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Trump to declare 'illicit' fentanyl 'Weapon of Mass Destruction,' per draft EO
A copy of the draft was obtained and reviewed by The Handbasket.
Marisa Kabas
March 18, 2025
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The heads of the US Departments of Commerce, Defense, Justice and State received a copy of a draft executive order (EO) likely sometime last week stating that President Trump would be designating “illicit” fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, The Handbasket is first to report.
At a meeting of the Policy Coordination Committee (PCC) hosted by the Homeland Security Council (HSC) on Friday, March 14th, the departments discussed the draft, per a copy of the post-meeting read out shared with me. By this week, the draft was shared with additional employees in the Department of State, per a source there.
Here is the text of the draft in its entirety, a copy of which was also shared with me:
Executive Order Designating Fentanyl as a Weapon of Mass Destruction
March __, 2025
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) (NEA), section 604 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended (19 U.S.C. 2483), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code.
I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that the sustained influx of synthetic opioids, such as illicit fentanyl, has profound consequences on our Nation, including by killing approximately two hundred Americans per day, putting a severe strain on our healthcare system, ravaging our communities, and destroying our families. Synthetic opioid overdose is the leading cause of death for people aged 18 to 45 in the United States.
The flow of illicit fentanyl into the United States through illicit distribution networks has created a national emergency, including a public health crisis in the United States, as outlined in the Presidential Memorandum of January 20, 2025 (America First Trade Policy), Proclamation 10886 of January 20, 2025 (Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States), and Executive Order 14157 of January 20, 2025 (Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists).
Accordingly, immediate action is required to address this national crisis and finally end this unsustainable crisis.
I hereby determine and order:
Section 1. As President of the United States, my highest duty is the defense of the country and its citizens. I will not stand by and allow our citizens to be poisoned by illicit drugs from other countries that are flooding into our country, having our law trampled upon, our communities to be ravaged, or our families to be destroyed. Accordingly, I declare illicit fentanyl to be a Weapon of Mass Destruction as defined in 50 U.S.C. Section 2902
Section 2. Within 14 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take all appropriate action, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to make operational recommendations to implement this order.
Section 3. General Provisions. Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
1. the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
2. the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
3. This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
4. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
DONALD J. TRUMP
The White House, March_, 2025.
The EO may be published as early as next week, the Department of State source tells me, but the timeline isn’t confirmed. The source speculates the purpose is a combination of designating fentanyl cartels as terrorist organizations and creating justification for conducting military operations in Mexico and Canada. They also suspect that it will be used domestically as justification for rounding up homeless encampments and deporting drug users who are not citizens.
In the read out from the PCC meeting on Friday, it says the participating agencies “recognize the need for the United States to take strong action to counter this devastating situation, but these bureaus share significant policy concerns with the Executive Order as drafted.”
Those concerns include the fact that the EO “cites a statute that does not entail an authority to ‘designate’ substances as WMD,” concerns about “negative effects on entities that legitimately handle, ship, and deliver opioids for pharmaceutical purposes,” and acknowledges that “fentanyl can be treated as a chemical weapon when it is developed or used as a weapon…which risks muddying clearly defined roles and responsibilities between the counternarcotics, counterproliferation, and arms control communities.”
Participating agencies must submit recommendations on the draft by Friday, March 21.
While this concept may sound shocking, it’s not actually new—nor is it strictly a Republican-supported idea. In 2022, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody called on President Biden to classify fentanyl as WMD. She then led a bipartisan group of 18 state attorneys general urging Biden to take this action—but he never did. In 2024 Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert introduced a bill attempting to achieve the same, but it appears nothing ever came of it. Now Trump’s second administration seeks to give it new life.
The terrifying implications of broadly labeling groups of people or actions have become painfully clear of late: This past weekend the Trump administration illegally deported 238 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, all of whom they claimed were part of the Tren de Aragua gang. The gang was classified as a terrorist organization on February 20th, and on Friday Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify their expulsion from the country.
Despite the fact that a judge ordered the two planes carrying them to turn around Saturday night, Trump’s cronies refused to comply. By Sunday, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele confirmed they had all been transported to a mega-prison where “inmates would perform forced labor for at least a year, possibly more,” per The Washington Post.
Indiscriminately accusing people with fentanyl as handling weapons of mass destruction poses a similar danger.
I will share more information on the fentanyl executive order as I receive it. I can always be reached on Signal at marisakabas.04 or email at [email protected]
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