Editorial: Take action, support bill targeting fentanyl drug dealers

On Nov. 18, 2018 The Daily Courier kicked off our #StopFentanylNow campaign. The newspaper donated $10,000 to Yavapai Silent Witness specifically earmarked to help take fentanyl dealers and their drugs off Prescott area streets. If you know of a dealer selling fentanyl-laced drugs in our community, call Yavapai Silent Witness at 1-800-932-3232. You never have to give your name.

On Nov. 18, 2018 The Daily Courier kicked off our #StopFentanylNow campaign. The newspaper donated $10,000 to Yavapai Silent Witness specifically earmarked to help take fentanyl dealers and their drugs off Prescott area streets. If you know of a dealer selling fentanyl-laced drugs in our community, call Yavapai Silent Witness at 1-800-932-3232. You never have to give your name.

Gunner Bundrick, Jake Morales and Jared Friederick of Prescott Valley. Danny Mahan of Chandler. Aaron F. Chavez of Tucson.

These young people are among the 898 people who died from opioid overdose deaths in 2018 in Arizona. Specifically, more than 70% are victims of fentanyl. These range from fentanyl-laced pills made to look like prescription drugs (hydrocodone, Percocet, Xanax) to heroin and cocaine mixed with fentanyl.

Fentanyl is an extremely powerful, potentially deadly opioid. It can be lethal if too much is put into the mix.

It is because of these local deaths and the scourge of these drugs statewide that The Daily Courier launched its #StopFentanylNow series. That was 14 months ago as a community call to action.

The series brought more money to Silent Witness and highlighted the effects of these deadly drugs on families, schools and the community.

Still, the work is not done.

On Wednesday, Jan. 22, the legislation that The Daily Courier has spearheaded – calling for mandatory sentencing of dealers of street drugs, including opioids and fentanyl – will go before the Arizona House Judiciary Committee at 9 a.m.

It is the first step to bring to fruition our message that we must do something, and it must be now before another one of our children is killed.

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The deaths of 19-year-olds Gunner Bundrick, left, and Jake Morales have been ruled an accidental overdose of illicit drugs and fentanyl intoxication, according to a Yavapai County Medical Examiner report. Both men were 2017 graduates of Bradshaw Mountain High School, and heavily involved in athletics. (Courier file photos)

The series began after two young men, Bundrick and Morales, both 19, died after taking what they thought was Percocet.

We delivered on our promise to put dealers in this community on the front page. If they were caught selling disguised and deadly fentanyl-laced pills and other street drugs to our children, they made the front page of the Courier.

In the end, however, most drug dealers received sentences of probation. If they did get time behind bars, it was often from other charges for example such as for methamphetamine, which carries a mandatory sentence of time in prison.

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Joseph and Angela Friederick hold a photo of their son Jared, Wednesday, April 24 in Prescott Valley. He died from a fentanyl overdose in June 2018. (Les Stukenberg/Courier)

Let’s be real: These dealers are selling a land-mine killer drug, and they know it. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid more powerful than heroin and up to 100 times more potent then morphine. One pill taken unaware can overdose and kill.

And still they walk.

House Bill 2036 is our answer. It is sponsored by and thanks to Reps. Steve Pierce and Noel Campbell and Senate President Karen Fann. While the state struggles to fix its prison facilities and get low-level offenders into different programs, if anyone deserves to be held accountable and taken off the streets it is the people who sell drugs that they know could kill the young people they’re pushing them on.

This is our renewed call to action: Join us at the Capitol on Wednesday to support the legislation being presented before the House Judiciary Committee, so these teens will not have died even more needlessly by a system that needs reform.

Parents, grandparents, teachers, friends, relatives, coaches and business leaders, it’s time we take a stand together.

Let’s make it loud and clear to these dealers that they are not welcome here.

Our children are worth fighting for.

Editor’s Note - Those interested can either attend the committee hearing, which is in room 4 of the House, or visit azleg.gov and locate HB 2036; if you have an active account or want to create one, click on “request to speak” and weigh in with your comments.

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