Law enforcement, prosecutors and families back tougher fentanyl, trafficking penalties in committee hearing

Representatives of law enforcement, county prosecutors and families of overdose victims urged the Ohio House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday to advance House Bill 88, a package of changes that would increase penalties for trafficking in fentanyl, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine and create an enhanced mandatory sentence specification for trafficking that directly causes a fentanyl-related death.

Heinz von Eckertsburg, legislative chair for the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police and a retired Dublin police chief, told the committee that “95 percent of the opioid drug overdose deaths involved fentanyl” in the most recent data he cited and that traffickers routinely mix fentanyl with other drugs, increasing the risk of unintentional fatal overdoses. He said the bill’s higher penalties and the new trafficking definitions would provide tools law enforcement needs to combat widespread, cross-border trafficking.

Jefferson County Prosecutor Jane Hanlon told the committee the fentanyl crisis has increased the complexity of drug investigations and prosecutions: test results increasingly show drug mixtures and many overdose deaths now involve multiple substances. Hanlon described fentanyl’s lethality and the difficulty of prosecution when dealers sell what appear to be other substances. “This bill allows us to seek mandatory prison terms for offenders who have already been convicted of two or more felony offenses,” she said, and added the proposal includes enhancements for trafficking near schools and treatment centers.

Law enforcement witnesses — including Lieutenant Colonel Josh Swindell of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, Jonathan Sobchak of the Fraternal Order of Police, and retired task-force commander Tom Follin — described large recent seizures and said the state’s roadways and interstates are used regularly to transport controlled substances. Swindell told the committee troopers made nearly 11,000 drug arrests over two years and reported multi-hundred–pound seizures of methamphetamine and hundreds of pounds of cocaine and fentanyl.

Families who lost loved ones to fentanyl urged the committee to act. Tom and Stephanie Quell, parents of a son who died of fentanyl poisoning, described outreach and education work through their foundation and backed stiffer trafficking penalties to remove high-level dealers from communities.

Witnesses and some lawmakers acknowledged there is limited causal evidence that longer prison sentences alone will reduce overall overdose deaths. Several witnesses framed the bill as part of a comprehensive approach — enforcement, prosecution, education, harm reduction and treatment — and Follin said task-force experience suggested combining accountability for traffickers with community-based services reduced local overdose deaths in his county.

Committee members asked technical and policy questions about weight thresholds, sentencing ranges and the effect of removing or changing mental-state (“knowledge”) requirements for fentanyl in mixtures. Prosecutors and law-enforcement witnesses said they supported removing knowledge requirements for trafficking charges but indicated they were open to discussions about how possession and low-level users should be treated so that treatment and diversion remain options for people with substance-use disorders.

The committee took testimony and did not vote during the hearing.