Policy Life-saving fentanyl test strips still illegal in some states under '70s-era war on drugs law

[RUC4]

Life-saving fentanyl test strips still illegal in some states under '70s-era war on drugs law


Associated Press
By: Samantha Hendrickson
8 June 2023

Excerpts:

Owner Waverly Willis has given out strips for years at his barbershop, hoping to protect others from unwittingly being exposed to the highly potent synthetic opioid ravaging the U.S. and often secretly laced into other illegal drugs. "When I put them out, they just fly out the door," said Willis, who proudly hands out about 30 strips a week as part of The Urban Barber Association,

Until this spring, use of the strips was technically illegal in Ohio. It has joined at least 20 other states whose lawmakers formally decriminalized the strips since Rhode Island became the first in 2018. Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Kentucky and Mississippi also followed suit this year.

The CDC recommends fentanyl test strips as a low-cost means of helping prevent drug overdoses.

Yet these small paper strips are still considered illegal in some states, outlawed under drug paraphernalia laws dating to the 1970s era war on drugs — long before fentanyl began seeping into the nation's drug supply. Every state but Alaska had an anti-paraphernalia law on the books by the mid-1980s, making materials used for testing and analyzing illicit substances illegal.

 

[EvidenceOfTheResurrection]

Wow.