New law takes aim at 'dirty' drugs - Northside Sun
When an individual dies of a drug overdose, it’s a tragic occurrence. It’s particularly sad when the victim is young.
In recent years, especially with the advent of drugs laced with fentanyl or other especially risky synthetic narcotics, there has been a trend to try to hold those who sell the fatal drugs accountable for the outcome.
In Mississippi this year, the Legislature passed Parker’s Law, the result of a years-long crusade of a Madison County mother, Cordie Rodenbaugh. She lost her son, Parker, to an accidental drug overdose in 2014 when he was a student at Mississippi State University. The law allows for a person who distributes a drug containing fentanyl that results in an overdose death to be charged with murder and, if convicted, sentenced from 20 years to life in prison.
We’ll see how it works out in Mississippi, but in nearby states where similar laws have been tried, they have proven to be largely ineffective. For one, jurors don’t tend to be that sympathetic with drug users. For another, it is difficult to prove intent: namely, that the distributors of the fatal drugs knew the drugs were laced with fentanyl and willfully endangered the user’s life. And for a third, if the victims are addicts, they may have several suppliers, which makes it difficult to trace the fatal drugs back to one source.
As a result, according to recent reporting by the Nashville Tennessean, fatal fentanyl cases in Louisiana and Tennessee, both of which since 2018 have had laws similar to Parker’s Law, are often bargained down to lesser offenses.
There is also the possibility that tougher laws could have the unintended consequence of producing more overdose deaths, not fewer. That’s because a person who is with someone overdosing might be reluctant to immediately call for help for fear of being prosecuted.
Mississippi’s law tries to address that fear by specifying a couple of exceptions. Drug users who share drugs resulting in an overdose or who seek medical help for someone who is overdosing cannot be charged with the victim’s death.
Those exceptions, which were recommended by mental health experts, may be enough to make the law work as intended.
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source:
https://www.northsidesun.com/editorials-opinion-top-stories/new-law-takes-aim-dirty-drugs-62748e43e549e
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