A billboard put up by Families Against Fentanyl displays their message on the 57 freeway near Orangethorpe Ave. in Placentia, CA on Thursday, April 6, 2023. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Frustrated by setbacks in the Democrat-dominated legislature, a group of Republican lawmakers and a coalition of parents want to take their effort to crack down on fentanyl dealers to a new authority: California voters.
On Tuesday, Republicans in Sacramento are announcing a pitch to amend the state constitution to put convicted black-market opioid dealers on notice that they could be charged with homicide if they sell opioids that kill one of their customers. The proposal, dubbed “Alexandra’s Law,” was shot down twice this year in the legislature.
Turning to the ballot box is a similar tactic to how Democrats asked voters to enshrine abortion as a right in the state constitution last year. But political experts say that the Republican proposal is all but doomed in the heavily Democratic Assembly, given that it would need to win support from two-thirds of lawmakers to get on the ballot.
“Look, most bills don’t get to two-thirds (support) … never mind a constitutional amendment — that is very difficult. If it’s not about mom and apple pie, it’s hard to get two-thirds,” said veteran Democratic Party strategist Bob Mulholland.
The idea was among a raft of legislative proposals this year to try and address the fentanyl crisis, which is behind one-in-five youth deaths statewide. Democratic lawmakers have supported bills that focus on drug treatment and the spread of life-saving, overdose-reversing drugs such as Narcan but opposed proposals to impose stricter penalties against dealers, which they say do little to discourage drug abuse and may make the problem worse by deterring drug users from seeking help.
Parents who have lost their own children to fentanyl poisoning generally support the proposal and say that more needs to be done to hold dealers accountable.
“Fentanyl is not killing just Republicans or just Democrats. It’s killing everybody,” said Matt Capelouto, who first started advocating for stricter penalties against convicted fentanyl dealers after his own 20-year-old daughter Alexandra — for which the law is named — died from fentanyl poisoning back in 2019. “I’m just trying to make some good come out of (my daughter’s death) and prevent this from happening to other families.”
With little chance for Republicans to push the proposal through the legislature, a new Orange County nonprofit is preparing its own campaign to get the issue before voters.
The group called FentanylSolution.org already has raised $500,000 to help fund a signature campaign to qualify a measure on the November 2024 election ballot, which would ask California voters if they support increasing penalties against fentanyl dealers. If the group can get 650,000 signatures to qualify their proposal, they could put the issue directly before voters without having to win over any Democratic lawmakers in the Capitol.
The exact language of the ballot proposition is currently being drafted.
“We’re not looking at attacking kids who are passing around pills at parties,” said Janice Celeste, the president and CEO of the new Orange County-based non-profit behind the campaign. “Basically, it would be (going after) known drug dealers … and those drug dealers that are stalking kids on Snapchat.”
Mulholland said that “if an initiative that’s going to crack down on fentanyl has big money behind it, absolutely it could pass.” But he said many California voters may be hesitant to support tough-on-crime policies given their ineffectiveness in previous decades.
Republican Assembly Member Joe Patterson, who is one of the three Republicans behind the constitutional amendment proposal in the state legislature, acknowledges that the proposal faces “an uphill fight” to passage. But he believes that the legislature needs to keep trying to do more, given that thousands of Californians die every year from fentanyl poisoning. The deadly opioid is often laced into painkillers and stimulants that are easy to buy online.
“In order to solve the fentanyl crisis in California, the legislature needs to act,” Patterson said. “Most of the people that I know in my community that have died from fentanyl have been young people.”
Experts say that going after big-time fentanyl dealers could help mitigate the risk of drug abuse if it’s done in a targeted way, but throwing the book at small-time offenders and fentanyl users could be counterproductive.
Meanwhile, parents such as Capelouto say they are sick of the political back-and-forth on how to address the fentanyl crisis. They just want something to be done now before more parents lose their loved ones.
“It’s politics at it’s worst in California, and it’s just disgusting, to be honest with you,” Capelouto said. “Nothing is worse than people dying … right now in California, while we let drug dealers operate with impunity.”
Originally published at Scooty Nickerson