Montana Attorney General Tim Fox has joined with every other Attorney General in the country to have Congress permanently classify Fentanyl as a Schedule 1 drug.

Deputy Attorney General Jon Bennion explains.

“Like many people, a couple of years ago I had never even heard of Fentanyl, but I think people understand now that Fentanyl is a very, very potent drug, it’s at least a hundred times more potent than Morphine,” said Bennion. It’s very addictive and can be very deadly. “It makes permanent what the DEA did last year to classify it as a Schedule 1 drug.”

Bennion said the permanent classification will greatly assist law enforcement in keeping the drug out of the wrong hands.

“We think it’s important for law enforcement and for public safety,” he said. “We’re seeing it being laced in with methamphetamine and many other substances because they know it provides very addictive powers and gives people a kind of high they’ve never experienced before. However, it is super-deadly and super-potent and we’re encouraging Congress to do something about it that’s more permanent than what the DEA did last year.”

Bennion said he believes the extra push from the states will help to accomplish their goal.

“We’re encouraged based on the response from all the other Attorneys General from around the country and from what we’ve heard in Congress that it’s going to pass,” he said. “We’re just going to continue in our war against addiction, whether its opiods, meth, alcohol and all of those things we need to make sure that we have a response from law enforcement and from our leaders.”

Two years ago, Fox’s office coordinated training in conjunction with NAAG’s education branch centered around methamphetamine, heroin, and fentanyl overdose deaths. The course, attended by county attorneys and law enforcement officers from across Montana, was designed to help them investigate and prosecute overdose deaths

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