Rainbow fentanyl pills. (DEA photo)
A few legislators are working to merge proposals from Iowa’s governor and attorney general to boost sentences for fentanyl related crimes and make an overdose reversal medication more widely available.
Dale Woolery, director of the Governor’s Office on Drug Control Policy, said officials estimate about nine out of 10 opioid overdoses in Iowa in 2021 were due to fentanyl. “We think it’s important to strengthen deterrence where we can on the drug trafficking and also make lifesaving tools more available to Iowans,” Woolery said.
Molly Severn, an aide to the governor, says Iowa’s crime lab processed 96,000 pills containing fentanyl last year. “Counterfeit pills are relatively easy to make, market and distribute,” Severn said this morning during a House subcommittee hearing. “They can be purchased person to person, online and even social media, making them too easily available to anyone with a smart phone, including young Iowans.”
Attorney General Brenna Bird has proposed a bill that would boost sentences for selling or providing any illegal drug that causes a death. The legislation Governor Reynolds is proposing is targeted to fentanyl. A House subcommittee advanced a bill that contains the governor’s plans this morning after a public hearing. Talia Sopp, a University of Iowa medical student, told lawmakers she previously worked at an addiction treatment center for teenagers and has helped distribute Naloxone.
“It’s an absolute tragedy that even one person dies of an opioid overdose when we have this medication to reverse it,” she said. “Naxlone is much like a fire extinguisher. Everyone should have it. Hopefully you never need to use it, but you never want to be in a situation where you need it and you don’t have it.”
Sopp said drug kingpins know drugs are laced with fenanyl, but low level distributors and users don’t know the illegal drugs they’re handling are contaminated with fentanyl. “I have yet to meet someone who says their drug of choice is fentanyl,” Sopp said. “…Therefore I think it’s unfair to penalize someone for sharing fentanyl with a friend when they don’t know that fentanyl was in the drugs.”
Sopp urged legislators to table the idea of enhanced penalties for fentanyl related crimes.