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Committee backs tougher fentanyl trafficking penalties; advocates urge treatment-first approach
Summary
Senate Bill 79 would create fentanyl-specific criminal penalties and higher mandatory minimums for trafficking by quantity; the committee adopted a sponsor amendment and advanced the bill after emotional testimony from victims’ families and law-enforcement officials.
Senate Bill 79, introduced as the Fentanyl Eradication and Removal Act, would create a fentanyl-specific schedule of offenses and impose higher mandatory minimum sentences and fines for trafficking by quantity. Senator Goodman, presenting the bill, emphasized the drug’s lethality and the large potential harm represented by small weights. "One kilogram of fentanyl has potential to kill a half a million people," he told the committee, citing DEA data.
Victim advocates and families gave emotional testimony. Beth Walters, whose son Austin died after taking a counterfeit pill, urged the legislature to impose tougher penalties on traffickers. "Fentanyl ... is a mass poisoning, a silent slaughter," she said, describing how dealers distribute counterfeit pills.
Prosecutors and law-enforcement witnesses supported separate, higher penalties for fentanyl and said current statutes do not explicitly name fentanyl or fentanyl analogs in trafficking sections. Cherokee and Cobb prosecutors said the bill corrects a statutory ambiguity and aligns sentencing with the drug’s exceptional lethality.
Defense and recovery advocates urged caution. Several speakers — including peer-recovery program directors and formerly incarcerated people now in recovery — argued the measure would sweep users into trafficking sentences when they had unknowingly ingested fentanyl. They asked for preserved discretion for judges and expanded treatment options. "People do not recover in prison," said one witness who described losing family members to overdose.
Committee members accepted a sponsor amendment that struck one subsection related to possession thresholds and then voted to report the bill to Rules. Representative Panich offered an amendment earlier in the hearing to remove section 1–2; the committee adopted that amendment. The committee chair said the substantive trafficking provisions were the heart of the bill and should remain for legislative consideration.
Outcome: Senate Bill 79 was reported favorably to the Rules Committee as amended; the committee adopted the Panich amendment to strike a specified subsection and advanced the trafficking penalties and quantities in the substitute.
