, R-Fort Worth, advanced on Thursday just a few hours after a small group of chanting protesters crowded the entry to the House gallery overlooking the lawmakers at their desks and yelled “No more drug war!” at lawmakers. The demonstrators were blocked at the gallery door by a handful of state troopers, and the tension ended after about five minutes.
HB 6 would increase the penalties related to the sale and production of fentanyl by classifying overdoses from the drug as “poisonings,” triggering murder charges for those convicted of giving someone a fatal dose of fentanyl. “If you have not had a family member die from fentanyl overdose, if you don’t know anyone who has died from fentanyl overdose, consider yourself lucky. Because you’re in the minority,” Goldman said during the debate. “On behalf of all our family members who have died innocently by taking medication laced with fentanyl, we’re here today to tell the people who deal that drug … we’re coming after you.
The House legislation passed 121-24, with 36 Democrats joining their GOP colleagues in voting for it. Proponents say the measure would help address a growing crisis in the state by holding dealers accountable and giving prosecutors more tools to charge those who manufacture and distribute the drug. But opponents, who said the policy would prolong a 50-year, trillion-dollar war on drugs, argue that it would not fix the problem and would discourage people from seeking help for someone suffering from an overdose. Drug policy experts say the move to charge people who sell or make fentanyl with murder has backfired in other states, leading to
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