Hear this plea, legislators: Fentanyl crisis is killing California’s young people | Opinion

At this rate, fentanyl could become the ideological blind spot to California Democrats that gun control is to Republicans across the United States.

Both groups seem unable to set aside rigid partisan ideologies in order to save lives through common sense legislation.

While the GOP panders to the gun lobby, refusing to enact sensible gun control laws despite a never-ending cycle of mass shootings, Democrats in Sacramento refuse to consider legislation that would create stronger legal consequences for those trafficking in fentanyl.

The most recent data show that nearly 6,000 people died of fentanyl overdoses in California in 2021. But Democratic legislators committed to progressivism have stubbornly ignored calls for stiffer penalties, which they say could repeat the failed war on drugs of years past that filled prisons disproportionately with Black and brown people.

There is no doubt that tough-on-crime legislation of the past has unfairly impacted communities of color. But as the bodies of fentanyl victims pile up and as addiction worsens, what California doesn’t need is rigid ideology precluding lawmakers from doing their jobs and finding solutions to a public health crisis whose victims are getting younger.

• Zach Didier, a Rocklin 17-year-old, died in late 2020 after taking a counterfeit Percoset bought on Snapchat.
• Bella Vivo, 14, of Waterford near Modesto, died after taking what she thought was a Xanax at a sleepover in summer 2021.
• Jackson Smith, 22, of Fresno died after taking an oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl in 2016.

Black market fentanyl is killing about 115 Californians each week. The synthetic opioid — produced in China and often smuggled through California’s southern border — is relatively cheap and 100 times more potent than morphine. So dealers “cut” or mix fentanyl into other drugs — cocaine, heroin — to produce more euphoria, quickly hooking the user. When cutters get sloppy, too much fentanyl goes in a fake tablet. And someone dies.

It is past time to take action against this indiscriminate killer.

Armed with dozens of heartbreak stories, advocates have pleaded for help from leaders, and many have responded — including Democrats. This year alone, legislators in the Assembly introduced 20 bills addressing the fentanyl crisis, and California senators, 13.

Those with power to control legislation have framed the debate in terms of public health instead of public safety, and bill after bill dies in committee.

Unprecedented public pressure, however, has kept intact a precious few through Thursday’s landmark votes on appropriations. Still alive are Assembly Bills 33, 474 and 701, and Senate Bills 10, 19, 226 and 641. Most favor prevention, awareness and task forces; only AB 701 and SB 226 feature sentence enhancements.

Surviving fentanyl bills have no guarantee of success but none would have gotten this far without public pressure, particularly in poignant testimony offered by grieving families.

Grieving families turn up fentanyl pressure

“If I don’t do it, who’s going to?” said Christie Hoffmann of Modesto, whose 21-year-old son, Connor, died in 2021 after buying $10 of fentanyl on Snapchat. She has spent countless hours designing t-shirts for fentanyl awareness runs, recruiting business to participate in anti-drug campaigns, and testifying in town hall meetings.

“It’s helping me because I feel like I’m still mothering Connor,” she said. “I can’t just sit here. I want to shake people and say, `Open your eyes; educate yourselves and your kids.’”

As a sign that politicians respond to public pressure, Assembly leadership will stage a fentanyl hearing at 9 a.m. Wednesday before a rare joint session of three committees: Health, Public Safety and the Select Committee on Fentanyl and Opioid Addiction. No voting on specific bills is scheduled; such is expected after the summer recess.

By then, hundreds more could die.

Lawmakers must stop insisting that the fentanyl crisis is about public health and not public safety when it’s clearly both.

Last year, the US Drug Enforcement Administration seized enough illegal fentanyl to kill 400 million people — more than every person in the nation. Small wonder that the DEA is calling fentanyl the most deadly drug threat the US has ever encountered.

California should start treating it as such.

This story was originally published May 22, 2023 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Hear this plea, legislators: Fentanyl crisis is killing California’s young people | Opinion."