This article is reprinted with permission of the Orange County Register.
It is hard to count all the worries parents face today. There are the standard worries every generation brings — dating, driving, grades, etc. But there is a new threat.
Its name is fentanyl, and it is showing up everywhere. You find it in cocaine, methamphetamines, Molly and counterfeit pills made to look like OxyContin, Percocet, Adderall and Xanax. Fentanyl is potent stuff. It is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, 100 times stronger than morphine.
Its prevalence has increased dramatically over the last few years. A DEA laboratory found nearly 60% of fake prescription pills contain a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl. It should be noted a lethal dose is the size of a few grains of salt. Much of the illegal fentanyl is being manufactured and smuggled by the Mexican drug cartels, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel. They use a variety of methods to traffic it across our borders.
Drug dealers have found fentanyl to be quite lucrative, far more than other illicit drugs. After all, it is cheap to produce. According to the Justice Department, the cost to cartels to make one kilogram of fentanyl is $32,000. They will make $20 million when it is sold. It is manufactured in primitive “laboratories” like apartment bathtubs and old oil drums, and the formula is less than precise. Fentanyl does not evenly distribute when mixed. Out of five pills produced, four might have no fentanyl at all, but the fifth holds more than a lethal dose. It is as addictive as it is deadly.
Two days before Christmas in 2019, Matt Capelouto lost his daughter, Alexandra, to a drug poisoning. She had unknowingly consumed five times the fatal amount of fentanyl. The drug dealer, who illegally sold Alex what she thought to be oxycodone, of course knew it was illegal to sell the pills and more importantly, he knew they contained fentanyl.
Out of that tragedy Senate Bill 350 was created by a community of parents who lost an integral part of their family: a child. It was thoughtfully crafted to provide a second chance, while still establishing accountability. The law would have required an admonishment to be read in court and made part of the official record, similar to a DUI case. It would have allowed a suspect convicted more than once of selling fentanyl to be tried for murder.
To convict a suspect of second degree murder, the prosecution must show evidence the suspect exhibited implied malice.
In 1981, the California Supreme Court spoke approvingly of implied malice murder within the context of driving under the influence, an act “dangerous to human life,” in People v. Watson. Following this case, the Legislature enacted Vehicle Code 23593 to require the court to advise a person convicted of DUI that: “being under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or both, impairs your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle. Therefore, it is extremely dangerous to human life to drive while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or both. If you continue to drive while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or both, and, as a result of that driving, someone is killed, you can be charged with murder.”
Melissa Melendez is the former state senator of the 28th District, which encompassed large portions of Riverside County. She is now the president of the Golden State Policy Council, a conservative think tank offering free-market solutions.