Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass a bill that establishes penalty for an individual caught aiding injury or death of another individual caused by illegal drug substances.

Highlights:

• Specifies that a person is guilty of causing death or injury by distributing a controlled substance when they willfully supply, distribute, or deliver a controlled substance to someone who then overdoses from consumption of that controlled substance and dies is injured by said overdose (Sec. 1). 

• Classifies causing death or injury by distributing a controlled substance as a class A felony (Sec. 1). 

• Prohibits somebody from being convicted in more than one county for the death or injury of the same individual who overdosed on a controlled substance (Sec. 1). 

• Authorizes someone from outside the state being prosecuted within the state for causing death or injury by distributing a controlled substance (Sec. 1). 

• Requires the charging document must list an overt act in which the individual engaged to violate this section (Sec. 1). 

• Authorizes proving death by overdose using circumstantial or direct evidence (Sec. 1). 

• Specifies that you can not charge someone with causing death or injury by distributing a controlled substance if the individual supplied or administered a controlled substance as part of a medical procedure (Sec. 1). 

• Specifies that the overdose victim having other controlled substances in their system that the defendant did not supply is not a defense (Sec. 1). 

• Requires that the the department of health and human services submit a written report of summarizing the number of deaths caused or related to fentanyl consumption to the legislative management and the governor by November 1st each year (Sec. 2). 

• Requires that this report contain information about the fentanyl related death, such as the county they occurred in, the age of the victim, and the gender of the victim (Sec. 2).  

• Requires that the department of health and human services make the data available to the public by doing the following (Sec. 2): 

• Making the information easily accessible on the department’s government website; 

• Publishing easily understandable printed material on fentanyl awareness, information, and awareness; 

• Placing visible billboards in high-traffic areas that make people aware of the dangers of fentanyl; and 

• Developing a media and social media campaign that increases awareness of the fentanyl drug deaths and the fentanyl overdose epidemic occurring within the state.

Full Bill Text