As Reported by the Senate Armed Services, Veterans Affairs and Public Safety Committee

136th General Assembly

Regular Session S. C. R. No. 1

2025-2026

Senator Johnson

Cosponsors: Senators Schaffer, Patton, Weinstein

A c o n c u r r e n t R E S O L U T I O N

To urge the 119th Congress to introduce and pass legislation similar to the Stop Our Scourge Act of 2023, directing the Secretary of Homeland Security to designate illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF OHIO (THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CONCURRING):

WHEREAS, According to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid fifty times more potent than heroin and one hundred times more potent than morphine; and

WHEREAS, According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fentanyl has become the number one cause of death for Americans eighteen to forty-five years of age; and

WHEREAS, According to the CDC, pharmaceutical fentanyl is prescribed by physicians and other authorized health care providers to treat severe pain, especially after surgery or for advanced stage cancer, and may also be used as an anesthetic or in other hospital or treatment settings legally; and

WHEREAS, Illicit fentanyl, both illegally made fentanyl and diverted pharmaceutical fentanyl, is often distributed through criminal drug markets in different forms, including liquid or powder, making its detection complex and its distinction from other drugs increasingly difficult; and

WHEREAS, According to the CDC, fentanyl and drugs similar in chemical structure to fentanyl are being mixed into counterfeit opioid pills, heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine, and people who use only non-opioid drugs are more likely to overdose if they are exposed to drugs mixed with opioids, including fentanyl; and

WHEREAS, According to the National Center for Health Statistics, overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, were estimated to be 74,702 in 2023; and

WHEREAS, According to the Ohio Department of Health, fentanyl was involved in seventy-eight per cent of Ohio's unintentional drug overdose deaths in 2023; and

WHEREAS, United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized more than twenty-one thousand pounds of illicit fentanyl in federal fiscal year 2024; and

WHEREAS, CBP's fentanyl seizures have increased more than eight hundred per cent since federal fiscal year 2019; and

WHEREAS, The dangers of fentanyl are further evidenced by such events as those in 2002 when, in response to Chechen rebels taking over eight hundred hostages in a Moscow theater, Russia deployed an unknown gas, later confirmed by the Russian Health Minister to contain fentanyl-related compounds, to neutralize the rebels, which resulted in the death of 117 hostages from effects of the gas; now therefore be it

RESOLVED, That we, the members of the 136th General Assembly of the State of Ohio, urge the 119th United States Congress to introduce and pass legislation that is similar to a previous proposal known as the Stop Our Scourge Act of 2023, directing the United States Secretary of Homeland Security to designate illicit fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction; and be it further

RESOLVED, That the Clerk of the Senate transmit duly authenticated copies of this resolution to the President Pro Tempore and Secretary of the United States Senate, Speaker and Clerk of the United States House of Representatives, members of the Ohio Congressional delegation, and the news media of Ohio.