Fentanyl test strips, the small paper strips that can reveal whether fentanyl or xylazine is hiding in a street drug, are still illegal to buy or carry under Texas law, classified as banned drug paraphernalia. Two newly filed bills are trying once again to change that, arriving as the state has recorded more than 9,500 fentanyl poisoning deaths since 2021, according to Texas health data.
State Rep. Donna Howard filed House Bill 1058 on Tuesday, which would allow Texans to possess testing equipment used or intended to identify or analyze the strength, effectiveness, or purity of a controlled substance, if it passes, according to KXAN Austin. A day earlier, state Sen. Judith Zaffirini filed Senate Bill 87, which would add an exemption for fentanyl test strips to Texas's drug paraphernalia law. Controlled substances themselves would remain illegal under both proposals; HB 1058 would cover testing equipment for controlled substances generally, while SB 87 would exempt fentanyl test strips.
A Years-Long Pattern of Stalled Bills
This is not the first time Texas lawmakers have tried this. In 2023, Rep. Tom Oliverson authored House Bill 362, which the Texas House passed by a lopsided 143-2 vote, according to the Texas Tribune. That bill would have removed fentanyl test strips from the state's list of banned paraphernalia, but it died in the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee without further action.
Oliverson tried again in 2025 with House Bill 1644, which would remove testing strips for fentanyl and xylazine from the list of banned drug paraphernalia, per the Texas Observer. That bill passed the Texas House unanimously and was pending in the Senate as of the report, but the Texas Observer noted that Oliverson's efforts across two consecutive legislative sessions never received a Senate committee hearing. Separately, a bill from Rep. Erin Zwiener was assigned to the Texas House Public Health Committee in 2025 but made no further progress.
Who's Backed the Push
Several Texas lawmakers have supported similar legalization efforts as authors or voters on the legislative record, including Gina Hinojosa, Vikki Goodwin, Sarah Eckhardt, James Talarico, Nathan Johnson and Jasmine Crockett. Even Gov. Greg Abbott announced his support for fentanyl testing strips back in December 2022, the Tribune reported, though that endorsement has not translated into a signed law.
Drug safety advocates say legalizing the strips could reduce overdose deaths, arguing that giving people a way to check their drugs before use is a harm-reduction tool rather than an enabler of drug use. The Texas Harm Reduction Alliance told the Tribune it reversed more than 300 overdoses with Narcan in 2024 alone, underscoring the scale of frontline response efforts already underway even without legal testing strips.
Where Texas Stands Compared to Other States
Fentanyl test strips, which react to the presence of fentanyl or xylazine in drugs, are available at drug stores in most states and typically cost about $25 for a pack of five tests, according to manufacturer pricing cited by KXAN. Texas remains an outlier alongside North Dakota and Iowa, which have similar restrictions on drug testing strips, the station reported. Indiana, by contrast, legalized testing strips in 2025. Texas may change its restrictions in 2027, though specifics of what that change could look like remain unclear.
At the federal level, Sens. John Cornyn, Chris Coons, Tom Cotton, Bill Cassidy and Amy Klobuchar introduced a bipartisan bill to expand access to fentanyl test strips nationwide, according to NBC News. That legislation would clarify the federal drug paraphernalia statute to exclude fentanyl test strips and would also cover xylazine test strips, the outlet reported.
The Overdose Numbers Behind the Push
Fentanyl poisoning deaths have comprised about 32% to 45% of annual drug deaths in Texas, according to Texas health data. Travis County fentanyl overdose deaths fell 36%, from 279 in 2023 to 179 in 2024. The Texas Observer found that Texas overdoses fell nearly 15% from November 2023 to November 2024, trailing a 26% nationwide decline over the same period. Texas's Department of State Health Services cautions that these provisional death counts may be incomplete or still change over time, since the figures capture only drug poisoning deaths whose cause-of-death text includes the word fentanyl or a close variant.
Whether HB 1058 or SB 87 will fare any better than their predecessors remains to be seen. With two prior bills failing to clear a Senate committee hearing despite overwhelming House support, the fate of this year's push may again hinge less on the House floor and more on whether the Senate decides to take it up at all.
