New fentanyl law offers up mandatory minimum sentence

Gov. Greg Gianforte this month signed into law new penalties for convicted fentanyl dealers, an effort spearheaded by Rep. Courtenay Sprunger, R-Kalispell.

Gianforte signed House Bill 791, sponsored by Sprunger during this past legislative session, into law on May 18. The legislation imposes a mandatory minimum sentence of two years of jail time for anyone convicted of trafficking fentanyl in the state of Montana.

“This is happening here in Montana,” said state Attorney General Austin Knudsen. “This is not just a big city problem … We are finding huge, huge amounts of fentanyl in Montana everywhere.”

Montana has seen drastic increases in fentanyl seizures and overdoses in recent years.

Earlier this year, Knudsen’s office announced a nearly 11,000 percent increase in fentanyl seizures by anti-drug task forces in Montana since 2019, with three times the amount of fentanyl seized in 2022 as in 2021.

“We need to be tough on the people who are peddling fentanyl,” Gianforte told the Daily Inter Lake last week. “Tougher sentencing is gonna help us because drug dealers go to the place of least resistance. With tougher consequences for peddling fentanyl, they’ll go somewhere else.”

Prior to the passage of HB 791, the state had limited statutes to penalize those who trafficked dangerous drugs like fentanyl, Knudsen said. As a result, most fentanyl cases went to federal court or resulted in lesser sentences for the accused at the state level, he said.

“[With this law] we can whack a few of these dealers and we can send a message,” Knudsen said. “You’re no longer gonna get a suspended sentence and a slap on the wrist.”

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is involved in more deaths of Americans under 50 than any other cause of death, a list that includes cancer, suicide and heart disease, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Just two milligrams of fentanyl is considered a potentially lethal dose. That is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For a drug with that level of toxicity, the state absolutely needed more tools for punishment, Sprunger said. According to Knudsen, previous penalties in place proved poor deterrents.

“Practically speaking, if someone is in jail they can’t be selling fentanyl to Montana’s most vulnerable residents,” Sprunger said. “I think that that is a message we must send at this point: that we’re serious about fighting fentanyl in our state.”

The legislation applies to those who possess fentanyl in a combined amount greater than 100 pills or a combined weight greater than 10 grams in a form such as a powder, solid or liquid.

The Flathead Valley is no stranger to fentanyl trafficking. Last year, authorities arrested 30-year-old Mexican national Cuauhternoc Cervantes Samaniego with about 12,000 pills containing fentanyl in Kalispell, according to court documents. Samaniego pleaded guilty in federal court earlier this month to possession with intent to distribute fentanyl.

While praising the legislation from a prosecution standpoint, Knudsen did acknowledge the potential for prison overcrowding. Montana has one prison in Deer Lodge, which houses about 1,600 people on a 68-acre compound.

He encouraged the state to begin conversations about the construction of another prison.

“More people are coming to the state, crime is up, drugs are up, we can’t keep thinking a 100-year-old prison is enough,” Knudsen said.

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, applauded the state’s newly signed law, saying that it was the right thing to do. Tester, like his Republican counterpart Sen. Steve Daines, has previously spearheaded legislation in Congress aimed at stemming the flow of illicit drugs like fentanyl across U.S. borders.

“Literally, [fentanyl] is poison,” Tester said. “It kills people. It literally kills people and it doesn’t take much to do it.”