{"id":5815,"date":"2018-12-21T12:36:01","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T16:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=5815"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:52:29","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:52:29","slug":"fentanyl-test-kits-save-lives-but-still-illegal-in-n-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/fentanyl-test-kits-save-lives-but-still-illegal-in-n-c\/","title":{"rendered":"Fentanyl Test Kits Save Lives \u2013 But Still Illegal in N.C."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2017, North Carolina\nexperienced the nation\u2019s second-highest\nincrease<\/a> in opioid-related deaths. This spike includes a total of 1,118\npeople<\/a> who died last year by use of fentanyl and other fentanyl\nanalogues.<\/p>\n\n\n

Fentanyl is used for post-surgery\npain management and is 100 times\nstronger than morphine<\/a>, and 50 times stronger than heroin. Analogues\n(drugs that mimic the effect) of fentanyl have been flooding the black market\nand are being found in numerous drug supplies of cocaine and heroin users\nacross the nation. Fentanyl and its analogues are supposedly mixed<\/a>\nin with cocaine, heroin, and illicitly-obtained prescription drugs so that the\ndrug-seller can market a smaller amount of the drug for the same price, due to\nenhanced potency.<\/p>\n\n\n

Officials have responded to the\nepidemic in a number of ways, including: limiting opioid prescriptions for\nfirst-time patients, providing naloxone (an overdose antidote) to drug addicts,\nand charging\nthe dealers of fentanyl-laced drugs with murder<\/a> when the laced drugs\nprove deadly. These are all great ideas, and surely provide some positive\nimpact on people affected by fentanyl poisoning, but they are not too effective\nat warning a drug user that their drug supply is contaminated with fentanyl. That\nis why the most effective method North Carolina officials can use to deter, or\nlimit, accidental fentanyl overdoses is by supporting the provision of fentanyl\ntest strips. <\/p>\n\n\n

One hopes that the legislature did not include drug test kits as drug paraphernalia to discourage drug users from identifying and consuming a deadly substance such as fentanyl. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

This year, the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition (NCHRC) has distributed 1,296 fentanyl test strips<\/a> to help drug users determine if their drug supply has been contaminated with the dangerous and deadly drug fentanyl. But closer examination of North Carolina\u2019s general statute casts doubt on whether this charitable act by NCHRC was entirely legal.<\/p>\n\n\n

The North\nCarolina Drug Paraphernalia Act<\/a> deems it a Class 1 misdemeanor for\n\u201cany person to knowingly use, or to possess with intent to use, drug\nparaphernalia to \u2026 test, analyze, \u2026 or otherwise introduce into the body a\ncontrolled substance.\u201d Drug paraphernalia is defined to include \u201c[t]esting\nequipment for identifying, or analyzing the strength, effectiveness, or purity\nof controlled substances.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

One wonders what the\nlegislature\u2019s motives were when including this definition of drug\nparaphernalia. Maybe they wanted to prevent drug manufacturers from recording\nthe potency of their product, or maybe they wanted to thwart drug dealers\u2019 plans\nof gaining extra profit by advertising enhanced strength of a drug. One hopes\nthat the legislature did not include drug test kits as drug paraphernalia to\ndiscourage drug users from identifying and consuming a deadly substance such as\nfentanyl. <\/p>\n\n\n

These fentanyl test strips are\nproven to be employed and beneficial when accessible to drug users. A recent study<\/a>\nfound that 77% of the study\u2019s participants used the test strips that were\nsupplied to them, and 40% of the test-users changed\ntheir drug-related behavior<\/a> as a result of the detection of fentanyl\nin their drug supply.<\/p>\n\n\n

In the end, it is up to law enforcement\u2019s\ndiscretion as to whether someone in possession of a drug test kit will be\ncharged with a misdemeanor. Many folks can, and probably already do, take the\nrisk of possessing a drug test kit and never be charged with any crime for it. But\nsome people may not be willing to take that risk \u2013 a test kit is oftentimes\nsignificantly larger than the drugs that it is testing, hence poses a greater\nchance of the possessor being caught.\nNorth Carolina officials have already taken many\nsteps towards limiting and preventing the large amounts of fentanyl-related\noverdoses, but none of them are as proactive and effective as the provision of\nfentanyl test strips. So why not alter the N.C. statute that criminalizes the\npossession of this life-saving technology?\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2017, North Carolina experienced the nation\u2019s second-highest increase in opioid-related deaths. This spike includes a total of 1,118 people who died last year by use of fentanyl and other fentanyl analogues. Fentanyl is used for post-surgery pain management and is 100 times stronger than morphine, and 50 times stronger than heroin. Analogues (drugs that …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5816,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6894,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5815\/revisions\/6894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}