Abbott Says Dealing Fentanyl Should Be A Murder Crime In Texas
As Texas and the rest of the United States continue to see people overdosing and dying from fentanyl-laced drugs, Governor Greg Abbott is talking about what more the State of Texas can do to combat the rise in fentanyl.
On Thursday, Abbott discussed how steps need to be taken to punish someone more harshly for giving fentanyl to someone else. KXAN reported that the Governor wants to make it a crime of murder to poison someone with fentanyl. As KXAN reported, pills can be laced with fentanyl without the user even knowing.
Abbott said while people may overdose and die after repeatedly taking opioids, that’s not always the case with fentanyl.
“They’re taking a drug, a pill for the first time, and it’ll kill them,” Abbott said. “This is not a fentanyl overdose. This is poisoning by fentanyl, which we want to make a murder crime in the state of Texas.”
Pressed pills can be laced with fentanyl and people may not realize they’re ingesting the potentially deadly substance. That was the case for a family in Cedar Park as well as a Texas Longhorn linebacker last year.
There have been cases across the United States of younger people purchasing pain pills through social media postings and in some cases those had led to the deaths of users who did not know what was contained in the pill.
Governor Greg Abbott also blamed the crisis along the border with the increase in fentanyl and other drugs coming into the United States. His comments have been echoed by different sheriffs in the United States.