NEW DORP — A synthetic drug that's 50 times more potent than heroin is killing people in New York City, officials said Tuesday.
Staten Island congressman Daniel Donovan and Florida Rep. Tom Rooney are teaming up to push new laws to tighten control of fentanyl and toughen penalties for its dealers.
"The national conversation on substance abuse has focused intensely on addiction as a mental health crisis for which treatment is preferable to prison, and that’s a good thing," Donovan said in a statement.
"But we can’t lose sight of the criminal justice system’s role in addressing the drug epidemic. Drug traffickers aren't just giving addicts enough of the proverbial rope to hang themselves — traffickers are intentionally lacing their products with synthetic opioids like fentanyl."
Overdoses linked to fentanyl increased by 80 percent nationwide from 2013 to 2014, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
Many times users don't even know they're taking the potent drug because dealers mix it with heroin or cocaine, according to the CDC.
The new bill would tack five years onto sentences of dealers who used fentanyl to cut other drugs and reduce the possession threshold to trigger a mandatory minimum sentence from 400 grams to 20.
"It’s important to distinguish between those struggling with addiction and the traffickers who enable them," Donovan said.
"The former group requires intensive treatment and years of hard work to stay clean. The latter group must answer for the deaths they’ve caused."
It will also make it illegal to mail pill presses — used by some dealers to make fake prescription drugs with fentanyl — to unauthorized users which the lawmakers hope will cause auction listings for the machines to be removed.
Fentanyl is a man-made opioid used to treat severe pain. It's typically prescribed to cancer patients, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The lethal dose of fentanyl is estimated to be only three milligrams, as opposed to the estimated 30 milligrams considered lethal for heroin, according to Stat News.
Last year, fentanyl accounted for 16 percent of all unintentional overdose deaths in New York City, up from just 3 percent in the past decade, according to the Department of Health. The Bronx had the highest rates of fentanyl deaths in the city, according to the DOH.
