It would seem antithetical for someone to peddle a product they know will kill their customers, but illegal street drug dealers do it everyday.
When the government began to crack down on doctors handing out opioid prescriptions like Halloween candy, people already addicted turned to street fentanyl as an alternative; the result was that the opiate crisis simply morphed into a fentanyl crisis.
Most recently, in November of last year, a police raid uncovered four pounds of fentanyl in Grovetown. Guess what they also found? Ten pounds of marijuana.
Dealers are now selling marijuana laced with the deadly substance.
The current fentanyl crisis crosses all economic strata with even superstar musicians Prince and Tom Petty succumbing to forms of prescription fentanyl mixed with other prescribed pain killers. Junkies aren’t the only ones who fall victim to the chemical; so do patients who are legally prescribed the drug.
MORE: State House candidates speak to prospective voters at Columbia County GOP caucus
First, no one needs to be seeking out a drug that is, in certain doses, 30 times more potent than heroin. Doctors have gotten much better at managing pain without turning their patients into zombies.
For those who have to have that recreational high, CBD manufacturers have discovered ways to legally sell THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, which purportedly has the same physical effects of smoking a joint.
The only way to curb the fentanyl menace is to make the penalty for selling it illegally so stiff that dealers will shy away from peddling the poison.
Anyone caught with four pounds of the substance should face a mandatory life-sentence.
The public can do their part by electing no-nonsense district attorneys and judges who have the intestinal fortitude to get the traffickers off our streets.
