For Star subscribers: GOP senators advance bill to sentence someone who makes, transports or sells fentanyl to life in prison or death if someone dies using the drug.
Bob Christie Capitol Media Services PHOENIX — Senate Republicans are working to greatly boost the penalties for people who supply fentanyl, advancing a bill Thursday that would subject someone who makes, transports or sells the drug to life in prison or the death penalty if someone dies after taking the powerful synthetic opioid.
People are also reading… Timothy Sparling, an attorney with the Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, a group that advocates for defendants, said Kern's proposal, Senate Bill 1029, could sweep up family members, friends or others if someone got hold of drugs they had and ended up dying. "It doesn't matter if it was an accidental overdose, and it will hurt the people who hurt the most from these situations oftentimes, by putting them in prison,'' he said.
Kern said the"Good Samaritan'' law, which bars prosecutions of someone who calls for help for an overdose victim, would bar prosecutions of that person. Sparling disagreed, saying there is no exception to Kern's proposal."If a person is arrested then it has to go through the court process,'' Kern said."In my understanding everybody except Jan. 6 prisoners and certain Republicans get due process.
Another bill sponsored by Kern greatly reduces the amount of fentanyl needed to merit major felony charges, lowering it from nine grams to two milligrams, and allows major boosts to prison sentences if someone under 15 overdoses. Democrats on the committee also raised concerns that someone who provides a drug might not even know it is fentanyl. The opioid has been mixed into many other drugs and sold on the street as other narcotics.
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