on prosecuting these substances as analogs . Thank you. I think its clear that more Chemical Substances that we schedule, the easier it is for us to do our jobs. So your act in 2012 was helpful, adding chemicals and substances to the scheduled list under the controlled substances act and that clearly makes it easier for prosecutors in a more straightforward way to present cases in court and establish that the chemical compound is something that is on a controlled substance schedule and proceed without questions about its chemical composition and its effect. When we run across synthetics that are unscheduled, we have to deal with the challenges of the controlled substance analogue act and they are well familiar to many of you through your great work with the drug as youve heard of. We have to provide prove this beyond relative doubt. They are subject to expert testimony battles and the defendants will call experts to question the effect of a substance when in fact there is testing the has been done, a lot of time that,s have to rely on Research Documents or periodicals or animal testing. That can confuse jurors make it difficult to prove. To answer your question, the quicker and faster we can get these drugs scheduled the better. We keep hearing that our current scheduling approach for synthetics just isnt agile enough to deal with it. At the same time we also hear concerns that if we move to schedule substances to quickly it could hurt legitimate research. As we look to find a better approach to address this threat, what can you tell us in the congress about how other countries are addressing it. Are they potential models for the United States and what has been the impact of research in those countries . I agree with senator feinstein that there is a legitimate pathway for research as it relates to schedule one subjects. Our challenge has been on the Public Health side in looking at mitigating the publichealth form form. I think theres a tremendous amount of conversation for partners to look like. Are there opportunities to streamline the research process. We are always open to those types of issues to deal with. I do think we have two air on how do we mitigate the Public Health in staying ahead of these substances. I think that should be our First Priority as we endeavor on that. I think we continue to monitor what other countries have done around this. The United Kingdom took an interesting approach. They looked at, the dea and fda are looking at this as well, looking at them largely based on their psychoactive effect of the brain so we can look at staying ahead of some of these as part of the psychoactive effect. I think the other piece, and again weve been hurt by conversations with the dea to look at how can we streamline this process, particularly given the information we have on some of these individual chemicals and can we really look at, based on on da information and other information that we have, really put forward a greater number of these substances to be scheduled. Im and asked my last question, something that mentioned as well. Could you tell us in more detail what the dea and other components of the federal government are doing to confront china about the living this poison to our country. Other steps china have taken enough, if not not what else would you like to see done . Back in october, mr. Chairman, i think china took an important step and a helpful stop when it regulated 116 chemicals. We been meeting with them. I met personally with senior members of their narcotics enforcement bureau. They tell us theyre going to do more and i hope thats right but we all have a larger problem which is even after they regulate, the bad guys just shift a little to the left are a little little to the right and keep on going. I tell you, so far ive been hardened. At least by what theyve done in october and what they say they intend to do to help us regulate additionally. We have to do more here as well. Senator feinstein. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. Ive listened very carefully to our witnesses and it seems to me that what we have is a battle of the experts which slows down the movement on these drugs and lets them get way ahead of Law Enforcement. For me to look at a month in sacramento which is not a big city per se in california and theres more people, somebody dies every single day of this drug. To me its like zika and theres a lot of effort going on now to speed up research here. Here weve got to speed up the ability to enforce and so the question comes to eliminate this battle of the experts. Thats in the courtroom. Would a committee made up of an Interagency Group of scientists that would convene on an ad needed basis to legally determine whether a new synthetic drug is a controlled substance analogue would eliminate the need for lengthy and repeated congressional scheduling actions for small chemical alterations to already scheduled substances. Where im going with this and senator grassley and i have many hearings, theres no drug activity thats important than this one to get a and be able to move and deal with this mutations and changes and if you have to depend on the change of the law every time this changes slightly, we are way behind. It seems to me we do need some mechanism of experts like those at this table to sit down and look at a drug, make a decision and move on. Could anybody comment on what i have just said. You dont have to agree with it, but id like very much to listen. Let me go this reverse way. Why dont we start with you. First, thank you, i agree with the importance of identifying a way a way to speed the decisionmaking in terms of the sheer number of products as others have said. The specific action that youre suggesting, changes to the analogue and decisions, this is something the decision has a large role in at present. I dont know that i would be able to comment a great deal about our particular agencys view on it other than to say we are interested in doing whatever we can. Our role on a scheduling action, as i mentioned before, so my day job is to make sure that nothing we are doing around scheduling is impeding the actions that the dea needs to take with regard to these important dangerous drugs. Mr. Rosenberg. Im going to ask each one of you. Thank you. Our processes clunky and cumbersome. Im not exactly sure how we fix it. One of the things i like is what the doctor referred to in his opening remarks, thinking holistically about how these substances bind to receptors and trying to do it molecule by molecule. In fact, weve done some of that and so far it has worked but we need to do a whole bunch more. Im open to just about anything that makes our process less clunky and less cumbersome. The devil is in the details, of course course. Im very happy to work with your staff on that. Thank you very much but i may take you up on that. The prosecutors have to deal with the evidence as we find it. We dont particularly play a role in scheduling process, we develop evidence in our cases and then we have to deal with whether the substances they scheduled or not. As i explained, the more we have on the schedule, the more straightforward our prosecutions can be. There is benefit to our partners and their work at the border in seizing substances that come into the country. If we have a substance thats not scheduled and we fall to the analogue act or other tools, then then we have to establish the case using our experience. I think like you, we probably share some concern of it for creating another layer. I know you dont want to do that. Obviously having some more discussion in terms of looking at the function. I think part of this, we been heartened by the conversation weve had among our agencies to really look at do we have the evidence. I think we need to determine whether or not the evidence can show whether these are scheduled its a cumbersome process to determine whether each of these drugs has the health Harms Associated with it. I think we need to continue to look at and work with you on the criteria to see if there are ways that we can do a better job of streamlining them as well as looking at a whole host of chemicals that we can work with congress on to work at some level of scop scheduling for those substances. I dont know if theres anything we can do within the drug caucus on this, but i view this as a real emergency. The value out there on drugs, i was talking to somebody today who had a teenager who feels very badly because she wont get involved in drugs or drinking and shes really being set upon by the youngsters that she goes to school with and works with, youre not like us, youre, youre not one of us, youve got to do all of this. Somebody has to get to the heart of it and say no and point out the death rate and the incapacity thats developing among young people from this kind of use. The fatality of this is so in order and it. I know were going to hear more about this in the next panel, but can make a suggestion to us that first of all we should Work Together and come out with something that enables this government to move rapidly. Obviously i dont disagree with you and hopefully our staffs have been talking to some extent on this because ive had a briefing from my staff and i got that impression but if that isnt right, you tell me. franken this is only one of a whole bunch of things we are trying to combat in this country. I have asked all of the special agents in charge around the country to tell me and work on the most significant threats in the jurisdiction. Prescription drugs tend to be the top rank. We are spread thin. We are down to about 800 personnel over all. We have a bunch of challenges. We are working really well, i think, i am bias but i think this is true, with our Task Force Officers and our local police departments. Almost 35 of Law Enforcement within d. E. A. Are state and local Task Force Officers. That is pretty remarkable. We are relying on them, and folks with a bunch of knowledge, to tell us where the hot spots are and trying to hit that. It shifts all of the time, changes all of the time and i have tell you we are outmanned. I should have mentioned in the beginning i want to thank you all for the work you have done in North Carolina. I have been involved in at least one series of noknock warrants that woke people up about four in the morning in the middle part of the state. Our local Law Enforcement have a lot of positive things to say and i am glad we worked on the equitable sharing and other things. Thank you for that. That was huge. We appreciate it. In the state house in 2011, we took action on actually the synthetic marijuana and the bath salts. What more can states do while we try to sort out federal policy . Can you cite any states that are particularly good and others that might be behind that we should work with try to get a handle on the state level . In terms of establishing controls . And outlawing a lot basically, what we are trying to do is not go too far. In North Carolina, we had synthetic marijuana coming on the scene, bath salts, we took action on the precursors to methamphetamine. What i am trying to do is figure out what can be positive action they can take and what could be potentially problematic and needs more federal consistency . Very good question. I dont have a state by state best practice list but i will ask folks when i get back and get that to you. That would be helpful. Learning from states that are doing well and going back to the state leaders and take action. Great question and great point. I will get back to you. One thing, again, i dont think people understand what we are talking about, these synthetics that exist today. If you take a look at marijuana that is legal in a couple states now. It is several times more powerful than it was two decades ago. So i worry about this problem really going and increasing. You have marijuana tourism and people going from states where it is illegal to states where it isnt and going back. My guess is if they had a good experience, they will try to create more potential demand. So we have to get ahead of the problem and the other problems that could be created if they go to other, even more powerful drugs. I am concerned that china is it true china is one of the largest manufacturers of these substances . Of the synthetics . Yes, sir. What are we doing to interdict them and what more do we need to do . We have to work on it if i a moment i want to talk about education to decrease the demand, but what are we doing to thwart the supply. One of the values in scheduli scheduling, even if bad guys are tweaking molecules, it gives us the ability to interdict and cease. So there is a value in scheduling but not permanent. Because they keep moving the goal post . Because they keep moving the goalpost. Any comment . I would say we try to work up the supply chain when we establish our investigation. That is always our goal and by doing that frequently we find ov overseas targets and have to do our best to identify them and follow the money when we can and establish evidence that would allow us to reach beyond our borders. I want to be clear on the china example. Are these ill illicit operations Legal Enterprises by the Chinese Government . After you answer that we will have to move on. Go ahead. To my knowledge, they are engaged you know, in the cases we have seen, they are conducting themselves in violation of our laws. Yeah, i think the answer is both. Some of these are just the sheer volume of Chemical Manufacturers in china present a problem. Part of the business is looking at these illicit chemicals. We are working with a special group focused on interdiction and precursors around methamphetamine. Admiral smith, and jt west, have taken this on in terms of looking at interdiction. Some challenges, particulary around fentanyl, is we dont have good detection and monitoring and hazardous monitoring around straight fentanyl sometimes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you all for your testimony and for your work. I want to wrap my brain around a couple things. One of which is, we are talking about synthetic drugs here and stuff that is on the street or sold in head shops and that kind of thing. I think to ask obviously we have had this Opioid Epidemic and they are prescribed. I want to just try to get my understanding of this right. Mr. Rosenberg, in your testimony you say data from the 2014 National Survey on drug use and health are finding that more than 4. 3 million americans age 12 or over reported taking a prescription pain killer for nonmedical purposes within the past month. Yes, sir. Now, how much of that was legal opioids that were prescribed and how much of those are street opioids . Specifically fentanyl, if is a street drug you dont know how much fentanyl is in it. Can i get understanding of which is which . Sure. I will start by coming at it from a slightly different direction no. I start by not admitting im coming from the different direction. We are 5 of the worlds population and consider 99 of the worlds hydro codone and 80 of the worlds oxy cotton. Most of it is legally preskri preskribd prescribed in peoples medical cabinet. Lets say you get addicted and run out of things that were initially legal. The street price is high. The substitute is heroin. It is much cheaper and the substitute for that is fentanyl which is cheaper yet. Right. But you were saying they took prescription pain killer for non medical purposes. 1. 3 million. Part of the testimony i read is they are street pills and have fentanyl in it. Yes, sir. I agree with the administrator. We know that the vast majority of people start using prescription drugs get them free from friends and family. They are not buying them on the street. As they become more addicted they turn to street purchase of these farm spharmaceuticals. One of the issues around fentanyl that is important is we see fentanyl pressed into pills that look like prescription drugs. Sometimes someone can think they are buying, on the street, an opioid when they are buying a fentanyl pill which is obviously much more powerful and has the potential impact for death far greater than just an opioid. Another thing i want to try to get into and i think we have been talking about it and this is about scheduling. My question is, a very basic question, that maybe i dont have much understanding as chairman and Ranking Member. In terms of could there be some kind of conditional scheduling where we can basically what is happening is someone creates a chemical, they sell it as a bath salt, people die, a couple people die, it takes a while to ajudicate this should be illegal and in the mean time they change the mole