SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As thousands of Californians die each year from drug overdoses fueled by fentanyl, a bitter fight has emerged in Sacramento over how lawmakers can hold dealers accountable without refilling state prisons and waging another "war on drugs."
On one side of the debate are Republicans and moderate Democrats calling for stronger criminal penalties for dealers who sell the deadly drug, which is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and contributed to nearly 6,000 overdose deaths in California in 2021.
On the other are left-leaning Democrats who've spent the last decade retooling the state's penal code to favor treatment and rehabilitation over long prison sentences, and who are reluctant to embrace policies they fear could devastate Black and brown communities.
