Congressman Neal Dunn (R-Fla.) has again introduced a bill that would classify all fentanyl-related substances as weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). 

“I have a bill that I've run last year and this year to make fentanyl-related substances, the whole class, weapons of mass destruction,” Neal told the Federal Newswire China Desk. “Now, that sounds like hyperbole. No, a weapon of mass destruction is a term of legal art that actually makes it easier to police fentanyl internationally. It makes much more resources available domestically to pursue fentanyl.”

He said the action is necessary to fight against the mounting death counts caused by fentanyl overdoses, and would allow the government to police fentanyl more effectively.

“Making it a weapon of mass destruction on top of making it illegal, these are useful maneuvers for the government,” Dunn said.

Dunn said that fentanyl is “not a drug, it's a poison.” 

Dunn said that government officials can no longer “just sit around and complain about” the fentanyl crisis, and that they have “got to do something new and different about fentanyl and the problem of overdosing.” 

Dunn introduced the bill in January after the bill got hung up last year.

“Fentanyl-related substances are tearing families and communities apart, and we must do whatever we can to help law enforcement get them off the streets,” he said in a Jan. 20 release intended to garner support for the bill. 

Dunn told the Federal Newswire police have strongly emphasized educating children on the topic of fentanyl as early as second grade due to the fact that every single common street drug now has the possibility of containing fentanyl.

It is no longer a message of “Don’t take candy from strangers,” he said, but “Don’t take candy from strangers because they might kill you.” 

Children need to be taught that “every single time you are using a street drug, you're playing Russian roulette with your life,” he added.

He asserts that fentanyl can be as deadly as more conventional weapons of mass destruction, so he argues the categorization fits.

“When we say weapon of mass destruction we're thinking nuclear weapons, sarin gas, biological weapons,” he said in the report. “When you have something that one kilogram will kill a hundred thousand people, good God, that's dangerous.” 

Classifying fentanyl as a WMD will allow the government to regulate fentanyl trafficking more easily, he said, adding that collaboration with international governments significantly increases when handling weapons of mass destruction, and opens up the government’s abilities on what they are able to do to shut down the stream of fentanyl into the U.S.

His colleague, Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL), claimed in a tweet that “the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-49 is fentanyl overdose." He said there are “over 100,000 a year that are dying from fentanyl overdoses in this country.”

Between March 6 and May 8 of this year, federal border agents confiscated more than 2,000 pounds of fentanyl, which has the potential to cause the death of more than 450 million individuals, the D.C. Examiner reported. The Examiner also noted that a lethal dose of fentanyl can be as tiny as two milligrams.