Trump said Harris 'wants to legalize fentanyl.' She called for tougher enforcement.

Former President Donald Trump vowed to stop fentanyl from pouring into the United States and said Vice President Kamala Harris has the opposite approach.

"Kamala is so radical she even wants to legalize fentanyl," Trump said Sept. 29 in Erie, Pennsylvania. 

A day earlier in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, Trump went further: "She's so radical she even wants to legalize fentanyl right away."

We looked at Harris’ record, including her time as vice president and 2024 presidential candidate, and she has not called to "legalize" fentanyl.

The first thing to know is that fentanyl is legal as a pain management drug when prescribed by a doctor. But possession of fentanyl without a prescription or trafficking of the drug is a crime.

Fentanyl is a Schedule 2 drug, which means it has an accepted medical use when prescribed or administered appropriately but has high abuse potential. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said fentanyl is "about 100 times more potent" than morphine. 

The Biden-Harris administration proposed making fentanyl-related substances a Schedule 1 drug, which would mean stiffer penalties for possession and distribution.

Illicit fentanyl is often smuggled into the country through legal ports of entry, PolitiFact has reported. The federal National Institute on Drug Abuse also say some drug dealers mix fentanyl with other drugs, such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine to increase potency, which can increase the risks of a lethal overdose.  

There were 107,543 total drug overdose deaths in 2023, an estimated 74,702 of which involved fentanyl, recent government data shows.

A Trump spokesperson said the former president was referring to Harris’ response to a 2019 questionnaire by the American Civil Liberties Union in which she said she supported federally decriminalizing drug possession for personal use. The question, and her answer, did not mention fentanyl. 

Trump said that Harris wants to "legalize" fentanyl, but the ACLU questionnaire asked about "decriminalization." Those words have different meanings.

Decriminalization means that someone would not face criminal charges for illegal possession, but could face penalties, such as a fine. When people use "decriminalization" without specifics, it generally refers to possessing a small amount of a drug for personal use. There could still be rules after legalizing a drug, such as only adults can buy it.

When she responded to the ACLU questionnaire about criminal justice issues, Harris was a U.S. senator from California running in the Democratic presidential primary.

The 2019 ACLU survey prefaced a question about drugs with a discussion of racial disparities in drug arrests and incarceration rates. The ACLU wrote that "the opioid crisis has reaffirmed the failure of criminalization," and "full decriminalization with appropriate treatment responses could address this stark racial injustice and reduce incarceration." 

The question said: "Since drug use is better addressed as a public health issue (through treatment and other programming), will you support the decriminalization at the federal level of all drug possession for personal use?" 

Harris marked the "yes" box. She added a written reply focused on marijuana.

"I have co-sponsored the Marijuana Justice Act, which would legalize marijuana and believe it is long past time that we changed our outdated and discriminatory criminalization of marijuana. And throughout my career, I have supported treating drug addiction as a public health issue, focusing on rehabilitation over incarceration for drug-related offenses. Both of my Back-on-Track programs, made it a priority to connect individuals with substance abuse treatment as part of diversion and re-entry programming, in addition to employment," Harris wrote.

The Harris campaign did not comment for this fact-check. But before the Sept. 10 Harris-Trump debate in Philadelphia, Fox News asked Harris campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler about her answer to the ACLU questionnaire. The reporter didn’t mention her reply on drugs, but referred to transgender surgery for migrants in federal custody and "a lot of other things that were pretty far left."

Tyler replied, "That questionnaire is not what she is proposing, it is not what she is running on." Tyler didn’t mention drugs specifically, but said that on immigration she supported the bipartisan border security bill.

The Trump campaign also pointed to comments by CNN KFile reporter Andrew Kaczynski, who surfaced Harris’ responses on the ACLU questionnaire. Kaczynski said in a Sept. 10 interview that Harris’ answer on decriminalization raised questions.

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stated on October 27, 2024 in Social media posts

Photo shows people lined up outside Madison Square Garden before an Oct. 27 rally by former President Donald Trump.

"Now, what would that mean? Will it mean the federal, all drug possession, that's not just marijuana, which she alluded to in her answer to this question, but it also would mean … fentanyl, crack, you know, cocaine."

Harris opened herself up to these questions by checking "yes" for decriminalizing all drugs. Another 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, had a similar position on marijuana but, unlike Harris, checked "no." 

Ryan wrote: "No, I do not support the decriminalization at the federal level of all drug possession for personal use. However, I do support the decriminalization and legalization of Marijuana."

Trump said Harris "wants" to legalize fentanyl as president.

We found no statements from her campaign or vice presidency to support this claim. By contrast, Harris has called for more enforcement. The Biden-Harris administration released an opioid-related plan July 31 that "would permanently regulate fentanyl-related substances as ‘Schedule I’ drugs — subjecting the distribution and possession of these drugs to heightened penalties."

In July 2023, Harris met with a group of state attorneys general about efforts to disrupt the fentanyl supply chain. A White House summary of the meeting said they discussed efforts to "to crack down on fentanyl trafficking and expand access to care."

A Harris TV ad in August said she "will hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking."

Harris praised the border security bill that Trump opposed at a Sept. 19 event with Oprah Winfrey in Michigan. "It would have allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl," Harris said.

In a Sept. 27 speech at the border in Arizona, Harris called fentanyl "a scourge on our country."

"So, as president, I will make it a top priority to disrupt the flow of fentanyl into the United States," Harris said. "I will ensure we target the entire global fentanyl supply chain, because we must materially and sustainably disrupt the flow of illicit fentanyl into our country."

We asked drug policy experts whether Harris’ comments support that she "wants to legalize fentanyl." No experts said they viewed Harris as wanting to legalize fentanyl.

"I have seen no evidence that Harris has spoken about legalizing fentanyl," said Dr. Sally Satel, a lecturer at the Yale University School of Medicine and senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in the foreign policy program at Brookings Institution, a think tank, said Trump’s claim is "preposterous." 

Felbab-Brown said Harris has consistently called for prosecuting illegal criminal groups and suppliers while supporting evidence-based treatment and the use of Naloxone, a medicine that reverses overdoses from opioids such as fentanyl. 

As for the ACLU questionnaire, "favoring policy A for one drug does not imply that one must favor policy A for all drugs," said Jonathan Caulkins, Carnegie Mellon University public policy professor. "So answering a question about all drugs by reference to policy toward a single drug is ducking the question."

In an interview on an "All the Smoke" podcast released Sept. 30, Harris spoke in favor of not imprisoning people for personal marijuana use.

"I feel strongly people should not be going to jail for smoking weed," Harris said. "We need to legalize it and stop criminalizing this behavior. This is not a new position for me."

Trump said Harris "even wants to legalize fentanyl." 

Trump spoke in the present tense as if it is on her presidential to-do list. She hasn’t said that.

Trump was referring to a 2019 ACLU questionnaire that asked presidential primary candidates whether they supported decriminalization "of all drug possession for personal use." 

Harris marked the "yes" box and wrote an answer on legalizing marijuana. This invites questions about whether she meant all drugs or just marijuana. But Harris’ record as vice president and the Democratic presidential nominee shows she does not want to legalize fentanyl. 

Harris has continued in this presidential campaign to say she wants to decriminalize marijuana possession, but has also said she wants to halt the flow of illicit fentanyl.

We rate this claim False.

RELATED: All of our fact-checks about drugs including fentanyl