House aims at campaign-season bills battling opioid abuse

WASHINGTON — The House dove Tuesday into a two-week vote-a-thon on dozens of bills aimed at opioid abuse, as lawmakers try to tackle a crisis that’s killing tens of thousands a year and to score a popular win they can tout for the midterm elections.

A handful of the measures are contentious, including one Republican bill that would create new criminal penalties for making or trafficking certain synthetic drugs containing fentanyl. That powerful opioid can be made illegally and is taking a growing toll. Democrats complain that the legislation would give the government unfettered power to decide which drugs would be banned, without scientific input.

Most of the 39 bills scheduled for votes this week and dozens more next week are modest and also bipartisan — testament to the deadly toll the problem is inflicting in urban Democratic and rural Republican areas alike.