With the fentanyl crisis causing more than 100 deaths a week in California, lawmakers met on May 24 for the first-ever hearing of a newly created committee on overdose prevention, with some lawmakers and family members walking out in frustration during the proceedings.
“This hearing, 80 percent of the time, was saying we care more about the dealers than the victims,” committee member Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno) told The Epoch Times while the hearing was underway.
The joint meeting included the new Select Committee on Fentanyl, Opioid Addiction, and Overdose Prevention and two Assembly committees—public safety and health—with a Democratic supermajority leading the discussions.
Four panels were convened by committee Chair Assemblyman Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) covering prevention, education, treatment, and criminal justice.
Due to the alleged lack of balance in the discussions, Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) voiced complaints, and Republican lawmakers eventually chose to leave during the hearing.
“We’re not going to get solutions by walking out,” Haney told The Epoch Times at the conclusion of the meeting. “This isn’t a political or partisan issue. It’s a public health and safety issue.”
During opening remarks, Assemblyman Reginald Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles)—who chairs the Assembly Public Safety Committee—told legislators and attendees that it was time to come together and forge a solution. As in the previous fentanyl-related hearings earlier this year, Jones-Sawyer talked about not repeating the failed “war on drugs” while at the same time suggesting Nancy Reagan’s anti-drug slogan “Just say no” from the 1980s be amended to “Just say hell no to drugs.”
The hearing began with Keith Humphreys, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, telling the committees that fentanyl was first synthesized in 1959 and proved extremely efficient at crossing the blood-brain barrier.
“It’s very helpful in surgery [as an anesthetic],” he told lawmakers. “But it’s very dangerous in the streets.”
Humphreys argued that prohibition doesn’t work because it is so cheap and easy to make fentanyl, which costs approximately 1 percent of the cost to make heroin.
“It will outcompete heroin because the profit margin is so large,” he said. “It’s so profitable [dealers] can afford for [clients] to die.”
Laura Didier, mother of 17-year-old fentanyl poisoning victim Zach, moved the crowd with the story of losing her son, a straight-A student with no signs of drug use prior to his sudden death from a counterfeit Percocet purchased on Snapchat.
“There are no words to express the excruciating pain of losing someone so young and precious,” she told the committee. “I’m not the only mom who’s found their child dead in their bedroom. This story is becoming all too common.”
Didier countered Jones-Sawyer’s “just say hell no” with “just say know,” arguing that education and communication with children are vital to overcoming the crisis.
Reluctance to Enhance Punishment for Fentanyl Dealing
Enhancing punishment for fentanyl dealers is one key issue at the center of discussion as victims’ families and some lawmakers have criticized current criminal justice measures for being too lenient for drug dealers.Under existing state law, a dealer with 3,000 pills is to be charged with misdemeanors, according to Assembly members, because the weight does not exceed one kilogram—the threshold for felony charges.
Throughout the hearing, some Democratic lawmakers argued against lengthening prison sentences for fentanyl dealers, which their Republican colleagues said can deter the distribution of the deadly opioid.
“They think these mid-level dealers are just addicts that need to sell drugs to get by … but they are essentially the backbone of the cartels,” Jim Patterson told The Epoch Times. “It’s just an excuse for dealers to have a free shot at our kids.”
Some Republican lawmakers said increasing penalties is important because there will always be violators who are unwilling to mend their ways.
“[The lack of consideration of punitive measures] really bothers me. We have to hold people accountable,” Assemblyman Joe Patterson (R-Rocklin) told the panel. “I hope we can get to the point that treatment and education will not help for some. These are criminals, and they need to be punished.”
Some Democratic lawmakers echoed similar sentiments.
“We’re going to do everything in our power to keep kids in California safe,” Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Laguna Beach) said at the hearing. “We need to balance that with stronger penalties, enforcement, and consequences.”
After more than three hours of hearings with no progress made to increase punishment, Assemblyman Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) said the talks were too one-sided and demanded more be done to address the issue from a criminal justice standpoint.
Lackey was advised the following panel would focus on the issue, but he eventually walked out when a public defender provided a lengthy comment.
Other Republican lawmakers and some victims’ family members also left out of frustration.
“The law has created a perverse incentive,” Jim Patterson told The Epoch Times. “The state of California is in many ways perpetuating dealers to transition into dealing fentanyl.”
Family members could be seen distraught and in disbelief with the progression of the hearing, with one father of a fentanyl victim bothered by what he saw as a lack of urgency or concern from the new committee.
“Why did they bring the public defender?” Cyril Liwanag told The Epoch Times after leaving in the middle of the criminal justice discussion. “It offended me. Where is their moral compass?”
Liwanag’s son Adrian was a victim of fentanyl poisoning two years ago, and he came to the hearing hoping for better results.
“There’s only one end with fentanyl: it’s death, and the dealers know that,” he said. “This is premeditated murder.”
From here, future steps for the committee include plans to travel around to different communities and invite public discussion, with Los Angeles slated for the next stop, but no date has been provided, according to Haney, chair of the new overdose prevention committee.
