Sentencing is finally “catching-up” to dealers whose products are proven to have caused death.

                                                                    # 200

A recent Sentencing in Maryland in July, 2025 reports enhanced sentencing for dealers for deaths resulting from drug sales they made. Dealer for which death resulted from sale of product Fentanyl, receives 10 year sentence.

Good News for sentencing that may produce a deterrent, maybe the “dealer will start selling drugs that have never been lethal. Drugs/substances that have no known lethal dose levels, no enhanced sentences.

https://mocoshow.com/2025/07/04/ice-announces-10-year-sentence-for-maryland-fentanyl-trafficker/

                                                             # 199

                               The depth of man’s inhumanity towards man.

It is called Kush, but not the original Kush. This is Kush produced in Sienna Leone and trafficked in Guinea and Liberia. It is a polydrug that includes Fentanyl and other synthetic drugs but now includes ground human bones harvested by grave-diggers. Many users are being hospitalized.

The 2nd hyperlink, below, indicates that young women have been arrested in Sri Lanka - after departing Bangkok- and are receiving long sentences following convictions.

https://theconversation.com/kush-what-is-this-dangerous-new-west-african-drug-that-supposedly-contains-human-bones-220608

https://open.substack.com/pub/bitcloutlabs/p/the-bone-drug-economy-when-grave?r=1woh2m&utm_medium=ios

Drug Dealers selling Fentanyl resulting in death can receive additional Class 6 Felony Charge.

 # 198 Persistent Legislature and Governor Prevail after 7 years.  Drug Dealers who sell products containing Fentanyl, from which death(s) occur now face harsher sentences when convicted.

About seven years ago, I was poised to post an opinion piece because I thought I had a brilliant idea: drug dealers of Fentanyl have proximate-cause in resulting Fentanyl deaths. Something checked me and I said to myself:”What if some Virginia Representative has already had the same brilliant idea?” I decided to check-out bills in the Virginia Legislature and I spared myself embarrassment. I found that a State Representative from Fauquier County had already submitted such a bill and it was voted out of Committee. I looked farther and learned an ugly secret that did not exist in 1986 when “5 years, mandatory-minimum for use of a firearm in the commission of a Felony” became law. The ugly secret was that, by 2017/18, any law that could result in longer sentences that came out of committee and would result in additional jail-time, had to go to the Finance Committee. I learned, 7 or 8 years ago, that a smart bill that would keep Felons off the streets for a longer period of time could die in the Finance Committee.

Today, I learned that a similar Bill finally passed & was signed into law on June 13, 2025 by a Law & Order Governor Youngkin. The penalty is for a Class 6 Felony. As one reads the Legislative history, the Senate voted against the Bill, before the Governor signed it into Law. The Law takes effect on July 1, 2025.

The press release is below. It includes a hyperlink explaining the bill and displaying the Legislative History.

https://www.wdbj7.com/2025/06/13/governor-youngkin-signs-bill-prosecute-fentanyl-dealers-overdose-deaths/

 # 192 

Users are now, finally coming to realize which substances can get them "high" vs those substances that can take them "low"...all the way to death.

 

The below hyperlink presents a user who explains to a reporter how unscrupulous drug dealers have deceived users who believed that they were purchasing a Central Nervous System (CNS) Stimulant (gets them "high", increases heart-rate and respiration rate).

Sadly, the user laments that deceptive marketing by unscrupulous dealers have failed to disclose that their purchase may include a more potent CNS Depressant, Fentanyl, that can make them "low"...very "Low"...all the way to death, quickly.

The reporter confirms the user's fears, in this article, with cold facts:

"Or at least J.R. hoped it was cocaine, pure cocaine — uncontaminated by fentanyl, a potent opioid that was linked to about 75% of all overdose deaths in Rhode Island in 2022. He flicked his lighter to “test” his supply. He believed that if it had a “cigar-like sweet smell,” he said, it would mean that the cocaine was laced with fentanyl. He put the pipe to his lips and took a tentative puff. “No sweet,” he said, reassured."

Not wishing to end their "habit" , the article indicates that a Professor at Brown University reports that free, or inexpensive, test strips are no being distributed to users - along with lifesaving instruction for using the strips which detect Fentanyl.

"The only way to know whether cocaine or other stimulants contain fentanyl is to use drug-checking tools such as fentanyl test strips — a best practice for what’s known as “harm reduction,” now embraced by federal health officials in combating drug overdose deaths. Fentanyl test strips cost as little as $2 for a two-pack online, but many front-line organizations also give them out free."

The reader is reminded that this blog reported on England's life-saving approach at Concerts whereby users can take their substances to an immunity table where they do not risk arrest and technicians will test their substance for free and produce a conclusion Use/Don't Use.

https://apple.news/AVhBC3h4uT4iqzAk9cOc6Hg

How low our society has stooped, man dies after Montgomery County 1st Grade teacher walks off job & sells fatal Fentanyl

 # 191

Side-job hustle by 1st Grade Teacher costs man his life. Taxpayers should be asking, “Where are the standards and supervision of Elementary Teachers.”

https://wjla.com/news/local/first-grade-teacher-arrested-fentanyl-death-case-man-dies-drug-toxicity-sarah-katherine-magdi-montgomery-county-elementary-school-drug-enforcement-administration-investigation

                                                                  # 190 

Someone’s Judgment, in qualifying/hiring this subject may provide grounds for a lawsuit by each victim under an HR doctrine known as Negligent Hire and/or Negligent Retention.

I am not going to search my Posts to find where I have written that I believe the AMA declared Alcoholism as a “disease” so insurers would pay for “treatment”…but that Physicians mostly walked away from treating this “disease.”  Additionally, they landed upon a cadre of recovering persons who obtained Masters Degrees who are the ones that recovering candidates interface with for treating their “disease.”  Cynical? If you have been diagnosed with diabetes, you see a Doctor and skilled nurses for dialysis.

The deaths and injuries should spark a thorough review for onboarding non-medical personnel who Counsel persons having diseases defined by the AMA in the 1950s.

Physicians; if you truly believe it is a disease, then treat it without using non-medical middle-men/women. 

AMA, if you had two reasons for declaring it a disease:

1.To bring societal pressure on insurers to pay for the treatment.

2. To remove a societal stigma of the “alcoholic-as-weak-willed”

Then please roll-up-your-sleeves and start Physician treatment.

https://nypost.com/2024/07/05/us-news/suspected-drunk-driver-in-deadly-les-crash-is-addiction-counselor/

https://nypost.com/2024/07/05/us-news/suspected-drunk-driver-in-deadly-les-crash-is-addiction-counselor/

 # 189

Another young person's death because basic precautions re not being taken, parents may no longer be training their children in those basic precautions.

Sadly, in the below article, the following precautions I was taught as a child in the '50's/'60s  were either not taught or not followed.

1.  All controlled substances can only be obtained by presentation of a Physicians prescription issued to a Pharmacist.

2.  Prescribed controlled substances are dispensed to persons presenting identification by a Licensed Pharmacist, Hospital or Doctor's office.

3. All other paths are high risk and may cost you your life.

This blog has continuously emphasized that we do not purchase substances from strangers...on line or on the street.  We do not injest substances that originate from "some dude on a street corner."

The second article brings to light a phenomenon that occurred in the 1970's and appears to be having a resurgence.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/ny-family-loses-daughter-fentanyl-overdose-after-taking-one-pill

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happiness-is-state-mind/201809/pharming-pill-parties-teens

My high school football coach said this prayer before each game during the 1960's

Men, in life, there are three choices that are yours - and yours alone - :

1. You can select your faith

2. You can select your friends

3. You can decide what you put into your body

Now let's go out there and win this game.