A Semmes teenager accused of providing a 17-year-old boy with a fatal dose of fentanyl will be the first person prosecuted in Mobile County under a new fentanyl manslaughter law.
Mobile County sheriff’s deputies responding Monday to an emergency call at a home on Howells Ferry Road found the 17-year-old dead from an apparent overdose. Sheriff Paul Burch said it didn’t take long to determine fentanyl was the likely culprit. It took mere hours to track down the man they believe was responsible – 18-year-old Kaleb Daniel Harden.
Blackwood has described it as “more straightforward” as far as proving intent. The statute explicitly states that it is not a defense to assert that the person who sold the drug in an overdose case did not realize it was fentanyl. Virginia Guy, the executive director of the Drug Education Council, said people often will buy what they think is an Adderall pill or another type of opioid not realizing that it contains fentanyl. She said it now is so pervasive that people should just assume that any street drug they get is laced with it.
“A trend that we’re seeing that’s disturbing to me is that we’re seeing people younger and younger overdosing,” she said. “And we’re also now seeing younger and younger people providing these deadly pills.” Guy said she hopes investigators are able to discover where fentanyl from overdose ultimately came from. Burch said his agency already is hard at work at determining that.
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