Idaho has a fentanyl crisis on its hands. According to Get Healthy Idaho, in 2021, Idaho Health District 6 (which includes Bannock County) had the highest overdose rate per capita in Idaho at 26 overdose deaths/100,000 residents. This was a substantial increase from 2020, which had 16 overdose deaths/100,000 residents. This sudden increase has been attributed to fentanyl. In 2022, this number decreased to 19 deaths/100,000 residents, making our district more comparable to others in the state. Many attribute this decrease in overdose deaths to increased access to naloxone and a $2 million grant from the CDC.

The proliferation of this highly addictive drug throughout our community is taking a toll on families of all socioeconomic statuses. While finding solutions to this epidemic is elusive, the key is education, prevention and response strategies (including naloxone), and treatment. We can prevent drug overdoses, and people with substance use disorders can recover.

We need data. Making policy decisions with accurate information will save time and resources. It can also lead the well-intentioned to believe they are solving the fentanyl crisis when they aren’t.

House Bill 406 represents one such misguided attempt to solve the crisis. It proposes a mandatory minimum prison sentence for individuals who possess certain amounts of fentanyl at the time they are arrested. The amounts punished in the bill start at four grams, which requires judges to sentence the individual to at least three years in prison. As the drug amounts in the bill increase, so do the mandatory minimum sentences with a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Keep in mind, there is no requirement in the bill for prosecutors to prove the person arrested was trafficking fentanyl; only that the person possessed a certain amount of the drug. Prosecutors don’t have to show evidence of scales, books tracking transactions, audio or video recordings of drug sales, or any other indication of drug trafficking. Therefore, HB 406 will just as likely imprison drug users as it will drug kingpins. Taxpayers will pay a premium to house those drug addicts in overcrowded prisons, which is money that could more effectively be used to provide education, prevention and response strategies, and treatment.

You would think the bill is based on studies and other data showing that mandatory minimum drug sentences decrease drug trafficking in a state. You would be wrong. The studies that do exist show that mandatory minimum drug sentences are ineffective. Most states are rolling back their mandatory minimum sentencing laws for more effective policy approaches.

Measuring the weight of fentanyl is complicated. Fentanyl is often mixed with other drugs or substances. Those traces of the drug cannot be extracted by drug labs, which means law enforcement can’t truly measure grams of fentanyl. Instead, law enforcement and prosecutors simply weigh the drug or substance into which it was mixed.

Ultimately, this bill removes a judge’s ability to make informed, just decisions about sentencing. With mandatory minimums, judges have no discretion to formulate more appropriate sentences. Idaho already has some of the harshest sentences for drug crimes. Currently, judges are sending traffickers to prison for lengthy sentences while providing more appropriate sentences for drug users.

Mandatory minimum sentences are not the answer. Instead, supporting education/treatment programs, encouraging the use of naloxone, and giving the judicial systems the autonomy they need to address these complex issues is the best solution we have to this problem. I believe that efforts that help law enforcement, addicts, and victims of fentanyl are the way to continue to decrease overdose deaths and illicit drug use.

This column was written by state Sen. James Ruchti, D-Pocatello.