Lawmakers say loophole lets fentanyl traffickers off the hook

Lawmakers and prosecutors on Tuesday said Missouri’s drug trafficking laws do not address a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin.

Tuesday evening’s hearing of Rep. Nick Schroer’s bill to add fentanyl to Missouri’s drug trafficking ban comes less than two weeks after federal agents seized a record 254 pounds of fentanyl at the U.S.-Mexican border. Missouri’s drug trafficking law addresses cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine but makes no mention of fentanyl.

Platte County prosecutor Eric Zahnd, who serves on the board of the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, said under current state law, there is no way to prosecute someone for drug trafficking if they are caught with large amounts of fentanyl but no other controlled substances. He said fentanyl usually is not trafficked along with other substances, so Missouri’s trafficking laws can’t come into play until it is mixed with other drugs.

“What we need is to improve the laws for traffickers as it’s coming in, before it’s been mixed,” he said.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, killed 28,400 Americans in 2017, roughly 40 percent of fatal drug overdoses that year. Zahnd said the equivalent of four grains of table salt is enough to kill. Under Schroer’s bill, distributing or producing between 10 and 60 grams of fentanyl would be a class B felony, which carries a prison sentence of 5 to 15 years.

More than 60 grams would be a class A felony, which carries a prison sentence of 10 to 30 years or life. Possessing 10 to 60 grams would carry a 3 to 10-year prison sentence while possessing more than 60 grams would carry a 5-15-year sentence. Schroer said he doubted his bill would scare addicts into not getting help. He said fentanyl is usually prescribed in doses measured in micrograms or milligrams, so his bill would not affect medical use.

“The amounts that we’re including are never going to be something that a health practitioner is going to prescribe to somebody,” he said.

Nobody spoke against Schroer’s bill on Tuesday. A similar bill passed two House panels unanimously last year but never got a floor vote.