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DA association chief: Fentanyl ‘weapon of mass destruction’

Last month, State Rep. Matt Simpson (R-Daphne) announced that he’s pushing for legislation to strengthen penalties against fentanyl drug traffickers in Alabama.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, deaths from fentanyl overdoses are still rising exponentially. In the U.S., 56,516 overdose deaths were reported in 2020, a 56% increase over 2019.

Friday on Alabama Public Television’s “Capitol Journal,” Barry Matson, the executive director of the Alabama District Attorneys Association, discussed the need for stronger fentanyl trafficking laws.

“… fentanyl is a unique situation really,” Matson said. “I do believe it’s a weapon of mass destruction. Three grains of salt worth of fentanyl would kill you and I, instantly, here if you inhaled it, we would overdose, and if you had much more than that, you could kill a room full of people. You could kill a stadium full of people if you have enough, and it doesn’t take a lot.”

Matson explained why he supports Simpson’s bill that would make penalties against fentanyl dealers similar to those that exist for traffickers of other kinds of hard drugs.

“The goal is to get criminal enterprises off the street, to get the traffickers, the people that are profiting, that are moving large quantities, and disrupt that practice,” he said. “That’s what you want to do. And we have a trafficking statute for heroin, cocaine, and we have one for fentanyl that we passed a few years ago, but at the time, there were only a very few of us that saw the tsunami of fentanyl coming, so there was some resistance to have the standard jail time attached to fentanyl trafficking that is attached to every other trafficker of drugs, and so we have a trafficking statute, but no comparable jail time just like we have to cocaine or meth.”

Matson said the rising number of deaths from overdoses is a major problem that will only get worse unless legislative action is taken immediately.

“It is an acute problem right now,” he said. “It goes through every demographic, every community, and is being sold online, sold by dealers and traffickers on the street, and if we don’t get a handle on it we’re going to lose thousands and thousands of more people.”

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee

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