Senate OKs tough new fentanyl bill

Drug sellers may face murder charges

The Florida Legislature on Friday sent a bill to Gov. Rick Scott that imposes stiffer penalties on fentanyl possession, including charging drug dealers with murder if their customers overdose on the cheap, potent painkiller.

The Senate passed the proposal on the same day a state commission released a report revealing more Floridians died from overdosing on the synthetic painkiller in the first half of 2016 than any other drug.

Across the state, fentanyl caused 704 deaths in the first half of last year, according to the Florida Medical Examiner’s Commission’s semi-annual report. That is one fewer death than the total number of deaths caused by fentanyl in all of 2015, records show.

More than 20 percent of Florida’s fentanyl overdose deaths for the first half of last year happened in Palm Beach County, with 156 deaths. During the same period, 89 people in Broward and 76 in Miami-Dade died from fentanyl overdoses, according to an examiner’s

report.

The Senate voted 31-7 to pass the bill Friday after stripping an amendment that would have given judges the discretion to break from mandatory-minimum sentence requirements in certain cases.

House bill sponsor Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton, successfully argued against the amendment, saying that anyone possessing four or more grams of fentanyl was not an ordinary drug user. “Dealers need to go to jail,” Boyd said.

The bill creates tough new penalties, including three-year mandatory minimum sentences for those caught possessing the drug. It requires:

a minimum of three years in prison and a $50,000 fine for people who have between four and 14 grams of fentanyl;

a minimum of 15 years in prison and a $100,000 fine for people who have 14 to 28 grams;

a minimum of 25 years in prison and a $500,000 fine for 28 grams or more.

The bill also adds fentanyl and several similar substances to a list of drugs that can result in murder charges if they are illegally sold and someone dies as a result.

Delray Beach Police Chief Jeff Goldman said he supports the tougher penalties.

“Heroin dealers are bad enough, but when they knowingly add such a potent, deadly substance to their product, they should be held accountable for the deaths they cause,” Goldman said.

Peggy Hernandez’s 23-year-old son overdosed on fentanyl and died curled in the fetal position behind a locked door in his bedroom last year.

In that case, the first federal prosecution of its kind in Palm Beach County, Christopher Sharod Massena, 25, of Lake Worth, was found criminally liable for the death of Christian “Ty” Hernandez, of Wellington. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison in December.

“I’m very happy that the laws are going to be changed,” Hernandez said. “And I would love to have the law named after my son since [Massena] was the first one ... to be prosecuted.”

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi played a role in Friday’s passage of the bill, visiting individual senators to show them a vial with a few grains of the drug versus a vial packed with four grams.

It convinced Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater. “There is no way to justify a vial that is as full as four grams as a user amount or an innocent amount,” Latvala said.

Bondi praised the Legislature’s action after the Senate vote. The legislation “gives us the tools we need to combat the trafficking of these deadly substances,” she said in a statement.

The legislation comes days after Scott declared a statewide public health emergency releasing $27 million in federal funding to combat the epidemic. Scott declared the emergency after directing state officials to hold workshops around the state to learn more about the crisis.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid widely used in health care. It’s often combined with or passed off as heroin on the streets because it is inexpensive and potent, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Much of what ends up on the black market in South Florida comes from Chinese labs marketed to drug traffickers in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, according to a DEA report from July.

As of March 1, however, China said it would ban several variants of the drug. Authorities are hopeful the ban will lead to a decrease in the drug’s availability in the U.S.

Fentanyl is so powerful it sent two West Palm Beach officers to the hospital after they accidentally inhaled airborne residue while testing capsules of the drug last year. In another incident, three Broward Sheriff’s Office drug dogs were hospitalized after catching a whiff in November.

In Palm Beach County, the increase is largely related to the illicit sale of drug cocktails that can include heroin, fentanyl, Xanax and cocaine, said Palm Beach County Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Bell.

“I think what’s pretty clear is it’s all coming in a little capsule,” he said. “Oftentimes it’s not just one drug, it’s multiple drugs in one capsule.”

The state’s successful crackdowns on Florida’s pill mills and the overprescribing of opioids such as oxycodone have pushed drug users toward the black market, Bell said.