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Legislative effort to curtail trafficking fentanyl through social media stalls

April 28, 2023

Only a few fentanyl-related bills survived a special public safety hearing in the California Legislature on Thursday — and one from Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris that would strengthen penalties for trafficking fentanyl through social media was not among them.

The special Assembly Public Safety Committee hearing — put together late last week to hear six bills after most fentanyl-related legislation stalled in the statehouse this year — gave the OK to bills meant to enhance cooperation among state organizations investigating opioid traffickers and to create an addiction and overdose prevention task force.

But the Irvine Democrat’s bill was held up in the committee. It sought to make the sale of fentanyl on social media punishable by imprisonment in county jail for up to nine years.

Legislators on the committee opted to move it to an “interim study session” — meaning the bill will be further worked on but won’t be passed anytime soon.

Petrie-Norris said she is disappointed in the result.

“The fentanyl epidemic is an urgent public health crisis, and we must act with real urgency to stop these tragic deaths,” Petrie-Norris said. “Yes, we need a comprehensive approach that includes more money for drug treatment, rehabilitation and education. We also need stronger enforcement — online traffickers who are poisoning our kids must be held accountable.”

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Fate of fentanyl bills wavers in legislature

In 2021, fentanyl killed 5,722 people in California, many of whom thought they were taking prescription medications or other drugs.

Perla Mendoza from Seal Beach was one of several family members who recently traveled to Sacramento to implore legislators to end the hold on fentanyl legislation. Her son died in September 2020 after taking a pill he purchased through Snapchat that he believed to be pain medication. Instead, it had been laced with fentanyl, Mendoza said.

“Allowing them to continue business as usual, you’re setting up serial killers,” Mendoza recently said. “It’s so disheartening. (Dealers) know exactly what they can get away with. They are playing society.”

Public safety committees in the Assembly and Senate are known for becoming a “cemetery” for bills that either create new crimes, enhance existing crimes or result in more incarceration, said Chris Micheli, a veteran lobbyist in Sacramento.

Specifically, bills to increase penalties for possessing or selling fentanyl have hit a brick wall of liberal lawmakers who say sending more people to prison is not a deterrent but a return to failed strategies that in the past mostly penalized people of color.

“The focus should be on causation, prevention and treatment,” Sen. Steven Bradford, D-Gardena, said during a recent hearing. “We’ve seen this movie before. In the ’80s and ’90s, with mass incarceration … thousands of Black and Brown people doing life in prison for selling an ounce of cocaine where no one lost their lives.”

But Thursday’s outcome in the Assembly committee was immediately lambasted by Republicans and the California Police Chiefs Association.

The bills, Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher said, “were not criminalizing addiction” or “returning to the ‘war on drugs.’”

“Despite all the talk, the extremist legislators who opposed these bills guaranteed that innocent Californians will continue to die, victims of drug dealers profiting off poisoning our communities,” said Gallagher.

“We truly believe that this committee is out of touch with the public and not representative of the bipartisan group of legislators who have been trying for years to make a meaningful impact on the fentanyl epidemic,” said Chief Alex Gammelgard, president of California Police Chiefs.

Staff writer Tony Saavedra contributed to this report.

Orange County Register

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Legislative effort to curtail trafficking fentanyl through social media stalls

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