MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Thursday morning, April 6, Gov. Kay Ivey announced that she is looking forward to signing House Bill 1 into law after it passed legislation.
House Bill 1 is designed to tackle the mounting fentanyl crisis surging throughout the country. Gov. Ivey hopes that moving quickly with bipartisan support for the bill will limit the chances of fentanyl wreaking havoc in Alabama.
“The entire nation should take note of what we accomplished today in Alabama with the passage of House Bill 1, the bill to help combat the fentanyl crisis,” said Gov. Ivey. “Every member of the Legislature – Republican and Democrat – came together to pass this critical piece of legislation.”
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid substance considered to be 100 times stronger than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin which are natural opiates. In 2021, the CDC reported that over 107,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States, and two thirds of those deaths came from synthetic opioid abuse.
An excerpt from Alabama House Bill 1 reads as follows:
“This bill would provide for mandatory terms of imprisonment for a person who engages in the unlawful sale, manufacture, delivery, or possession of one or more grams of Fentanyl as a single component.”
The existing law requires four or more grams of fentanyl possession for an individual to be subject to imprisonment.
“Combating this deadly drug will continue to be a top priority for our Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, and I will do everything in my power to stop this drug from being a killer in Alabama,” Gov. Ivey remarked.”
She added, “I commend Rep. Matt Simpson for his leadership on this issue, as well as all members of the Alabama Legislature for sending this bill to my desk. I look forward to putting my signature on House Bill 1 in the swiftest order.”
