“A bill to amend the Controlled Substances Act to prevent unnecessary resource expenditures relating to methamphetamine prosecutions.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section states congressional findings on the methamphetamine crisis, including its health effects (e.g., addiction, violence, neurological damage, overdose deaths); the decline in U.S. clandestine lab seizures from 23,703 in 2004 to 34 in 2024; the rise in psychostimulant overdose death rates from 0.3 per 100,000 in 2002 to 10.6 per 100,000 in 2023 (with 95,063 methamphetamine-associated deaths from 2021 through 2023); increased DEA methamphetamine seizures from 10,305 kilograms (2001-2003) to 182,000 kilograms (2021-2024); dominance of Mexican cartels using Chinese precursors in producing high-purity methamphetamine (average 95.1% pure in 2024); methamphetamine's role in approximately half of federal drug trafficking sentences; and the obsolescence of purity-based mandatory minimum thresholds in 21 U.S.C. 841 given current high purity levels.
This section revises methamphetamine quantity thresholds in penalty provisions of the Controlled Substances Act to eliminate distinctions between pure methamphetamine and mixtures or substances containing a detectable amount thereof, thereby obviating laboratory purity testing. Specifically, the section— (1) in 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1), strikes from subparagraph (A)(viii) the phrase “methamphetamine, its salts, isomers, and salts of its isomers or 500 grams or more of” and from subparagraph (B)(viii) the phrase “methamphetamine, its salts, isomers, and salts of its isomers or 50 grams or more of” (thus, applying the 500-gram and 50-gram thresholds, respectively, solely to mixtures or substances containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine); (2) in 21 U.S.C. 848 (Continuing Criminal Enterprise penalties), redesignates subsection (s) as subsection (f) and inserts “a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of” after “involving” in new subsection (f); and (3) in 21 U.S.C. 860a (enhanced penalties for methamphetamine manufacturing operations), inserts “a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of” before “methamphetamine”.
This section directs the United States Sentencing Commission to review and amend the sentencing guidelines applicable to methamphetamine offenses under section 401 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 841). It requires the Commission to (1) ensure the guidelines sufficiently deter such offenses and reflect their harms to individuals, families, communities, and society; and (2) consider sentencing enhancements for cases involving a large number of victims, a pattern of continued and flagrant violations, the use or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, or death or bodily injury.