The Statewide Task Force on Opioid Abuse made recommendations that are put into practice by HB 95, or the new Florida drug law. The special task force was established by Governor DeSantis in 2019 to develop a state strategy and identify best practices to combat the opioid epidemic through education, treatment, prevention, recovery, and law enforcement. This is exactly what it does.
For drug dealers caught selling fentanyl or methamphetamine, the new law raises penalties significantly, comparing their activity next to murder. If methamphetamine causes an overdose death, the new law enables prosecutors to leverage the option of charging the drug seller with first-degree murder. Under the HB95 Florida law, dealers may be sentenced to life in jail or possibly death for committing such an offense, which is deemed to be a capital offense like any other.
The mandatory minimum sentence for trafficking fentanyl has been increased under the new law from three years to seven years for amounts between four and fourteen grams, and from fifteen to twenty years for amounts between fourteen and twenty-eight grams. The law also stiffens fines for selling controlled substances within a mile of a facility housing patients for substance abuse treatment.