Elected Democrats in California’s State Senate have once again voted down a plan that would allow local and state prosecutors to more easily charge drug dealers with manslaughter or murder when Americans die as a result of the drugs they sold to them.
On Wednesday, Democrat State Senators rejected an amendment to include “Alexandra’s Law” in Assembly Bill 2195. The law, as Breitbart News chronicled, was named after 20-year-old Alexandra Capelouto, who was poisoned and killed by fentanyl when she was sold what she believed was a pharmaceutical drug for depression and insomnia.
Alexandra’s Law would notify convicted drug dealers that should they be convicted again in the state of California, they could be charged with manslaughter and murder if the drugs they sell have led to a person’s death.
Democrats in the State Senate blocked Alexandra’s Law from being included in the bill.
“These drug dealers are poisoning our children,” State Senator Melissa Melendez (R) said in a statement.
“We have people who are dying from fentanyl poisoning, never to see their families again,” Melendez said. “I have tried to get this passed three separate times with no success and I don’t know how much longer we have to wait until we actually do something about this.”
People opposed to the sale of illegal drugs on Snapchat participate in a rally outside the company’s headquarters to call for tighter restrictions on the popular social media app following fatal overdoses of the powerful opioid fentanyl in Santa Monica, California, June 13, 2022. (RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty Images)
People opposed to the sale of illegal drugs on Snapchat participate in a rally outside the company’s headquarters to call for tighter restrictions on the popular social media app following fatal overdoses of the powerful opioid fentanyl in Santa Monica, California, June 13, 2022. (RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty Images)
People opposed to the sale of illegal drugs on Snapchat participate in a rally outside the company’s headquarters to call for tighter restrictions on the popular social media app following fatal overdoses of the powerful opioid fentanyl in Santa Monica, California, June 13, 2022. (RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty Images)
Fentanyl poisoning is now the leading cause of death among Americans from 18 to 45-years-old, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.
For years, former President Trump has called for stricter sentences for drug dealers — including seeking the death penalty.
“If you look at countries all throughout the world, the only ones that don’t have a drug problem are those that institute the death penalty for drug dealers,” Trump said last month. “They’re the only ones; they don’t have any problem.”
As Breitbart News reported, the inflow of fentanyl into American communities has spiked in recent years. In Fiscal Year 2019, about 2,800 pounds of fentanyl was seized at the border. The following year, that figure capped out at 4,800 pounds of the drug seized. By Fiscal Year 2021, which represents most of President Joe Biden’s first year in office, fentanyl seizures skyrocketed to about 11,200 pounds.
In April, the CDC reported that more than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in the prior 12 months. Nearly two-thirds of those deaths were linked to fentanyl poisonings.
Drug Enforcement Administration official Anne Milgram has said that there was enough fentanyl trafficked into American communities in 2021, via the southern border, “to kill every American” citizen.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
