Keeping Idaho Safe
Main Street Town Hall Episode 5—Rep. Dan Garner & Rep. Chenele Dixon
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Rep. Dan Garner Op-Ed re: Fentanyl
No corner of our great nation remains untouched by the devastating consequences of the fentanyl crisis. Even in Idaho, we see the firsthand results of a drug trade that starts across the border in Mexico with chemicals sourced from China. The finished product then spreads across the country, contributing to tens of thousands of deaths each year.
In response to this epidemic, Gov. Brad Little established Operation Esto Perpetua, a targeted law enforcement effort to combat the flow of fentanyl into our state. Now, the legislature needs to do its part. This session, I’ve joined with many fellow legislators to increase the penalties for fentanyl trafficking in Idaho by setting mandatory minimums for certain offenses.
Under the proposed legislation, possession and conviction of knowingly possessing 14 to less than 28 grams of fentanyl or 250 pills or less than 500 pills comes with a mandatory minimum of five years in prison for drug trafficking and a $15,000 fine. For possession and conviction of greater quantities, the mandatory sentence increases to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.
The courts will have the option to impose life in prison and a $100,000 fine as the maximum sentence for trafficking fentanyl. The bill also provides an avenue for prosecutors to pursue a charge of drug-induced homicide if they can demonstrate that an individual died from drug ingestion. The drug supplier would then face a potential felony conviction and life in prison.
Trafficking fentanyl must come with severe consequences. In 2022, 270 Idahoans overdosed on opioid-related drugs. Almost half of those deaths were tied to fentanyl. The science tells us why. Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Even the smallest of amounts carries the risk of death.
For years, Idaho’s mandatory minimums for drug trafficking have made the state a risky place for dealers. Recordings from jailhouse conversations and cellphone messages confirm that drug traffickers try to avoid Idaho because of the potential for serious jail time if caught. We need to maintain that standard when it comes to fentanyl.
Simple possession doesn’t equal trafficking. If someone chooses to come to this state with massive quantities of fentanyl, we can’t give them an easy out when caught. In this case, the standard requires a minimum of 14 grams or 250 pills. These are quantities that only make sense for someone engaged in the dirty business of drug dealing.
Our justice system assumes that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Mandatory minimums for fentanyl trafficking will only come into play if the prosecution proves beyond a doubt that an individual committed the crime. We owe it to our friends, neighbors, and the future health and safety of our state to make sure fentanyl doesn’t find a safe haven in Idaho.
I encourage you to reach out to your representatives and senators. Ask them to support the fentanyl trafficking bill in the Idaho House and Senate. Your actions will help ensure law enforcement and our prosecutors gain one more tool to help fight back against the thoughtless and dangerous actions of those traffickers who bring fentanyl into our state.
- Rep. Dan Garner, District 28 (Bannock, Franklin, and Power counties)
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Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (00:00):
Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome to the Main Street Podcast. We are here with representative Chanel Dixon out of district 24 and representative Dan Gardner at a district 28. Representative Dixon, thanks for joining us today.
Representative Chenele Dixon, District 24 Idaho (00:24):
Yeah, thanks for having me,
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (00:26):
Representative Gardner, appreciate you being on the podcast.
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (00:29):
Thank you. It's always nice to be included.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (00:32):
Yeah, I was going to say this morning, you don't have the whole world in your hands. You have the whole world behind your back. So for those listening without any visuals, they've got a beautiful map of the world right behind them. And if we need to know where anything's at, representative Gardner's going to get up and play weatherman and point to the right area at the right time. Now then Representative Dixon, when you were on the podcast later in the summer in August I think is when you were on around that time, we talked about a number of issues and one of the things was the fentanyl crisis and the drug issues we're having in this state. So you've teamed up with Representative Gardner and we're working with a number of your colleagues on legislation to address that. Why don't you give us a brief overview of what House Bill 4 0 6 does and how that's working on some of the issues that your community's worried about?
Representative Chenele Dixon, District 24 Idaho (01:20):
Okay, so it is regarding fentanyl, which is, excuse me, one of the most dangerous drugs that's out there right now on our streets. And it sets fentanyl to our mandatory minimums that we currently have for marijuana, cocaine, meth, and heroin. We don't have fentanyl in there. And so this adds fentanyl and if someone was convicted of trafficking fentanyl, they would receive a mandatory minimum sentence and the weight would be two milligrams is a lethal dose. And so four grams is 2000 lethal doses. And so it would do that. And then the second part of the bill is a drug induced homicide. And so if someone received drugs and they died from it, the person that had provided those could be convicted of drug induced homicide and they would receive up to life in prison. And I think it's a maximum of $25,000 fine for that. So it's kind of a two-pronged approach to help keep Fentanyl off our streets.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (02:44):
Is that second part of the bill, is that also specific to fentanyl that if there was an overdose, is it fentanyl related or is it any drugs in general that would receive that?
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (02:52):
It's specific to fentanyl, and I should clarify that that's not if someone gives, like if I was to give Representative Dixon an appeal, that's not me. I mean it is, but if I'm willing to turn over and say who I got the pills from, it would be then that person. So it goes up the chain. It's to the supplier. Yeah. This bill is designed to go after the traffickers and suppliers of this deadly drug.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (03:26):
That makes a lot of sense. Representative Garner of your time is spread thin in the little bit of time that you have in the Capitol for all of you legislators, of all the priorities that you have to deal with, why this one and why now?
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (03:41):
I was at a Meet the Candidate forum in Bannock County and I'm a strong education supporter and I was explaining my policy on education and what I wanted to do with education. And then after the meeting, I had a young mother come up to me and say that if I did get elected, I needed to do something on fentanyl. She'd lost her child, her son, to fentanyl. And I talked with her probably for 30 minutes and heard her story of how dangerous this drug is. And I decided that if I did get elected, that was after the help in education, that was the next thing I was going to address
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (04:25):
A politician trying to keep a campaign promise. The press
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (04:29):
Far is new, but
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (04:32):
Representative Dixon, I know you've heard similar stories from victim's parents. What is it that you've learned as you've talked to those that have experienced the worst of this crisis and how has that shaped this legislation?
Representative Chenele Dixon, District 24 Idaho (04:47):
Well, I think one of the things is when we spoke last time, and I had mentioned fentanyl, mandatory minimums. I knew it was a crisis during the summer in Twin Falls County. So in my district there was a drug bus. There were two drug busts within a month's time where they confiscated 15 pounds of fentanyl. And that's enough to kill everyone in Idaho, Montana, and most of Wyoming. And it has just progressed. I mean there was last month in December 5,300 pills seized in Idaho Falls. It's just growing. And when I had first started learning about this and talking about it, thinking about it, I talked to prosecutors and I talked to a lot of people, but one of the things that happened since I last talked to you, I had a friend who lost his daughter to a fentanyl overdose. And it does become a lot more personal when you hear those stories.
(05:57):
And it's tragic. I don't think most of the time when people die from a fentanyl overdose, they don't even know they're taking fentanyl because so many of the other drugs are being laced with fentanyl. And so a lot of times they may think they're taking, not that cocaine is healthy or anything, but they might be taking cocaine, but it's laced with fentanyl and that's actually what causes them to die. It really became a lot more personal when you have those connections. And I don't want it to get to the point where everybody has some connection to somebody that has died from fentanyl. We need to stop it now. And I think our mandatory minimums, if we can get fentanyl added to those, it will be a deterrent. We know it's been a deterrent in those other drugs to drug traffickers. They don't want to come into Idaho. The law enforcement has recordings of voicemails and texts of drug traffickers saying, we don't want to come to Idaho, but they know there's nothing for fentanyl here. But if we can get that added, it will be a deterrent. And I think in the end, the results of that is that we save lives of our children and our community members. So
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (07:27):
Yeah, this drug is very, very potent. It's 50 times stronger than heroin and a hundred times stronger than morphine. And the public needs to realize that these pills that the DEA seizing, they're telling us and reporting to us that six out of 10 of those fentanyl pills contain a dead lethal dose.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (07:49):
Your bill focuses on traffickers because so many of the users are not necessarily willingly and knowingly taking fentanyl. Help us understand why is it that other drugs are laced with fentanyl unknowingly to the user.
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (08:05):
It's cheaper for 'em to produce fentanyl than it is these other drugs. And by lacing these other drugs with fentanyl, they get a stronger high or what they perceive as a better high, not healthier for sure. And so that's why we're getting all this fentanyl from China coming in through Mexico.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (08:29):
Yeah, man, it's awful. So interesting. So you're saying number one, you can get people hooked and number two, it's cheaper to produce any idea how they're producing fentanyl?
Representative Chenele Dixon, District 24 Idaho (08:40):
Well, we know, I mean I'm not an expert in producing fentanyl, but it's coming over from China and they are, I think they produce part of it, right? And then it comes and it gets largely outside of the us, much of it in Mexico. And it can come in all different forms once it's produced. It can be powder, it can be pills, and then they mix it with whatever other drugs or whatever else they're mixing it with. So when we see it, when the law enforcement sees it in a car or whatever, they're having their drug bust. It can be powder, it can be pills, but it's a pretty, I don't know, it's pretty amazing how infiltrated our country is right now with fentanyl. So during the hearing that we had in our committee meeting, some DEA drug enforcement agency stats were shared with us.
(09:53):
And in 2023, what was actually seized around the country, well, it was across the border, so it doesn't only come from our southern border, we're also seeing it from the Canadian border coming into our country. But there were 76,500,000 pills of fentanyl that were seized and 19,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. And that is enough to kill 384 million people. So everyone in the United States, and they said that they think that probably four times that amount has actually gotten through because clearly they're not stopping everything that's coming through. So it's a serious crisis and we're seeing a lot of that in Idaho and we are kind of a thoroughfare to get to other states, and so we don't want any of it in our country, but we most certainly don't want to be the pass through or have any stops here in Idaho.
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (11:03):
The other thing that I found interesting about this DEA report was that they're now starting to ship the ingredients to make the fentanyl into the US and they've actually seized a couple pill presses this side of the border. So it is a growing problem and we need to definitely support the blue on this issue and give them the tools they need to stop this fentanyl trafficking.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (11:30):
Let's talk about that. I've spoken to law enforcement local in eastern Idaho about fentanyl, and that is clearly the number one issue that they're dealing with. And the sheriff had said that he is a strong advocate of anything that will get this stuff off the streets, but that may be different. When you talk to law enforcement as a whole, as you speak to the law enforcement community, are they supportive of the legislation?
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (11:55):
They are very supportive. All the law enforcement agencies that I've talked to are strongly in favor of this, and they ask us to pass it and give them this tool in their toolbox to help stop the deaths that are happening in Idaho.
Representative Chenele Dixon, District 24 Idaho (12:13):
Yeah, when I've talked to prosecutors and policemen, everybody that I've spoken to is very supportive of it.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (12:21):
So we have candidates that run and in their elections, most of them in Idaho particularly Republicans proudly announced that they back the blue and that they support law and order and tough on crime. So why is it that legislation like this hasn't been able to get across the finish line in the past, and who are the roadblocks to keep this from getting across the finish line? This session? Representative Garner, why don't we start with you?
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (12:47):
I appreciate that. I think that's what was so frustrating last year was they weren't, well, I think they understood, but all we're trying to do is move the drug fentanyl into the mandatory minimums already that are there, the drugs that are covered by that, and it's a lot worse drug than these other ones. I think they used it as an opportunity to attack the idea of mandatory minimums. That's what slowed it down last year. And it's frustrating to me because how many Idaho lies have been lost in this year that it's taken to get it back before the legislature?
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (13:31):
Thoughts, representative Dixon?
Representative Chenele Dixon, District 24 Idaho (13:33):
Well, I think a lot of what we heard about the mandatory minimums last session came from testimonies from people who were out of state. And that was really interesting too, because when you have attorneys coming from other states to tell us what we should be doing in Idaho, it's, I don't know, a little disturbing. I guess this year we didn't see that the people who testified were from Idaho, but one of the things that we did see, we had some parents that shared their testimonies of losing their children to fentanyl. And it's tragic. I mean it's just so terrible to see the grief that families have. But interestingly, some of them were there to oppose the mandatory minimum sentence, which I had a hard time understanding because I feel like if we can keep fentanyl off the streets, then their children might still be here.
(14:42):
If we had been able to have fentanyl added already to our mandatory minimums, it might've saved their children. And so I think that's one of the things that people need to understand is that it's not going to throw your drug user into prison. It's aimed at the traffickers who are selling these drugs and bringing them into Idaho. And the mandatory minimums will decrease the trafficking in Idaho and decrease the amount of drugs in Idaho, and it will decrease the impact for drug users in Idaho. And it's just one prong, it's one leg of a stool that we have to try to help decrease drug use when we can decrease the amount of drugs coming in here. That's one prong. And then we have a lot of good programs in place throughout Idaho to help drug addicts. So we need all of those approaches to be successful to fight drugs here.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (15:53):
And the argument against mandatory minimums kind of universally is that you catch up people, people get caught up in the mandatory minimum that we're struggling, that we're having a bad day and turn 'em into hardened criminals and you ruined their lives. But again, I think it bears repeating the people that will be caught up in the mandatory minimums under this house bill are the traffickers are not the people who fell on hard times and couldn't break an addiction. These are people who've made a livelihood out of destroying other people's lives as other states around us go the opposite way in drug laws and decriminalization. Why is it so important that Idaho fights against the current in this world Representative Garner?
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (16:40):
I think history will show that the opposite way doesn't work. We've got, like Chanel Dixon mentioned, they've got recordings of traffickers saying, I don't want to go through Idaho to their higher ups because of the mandatory minimums. I believe the mandatory minimums work, like you said, we're not going after the user. There's a 250 or a hundred pills. Think about the bottle of aspirin or Tylenol you buy at Walmart, how big that is. That's not for personal use, that's for trafficking or selling to others and destroying other people's lives. And these are the people we're going after. And if it stops one trafficker, then the drug cartel has to get another trafficker and sooner or later you're going to slow the chain and slow the flow. And I might add that only 2.9% of the incarcerations in the jails are for trafficking. And so the argument that we're going to fill up the jails or the prisons and clog the system is just not true.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (17:51):
Interesting. Now, I think it must be mentioned something that you don't have a lot of power over, but is a big problem in this that was briefly mentioned is the crisis at our southern border is not helping. It's fueling the issue. Representative dicks, why don't you speak a little bit to maybe this failed administration's attempts at border security and how that's only made your guys' lives more difficult as you fight this fentanyl crisis?
Representative Chenele Dixon, District 24 Idaho (18:16):
Oh, for sure. I mean, we need to close our border. We need to have legal immigration and a process and to just have our borders be open the way they are with this current administration is a disaster. And for the drugs coming in when they say that they think four times as much drugs have come in as what they've seized and they've seized 76 million fentanyl pills this year in 2023, that's a huge problem. And like you said, that's a federal issue and we are asking our federal government to do something about this because it's just unsustainable to have this amount of drugs coming in through our southern border. And I don't know, hopefully we can encourage and continue to encourage our federal government to do something because it's really becoming a scourge on the United States.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (19:30):
Absolutely.
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (19:31):
I might add that these mandatory minimums on drug trafficking is the only tool, well, it's not the only tool, it's our way of addressing the southern border crisis and trying to tighten down Idaho's borders. And if they have to drive around Idaho, I'm very much happy with that result.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (19:55):
That's fair. Now what we need from you too is some insider baseball representative Dixon, you mentioned that the bill has been heard in your committee. Walk us through what the outlook and the path to passing this bill actually looks like.
Representative Chenele Dixon, District 24 Idaho (20:09):
Well, on Tuesday in our Judiciary and Rules committee, we'll meet again and we'll discuss as a committee all of the testimony that we heard and then we'll take a vote and if it passes out of committee, then it'll be heard on the floor of the house and we'll take a vote with all 70 members of the house. And then of course it'll go over to the Senate and kind of go through a similar process. And assuming that it passes, it will go onto the governor to be signed. And I mean, I am really hopeful that we can get it to the this time, last time we were not successful, but I'm very hopeful that we'll be able to get it to the floor this time.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (20:55):
Yeah, representative Garner, what's standing in the way? I mean, we've talked to Senator Cook about his cell phone bill and it seemed like such a no-brainer as we listen to it, but there are special interest groups with out-of-State money that are doing everything they can to rank it as the worst thing in Idaho. And this bill, oddly enough, has kind of a similar path of resistance where there are groups that are saying anything but this even though your attempt is to rid Idaho of fentanyl and protect our kids from overdose. If I'm a parent and I'm listening to the podcast right now and I'm thinking I want to do I have to do something about this representative, walk us through what we can do.
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (21:38):
Well, representative Dixon mentioned there's a lot of out-of-state money being spent on this fighting it. And what I would encourage the public to do is to reach out to your state legislators, your senators, and your representatives and shoot 'em an email or call 'em and urge 'em to vote for House bill 4 0 6. Share your personal stories, let 'em know how it's touched your lives and let 'em know that you don't want it to touch your neighbor's lives.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (22:12):
Fantastic. We're wrapping up right now. Our time is dry nine, and I think it's important to note that it is bright and early when we're recording this. And this is not an eight to five job for you two. We started early, early this morning and you two are going to run off to a long day of meetings, no naps for you two today, but before we call it good for the day, fentanyl, addressing this fentanyl crisis is a priority for the two of you, but you're working on a number of issues. So Representative Garner, why don't we start with you and why don't you give us a few issues that you're working on off the top of your head that our listeners can look forward to seeing?
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (22:49):
Well, I serve on the education committee and Agricultural Committee. I'm bringing a bill forward in the agricultural committee to clean up the statutes for soil conservation districts. There was some, it was very vague and we're just kind of solidifying a few things in that statute. And then of course, education's always a hot committee, and I'm sure you'll see my opinion on educational tax credits and different things like that as we move forward.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (23:19):
I'm going to go ahead and guess it's probably not in favor.
Representative Dan Garner, District 28 Idaho (23:23):
That is a good guess.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (23:26):
Representative Dixon, what are some things you're working on?
Representative Chenele Dixon, District 24 Idaho (23:29):
Well, one of the things is to add Idaho to the counseling compact. So there are about 30 states around the United States that have organized a compact for counselors. And so what that really does is allow people who live in a compact state to also practice, get a privilege to practice in another state that's part of the compact. And it's really also helpful for our military families because if they have a spouse that's a counselor and they come from a compact state to another one, they can easily start practicing. And so it will help access to counselors within Idaho. I think it's a good strong bill. So hopefully we can get it through to the end. And then another one that's kind of fun is a ski patrol bill. So I'm working on a bill that would bring volunteer ski patrollers under our Good Samaritan laws because we discovered that when they're the volunteer ski patrollers, they're not covered by mountain insurance to do what they are there to do and they have extensive training and getting people down the mountain, but we just need to get them some protection from liability as well. So that's what that bill will do. Then we'll probably hear that next week in JU Rules.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (24:54):
You just woke up our studio tech here who's a diehard skier. He just jumped, you're speaking his language. So he said, I hope those who are listening can tell how much you two are really trying to tackle the issues that your constituents are bringing to you. I think it's obvious that you're listening and if anyone out there has opinions, I'm sure you two are more than welcome to hear them, to fill them, and then to work on those issues. So as we close today, I hope you two know how much we appreciate you coming on the podcast and we'd invite you back on as the legislative storm starts roaring even louder here in the coming weeks.
Representative Chenele Dixon, District 24 Idaho (25:30):
Great. Thank you. Well, thank you Brandon. Yeah, thanks for having us. Appreciate that.
Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Director (25:33):
Okay, you too. Have a wonderful day and be safe. We'll see you.
