President signs an executive order designating fentanyl and its precursor chemicals as 'weapons of mass destruction,' a category previously reserved for nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

The President, on Monday afternoon, in the Oval Office, in a ceremony that included presentation of the Mexican Border Defense Medal, signed an executive order designating illicit fentanyl and its core precursor chemicals as a Weapon of Mass Destruction. He then held the order up for the cameras.

Hon. Read the category twice. Weapons of Mass Destruction. WMD. The legal category, in U.S. law and in the relevant international conventions, has historically included three things. Nuclear weapons. Chemical weapons. Biological weapons. That is the list. The list was the list when Saddam was the question. The list was the list when North Korea was the question. The list was the list yesterday.

The list, as of Monday afternoon, includes a narcotic. The administration’s argument: fentanyl is closer to a chemical weapon than to a narcotic, per the fact sheet. Two milligrams of fentanyl, the fact sheet notes, can kill an adult. The math is right. Two milligrams of fentanyl can kill an adult. Two milligrams of botulinum toxin, in the wrong form, can kill an adult. Two milligrams of strychnine can kill an adult. Two milligrams of arsenic can kill an adult. None of those, the WMD list does not include. The WMD list includes the categorical agents of mass destruction. The category is war. Not overdose. The two are different things.

The order also directs the Department of War and the Department of Justice to evaluate whether the Defense Department should aid the Justice Department in law enforcement against fentanyl trafficking. That is the Posse Comitatus question. The Posse Comitatus Act, of 1878, generally prohibits the use of the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement. There are exceptions. WMD is, by statute, one of the exceptions. The order, by designating fentanyl as WMD, unlocks the exception. That is the part the order does. That is the move.

The overdose problem is real. The overdose problem has, in this state, killed people I have served pancakes to. I have called the funeral home. I have driven the wife to the cemetery. The overdose problem is a cause for serious work.

It is not a cause for redefining the WMD category to include a substance, in order to unlock a posse comitatus exception, so that the U.S. military can be used domestically. That is three legal moves in a single executive order and the move they want is the third one. The first two were the wrapper.

That ought to concern you.