Health Subcommittee Advances Three Bills to Safeguard Communities from Existing and Emerging Illicit Drug Threats

Jul 15, 2026

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Congressman Morgan Griffith (VA-09), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, led a markup of three bills aiming to combat the threat of existing and emerging drug threats and safeguarding public health.

"This Health Subcommittee markup is another example of how the House Committee on Energy and Commerce is prioritizing policies to protect our communities from dangerous substances and counterfeit drug-making tools like pill presses," said Chairman Griffith. "I am grateful we advanced such important pieces of legislation to the full Committee and that we have a Congress so dedicated to protecting the public safety of Americans."

Legislative Vote Summary:

H.R. 7184, the PRESS Act, was forwarded to the Full Committee, by voice vote.
H.R. 8005, the Stop Pills That Kill Act, was forwarded to the Full Committee, as amended, by voice vote.
H.R. 5880, the Fight Illicit Pill Presses Act, was forwarded to the Full Committee, by voice vote.

Watch the full markup here.

Below is a key excerpt from today's markup:

Congressman Morgan Griffith (VA-09) on H.R. 8005, the PRESS Act: "The influx of illicit drugs into the U.S. has, in part, been driven by bad actors-I would say in big part-exploiting loopholes within our legal system. Currently, one of those loopholes is the unfettered importation of pill presses and their critical parts-which are, in turn, being utilized for mass production of counterfeit substances. So, as many of us have heard in various testimonies, they will make a pill that they then try to sell as pill 'X', which doesn't have much of a harm to it, but it's laced with fentanyl or some other dangerous substance. And then we have young people who are dying, thinking that they're just getting a little boost for studies or something else. This act would give our federal prosecutors the tools they need to hold the nefarious foreign actors accountable for importing pill presses and pill equipment into the United States with the intent to illicitly produce controlled substances."