Legislation to increase penalties for trafficking or making fentanyl could go before the Missouri House in Jefferson City on Monday afternoon for a final vote. The House gavels-in today at 4 p.m.

State Rep. Nick Schroer speaks about fentanyl legislation on the Missouri House floor on February 20, 2019 (photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)

The House gave initial approval Wednesday to bipartisan legislation from State Rep. Nick Schroer, R-O’Fallon.

“This is an issue that impacts everybody in the state and basically every state of the nation,” Schroer says.

Fentanyl is not currently included in Missouri’s drug trafficking statutes. NBC News notes fentanyl is the synthetic opioid blamed for the majority of overdose deaths.

Schroer’s bill, which is House Bill 239, makes trafficking or producing at least 20 milligrams of fentanyl a class A felony. If it involves more than ten milligrams, it would be a class B felony.

The Missouri Police Chiefs Association and the Missouri State Troopers Association are backing the legislation. Both groups testified earlier this month for the bill, during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. The committee approved the bill on a bipartisan 16-0 vote.

Schroer tells Missourinet nurses have been in his Capitol office, to support the bill.

“There were some that had spent time in emergency departments or emergency rooms, and they said that this has been an issue across the state in every single city, every single county,” says Schroer.

A representative for Missouri anesthesiologists testified for Schroer’s bill during the Judiciary Committee hearing, telling lawmakers that people with “needles in their arms” are being dumped off at hospital emergency rooms.

Schroer’s bill includes a Democratic amendment toughening penalties on date rape drugs. Schroer praises State Reps. Robert Sauls, D-Independence, and Gina Mitten, D-St. Louis, for strengthening the bill.

“They thought that the prosecutors’ language didn’t go far enough so we actually strengthened that on the (House) floor, but I believe that we are going to see a very, very high vote count,” Schroer says.

Representative Mitten is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and Sauls also serves on the committee.

Schroer also tells Missourinet that State Sen. Bob Onder, R-Lake St. Louis, will handle the Senate version. Dr. Onder chairs the Senate Health and Pensions Committee.

Schroer notes federal agents made the largest seizure of fentanyl in U.S. history in late January in Arizona. NBC News reports it was 254 pounds.

 

Click here to listen to the full interview between Missourinet’s Brian Hauswirth and State Rep. Nick Schroer, R-O’Fallon, which was recorded on February 21, 2019 at the Statehouse in Jefferson City:

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