Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signs fentanyl penalty hikes into law as U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst introduces federal bill

ATLANTIC — Iowa elected officials took action at the state and federal levels Tuesday to combat rising rates of fentanyl-related drug overdoses.

Surrounded by state and local law enforcement, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law a bill that enhances penalties for distributing fentanyl. The signing took place in Atlantic, where last year five area residents were arrested on federal charges in a fentanyl distribution case that began after a series of overdoses in Cass and Shelby counties.

“This poison — and that’s what it is: poison — is fueling addiction, death and chaos,” Reynolds, a Republican, said.

The law, proposed by Reynolds early in this year’s legislative session, is part of her push to spotlight the rising presence of fentanyl in Iowa and its role in overdose deaths.

Fentanyl, a potent opioid about 100 times stronger than morphine, is often mixed into illicit pills, pressed to look like other prescription medications, and other drugs as a cost-cutting measure. Reynolds said Iowa law enforcement seized twice the number of fentanyl pills in 2022 than it did in 2021, and more than 27,000 in the last six weeks.

Synthetic opioids like fentanyl accounted for more than 80 percent of all opioid-related overdoses nationally in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Iowa’s rate of overdose deaths is among the lowest in the country, but it is increasing. In Iowa, 432 people died of drug overdoses in 2020, according to the CDC, and 172 of those — about 40 percent — were from synthetic opioids.

Sgt. Nick Nolte of the Cedar Rapids Police Department’s narcotics division said over the last two months the department has seized more than 4,000 fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills.

“And just this last week we had two more overdoses,” Nolte said. “Both people admitted to taking (counterfeit) pills, but would not cooperate with us. … And that continues to be a problem here in Cedar Rapids, just cooperation from the people to allow us to try to find the source of supply.”

New law increases prison time, fines for fentanyl distribution

Under the new law, the sale or manufacturing of fentanyl will be punished the following ways:

The law also increases penalties for providing a drug that results in bodily injury or death, and it increases the penalty for manufacturing the drug in the presence of a minor or selling to a minor.

In addition, the law expands who can dispense naloxone, a medication that reverses the effects of an overdose.

⧉ Related article: Iowa schools add naloxone to medical emergency tool kits

The bill passed with mostly bipartisan support in the Legislature this year, but some Democrats opposed it. They argued increasing penalties does not work in reducing criminal activity, and the bill did not do enough to prioritize treatment of substance use disorders.

Democratic Rep. Megan Srinivas, a doctor from Des Moines, proposed an amendment to the bill that would have legalized fentanyl test strips, which can be used to test for the presence of fentanyl in a pill or other drug.

Reynolds said she does not think fentanyl test strips should be part of the solution to the rising opioid death rates.

“That’s not something that I pushed in my bill because I don’t believe that that has an appropriate place,” she said.

Ernst introduces bipartisan bill to combat fentanyl trafficking

Around the same time Reynolds was signing the new law, Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst announced plans to introduce a bipartisan, bicameral bill with Virginia Democratic U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine that would direct the Department of Defense to take stronger action against Mexican cartels and transnational criminal organizations trafficking fentanyl.

Both Ernst and Kaine serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“I’m using my oversight authority of the Department of Defense to stem the fentanyl crisis at its source,” Ernst told reporters.

The Disrupt Fentanyl Trafficking Act would classify fentanyl trafficking as a national security threat “to provide a response proportional to the problem,” Ernst said during a conference call with reporters.

It would require the Pentagon to develop a fentanyl-specific counterdrug strategy, including working directly with the Mexican military and increasing security operations with Mexico to combat the fentanyl drug trade and disrupt Mexican cartel activity.

“The amount of lives lost in Iowa and across the country due to this deadly drug has far surpassed the federal government’s response, and we must scale immediately to combat this national security threat,” Ernst said in a statement following her news conference.

Ernst met with Mexican officials at the Mexican embassy during a visit to Mexico City and the San Diego-Mexican border back in February as part of a congressional delegation that included Iowa Republican U.S. Reps. Randy Feenstra and Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

She said the crisis will only get worse with the expiration of a COVID-era policy known as Title 42 that allowed U.S. authorities to quickly expel migrants on public-health grounds.

Republican lawmakers have lambasted Biden and his administration's handling of a historic influx of illegal border crossings they say has allowed fentanyl to be smuggled into the U.S. at higher rates and fueled the opioid crisis.

Biden initially kept Title 42 in place after he took office, then tried to end its use in 2022. Republicans sued, arguing the restrictions were necessary for border security. Courts had kept the rules in place, but with the end of national COVID-19 emergencies the border restrictions have now gone away.

The federal government, however, is putting new restrictions into place at its southern border to try to stop migrants from crossing illegally and encourage them instead to apply for asylum online through a new process.

While most fentanyl is smuggled into the United States along the southern board, the vast majority of fentanyl seizures along the border have been at legal U.S. ports of entry, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Fentanyl is rarely carried over the border through the desert, but is rather smuggled across official border crossing in passenger vehicles with concealed compartments or commingled with legitimate goods on tractor-trailers, according to the DEA.