The interagency effort to stop drug distributors from sending opioids through the mail has too many loopholes and requires additional enforcement tools, according to a bipartisan pair of senators pushing new legislation.
The Synthetics Trafficking & Overdose Prevention (STOP) 2.0 Act would build on a measure President Trump signed into law in 2018 to require foreign countries to provide “advanced electronic data” on all international packages before they reached the United States. Since its enactment, Customs and Border Protection, the State Department and the U.S. Postal Service have provided waivers to various nations that could not meet the requirements of the law in an effort to avoid widespread disruptions to the international mail system.
The new measure, introduced by Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., would sunset any such waivers within five years. The administration in office would no longer be able to issue such exemptions. It would also create a new criminal penalty for anyone mislabeling the contents of their packages to avoid STOP Act detection.