Gavin Pritchard took his last breath after overdosing on fentanyl. He got mixed up in the wrong crowd, with people who dealt him the deadly drug. Both his mother and Sen. Weaver said some people do not realize the true severity of the drug.
“I had no idea, I didn’t know anything about fentanyl,” Delana Pritchard said, “I knew about other drugs, like weed, and oxy, and stuff like that, but I didn’t know they were lacing and tainting everything.”
Fentanyl can be used for real reasons. It is prescribed to people recovering from surgery and cancer patients. When mixed with other drugs on the street, its danger rises.
“I think the stakes are high, and with high stakes come high penalties,” Weaver said.
He is hoping to clamp down on the people mixing fentanyl on the streets. The drug is popular because of its high potency, and cheap cost. His legislation could put manufacturers in prison for seven years, or in the largest cases, jail for life.
“Some of these parents are waking up the next morning, and their kids are dead in the bedroom. Because they’ve had a drug delivered to them,” Pritchard said.