Legal Review: Amendments to Federal Guidelines Caused by Synthetic Drugs

By Connecticut Drug Crimes Attorney Mark Sherman.

Synthetic drugs have become so mainstream in the United States that the government has solicited input from the public as to how federal sentencing guidelines can be updated to handle the epidemic.

The United States Sentencing Commission, USCS, sought help from the public recently to determine how sentencing can become more uniform for drug charges that cover not only heroin and cocaine but also fentanyl and other synthetic drugs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released some very alarming statistics related to the opioid epidemic plaguing the country. There were some 63,000 deaths in 2016 related to drug overdoses. Of those, 20,000 deaths were attributed to overdoses caused by fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.

“Drug charges are serious and should be defending against vehemently,” Mark Sherman, a Greenwich criminal defense attorney with The Law Offices of Mark Sherman, LLC, said. “Depending on the severity of the charge you could be facing anywhere from a year in prison to decades.”

One person who spoke in front of the USCS was retired police officer Keith Graves. Graves was a supervisor for a special narcotics unit in California before calling it a career.

Graves had the following to say about how fentanyl dealers need to be dealt with in a report: “You can’t treat somebody who’s dealing fentanyl — the number one cause of drug overdoses in the U.S. — the same as you would someone who’s dealing heroin. That’s because one kilo of fentanyl is the equivalent to 50 kilos of heroin.”

Graves noted that fentanyl is being found in bath salts, marijuana, heroin and just about every other drug out there, including meth. He also said that emergency personnel need to treat the drug like you would a hazardous materials incident, wearing gloves and other protective equipment because of its strength.

The USCS officially submitted amendments for the federal sentencing guidelines to Congress on April 30. One of the amendments submitted by the USCS deals strictly with synthetic drugs, which have had a direct correlation with the explosion of overdoses and overdose deaths across the country.

Should Congress pass these amendments to the guidelines for sentencing they will take effect on November 1, 2018.