House Energy and Commerce Committee Asks DEA Questions About Industrial Pill Press Importation

The House Energy and Commerce (E&C) Committee announced sending a bipartisan letter to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) asking for more detailed information on the importation and use of pill presses to make counterfeit medicines using fentanyl in the U.S. The letter was signed by E&C Committee Chairman Greg Walden, E&C Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Ranking Member Diana DeGette.

According to the statement given by Louis Milione in front of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations at the March 21, 2017 hearing, the DEA knew that drug traffickers were having pill presses shipped into the U.S. directly from China for the use in domestic counterfeit pill production. The letter stated that U.S. law requires that the DEA be informed whenever a pill press is imported into the country, but that some foreign pill press vendors mislabelled their equipment or broke the units down for shipment to avoid detection. In a response to questions, the DEA acknowledged on October 24, 2017 that industrial pill press machines were easily available for purchase on the internet.

The letter asked for answers to multiple questions on pill press commerce and seizure data including:

• Under current law, who is required to submit records and reports related to the importation and exportation of pill press machines? What information must be included in these reports and how frequently must they be submitted to the DEA?
• A list of all machines seized since January 1, 2013 including the source country. Please also include a breakdown of how many of these machines were ordered via the internet.
• Please provide the listing that the DEA has of Chinese businesses that ship pill press machines to U.S. customers and the names of the U.S. customers who have imported pill press machines.
• What actions has the DEA taken to reduce the availability of industrial pill press machines for sale on the internet?

The leaders asked for a response to their questions by November 30, 2017.