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Let’s please get something done here
Wednesday, Apr 6, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller * HB17 synopsis…
The bone of contention during Senate debate yesterday was the “person possessing less than 3 grams of a substance containing fentanyl” language. The reason for that language is that small amounts of fentanyl are usually used to lace larger amounts of other substances. Potential lethality is reached at just 2 milligrams, according to the DEA, and such a small amount is super difficult for dealers to package. Oftentimes, people don’t even know that the substance they possess has fentanyl in it, and sometimes those people have died. Republicans objected because 3 grams of pure fentanyl is enough to kill a small town. So, members of the two parties spent most of the debate talking past each other. * The debate was unusual in that it featured two speeches from members in each party who had both lost loved ones to accidental and unknowing fentanyl overdoses. First up was Republican Sen. Sally Turner, whose son died from a fentanyl overdose. “He had no idea that fentanyl was laced in what he had,” Sen. Turner said through great emotion… * Democratic Sen. Patricia Van Pelt then related a story about her friend TJ, who struggled for years with drug abuse and had managed to stay clean for a year. But then he bought some cocaine that was unknowingly laced with fentanyl and died. A person who was with him wouldn’t call for help because, she said, he was afraid that the police might think he had something to do with the drugs. “How many lives have we lost because nobody said anything because they were afraid?” Sen. Van Pelt said through tears as she urged a vote in favor of the bill… The sponsor, Sen. Laura Ellman, pulled the bill out of the record soon after Sen. Van Pelt’s plea in order to try and find a way to get this bill passed. Sen. Van Pelt is now a co-sponsor.
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- Dotnonymous - Wednesday, Apr 6, 22 @ 2:59 pm:
How about treating the disease of Addiction as we do other diseases?…and de-criminalizing drug possession…as a partial solution…based on medical science and minus stigma.
- Gfalkes - Wednesday, Apr 6, 22 @ 3:01 pm:
Remember, this bill was to target drug manufacturers, delivery and possession with intent to deliver, not your typical user. Also, opponents to the bill should be asking where their threshold should be, 2 grams, 1 gram, according to their rationale the should try to prosecute with deliver even trace amounts. That, for the GOP, amounts to zero tolerance. Even, as has been said by ms. Turner herself, there was no knowledge beforehand. That approach is unworkable.
- My 2 Cents - Wednesday, Apr 6, 22 @ 3:02 pm:
It seems like not a day goes by without reading/hearing about accidental fentanyl overdoses. This issue has touched my own family, but hearing about young people who unwittingly think they are buying something fairly harmless and paying with their lives breaks my heart. My deepest condolences to Sen. Turner.
- charles in charge - Wednesday, Apr 6, 22 @ 3:06 pm:
This is a good bill that should pass. Enough tough on crime posturing and drug war politics, we are losing thousands of people. If criminalizing people for drugs worked, we would not be experiencing this crisis. Most of today’s illicit drug supply is contaminated with fentanyl, but the idea that low level sellers are the ones adding it in is a fantasy.
- Leeroy Jenkins - Wednesday, Apr 6, 22 @ 3:42 pm:
===How about treating the disease of Addiction as we do other diseases?===
It’s not like other diseases. You can only treat people that want to be treated.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Apr 6, 22 @ 3:44 pm:
=== It’s not like other diseases. You can only treat people that want to be treated.===
You must not know many diabetics, heart disease sufferers, those stricken with lung cancer…
You typed that, have you met anyone facing a health crisis and choices of life?
- Collinsville Kevin - Wednesday, Apr 6, 22 @ 3:56 pm:
I guess some politicians can’t let go of the war on drugs.
- Leeroy Jenkins - Wednesday, Apr 6, 22 @ 4:00 pm:
OW
As someone that has personally suffered from addiction for many years. I was saying treating addiction like every other disease doesn’t seem like it would work because addicts a lot of times don’t seek out treatment. All of the diseases you mentioned people will obviously seek out treatment. That was my point its not apples to apples.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Apr 6, 22 @ 4:09 pm:
=== All of the diseases you mentioned people will obviously seek out treatment. That was my point its not apples to apples.===
Again… You must not know many diabetics, heart disease sufferers, those stricken with lung cancer…
It’s apples to apples as those above refuse to seek treatment, continue to do things to self-destruct, or plain ignore all things to their diseases.
You’re thinking backwards.
You’d think you’d embraced the comparison… see, cuz then all diseases are seen equal with no stigmas.
- Candy Dogood - Wednesday, Apr 6, 22 @ 6:02 pm:
More than a million prescriptions are written for fentanyl in the United States every year. If people are getting prescribed it, maybe we should have a rational conversation about it in terms of public policy.
People, especially people in law enforcement, like to make up a lot of things about fentanyl. Just like they made up a lot of things about cannabis that still plague the public policy arena. People that aren’t in law enforcement also latch onto false things made up by people in positions of authority if it gives them just the right amount of moral panic.
===person possessing less than 3 grams of a substance containing fentanyl===
This really is a public policy problem. Fentanyl is used to lace drugs, yes, but already field test kits are terrible and inaccurate and we have a lot of people performing field tests that couldn’t get a D- in a college chemistry lab and will never even attempt to take a college chemistry course. This kind of language is going to lead to a lot of false charges simply because a very small amount of something falsely tested positive for the substance and now there’s not enough left to do a test on that doesn’t have an error rate that is alarmingly high.
=== Potential lethality is reached at just 2 milligrams===
The DEA peddles misleading drug information. “Potential lethality” is not a standard that is used for any other drug. Most drugs, even over the not very fun prescription drugs, have a very low dose for “potential” lethality. Depending on the person and the drug that can be any. It’s a bad idea to legislate anything to the extreme left of the bell curve.
===Republicans objected because 3 grams of pure fentanyl is enough to kill a small town===
As a prescription medication the United States produces and consumes hundreds of pounds of this stuff. The likelihood of finding an entire town of people who die at the 2 mg dose is very low. Like, better odds at winning power ball low. Especially if some of those people are already opioid addicts, and if it’s a town in Illinois, some of them absolutely are especially when you include the fact that there are a lot of people in Illinois that are addicted to prescription pain killers who are still prescribed prescription pain killers because that was the whole goal of the companies producing these pills in the first place.
This, like so many things the GOP rants about, is a completely and totally absurd thing that would never happen and relies on a fantasy version of reality that mirrors the hateful fantasies they indulge in when they blame gay people and trans people for all of society’s woes while they conveniently forget their political allies that groom and traffic children.
If the legislature tries to address opioid public policy related problems the same way they’re trying to car jackings we might as well just start killing people in the street like over in the Philippines because at least then the lives we continue to destroy with bad public policy will be obvious.
- Dug - Wednesday, Apr 6, 22 @ 7:50 pm:
Legalize it all. Stop people dying because of illegality.