2024 Brings Stiffer Penalties for Fentanyl Dealers in California as Overdose Crisis Rages

https://sfstandard.com/2023/12/31/california-fentanyl-dealers-penalties-
new-law-2024/

People convicted of distributing fentanyl in California will face stiffer 
criminal penalties in 2024 under a new law shaped by rising overdose 
deaths.

The law increases the penalty for selling or distributing more than one 
kilogram (2.2 pounds) of fentanyl by an automatic addition of three years 
to the original sentence.

The penalties continue to increase with weight, topping out at an 
additional 25 years for trafficking in weights exceeding 80 kilograms. 
Addiction experts warn the law could have deadly consequences if the 
“threat of police involvement and harsh prison sentences” makes someone 
reluctant to help an overdose victim by calling emergency responders. 

The bill passed the Senate unanimously in September. Gov. Gavin Newsom 
signed it in October, along with several treatment-focused fentanyl bills. 

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that can be fatal in small doses when taken 
on its own. Heroin and cocaine dealers have also sometimes laced products 
with fentanyl —which is cheaper than either drug—leading to accidental 
overdoses by people who unwittingly ingest it. Now, fentanyl is the most 
common drug causing fatal overdoses in California.

Tehama County District Attorney Matt Rogers told Redding television 
station KRCR-TV that the bill “will give us a better deterrent factor for 
those who are thinking about trafficking and fentanyl.”

??“My hope is that it would deter people from selling fentanyl, that it 
would keep it out of our community—out of every community, but especially 
ours,” Rogers said. “It would keep it off the highways and off the 
streets, and we would see a reduction in fentanyl cases, as well as 
fentanyl overdose deaths.”

The bill, authored by Assemblymember Carlos Villapudua, a Stockton 
Democrat, moved through the Legislature even though other efforts to 
increase criminal penalties for fentanyl failed.

“If there are not consequences, there will be repeat supply available,” 
Assemblymember Jim Patterson, a Fresno Republican and author of one of the 
rejected bills, said after an April hearing on fentanyl bills in the 
Legislature.  

Law enforcement groups, including the California Association of Highway 
Patrolmen, generally supported the new law. They said increased penalties 
will deter traffickers.

Those who opposed the bill, including the California Public Defenders 
Association, said increasing penalties does little to deter people from 
using or selling drugs, including fentanyl. 

“Relying on ever-increasing penalties for drug offenses has been 
extensively researched, and we can therefore make some educated 
predictions about the outcome of bills like AB 701,” the public defenders 
association wrote in opposition to the bill. 

“It would not reduce the distribution of fentanyl nor would it prevent 
overdoses; it would reduce neither the supply of drugs or the demand for 
them; and worse, it could actually discourage effective methods of dealing 
with the opioid crisis.”

The public defenders association went on to say that the distinction 
between users and low-level dealers is too blurred to make a 
difference—they argue that most small dealers are also users, and sell 
drugs to support their addiction. 

The bill goes into effect Jan. 1.


-- 
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem.  It has none.

No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.  
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden 
fiasco, President Trump.  

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.

President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed 
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.