15 U.S.C. § 278u — Xylazine detection and analysis

(a) Definitions "Director" means the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. "Federal laboratory" has the meaning given in section 3703 of this title. "Institute" means the National Institute of Standards and Technology. "Institution of higher education" has the meaning given in section 1001 of title 20. "Nonprofit organization" means a tax-exempt organization described in section 501(c)(3) of title 26. "Xylazine" means a nonopioid tranquilizer — a methyl benzene compound often used in veterinary medicine as a sedative and pain reliever that also causes vomiting and relaxes muscles. (b) In general The Director must: (1) fund NIST's own basic measurement research to improve: ways to identify, understand, tell apart, and categorize substances containing xylazine, new synthetic opioids, or other new psychoactive substances; measurement technology that makes detection and analysis faster; new data tools and processes to find and publicly share information about these substances; and any other area the Director thinks is critical to measuring and detecting them; (2) support work to build and expand near-real-time spectrometry — technology that can quickly test what a substance is made of; (3) bring together and consult with organizations that analyze new psychoactive substances, to build shared strategies and voluntary best practices for handling, transporting, sharing data on, and analyzing these substances safely. These organizations include the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, federal laboratories, states and territories, state fusion centers, the private sector, intergovernmental organizations, colleges and universities, and nonprofit organizations; (4) build or grow partnerships and consortia with other agencies and researchers — such as colleges and universities, federal labs, public health agencies, intergovernmental organizations, and private companies — to improve detection of these drugs; and (5) encourage graduate and post-graduate researchers to study detection and identification of xylazine and other new psychoactive substances as part of their coursework, when that's practical. (c) Controls While doing this work, the Director must put proper security controls in place to protect sensitive information, as the Director sees fit and as the law allows. (d) Report Within one year of December 19, 2023, the Director must send a report to the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Science Committee describing how this section has been carried out. The report can include recommendations for new legislation to help the Director do this job.