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Fentanyl has been in the news more and more lately, and the reason is it’s been linked to several overdose deaths, hundreds across the country on a daily basis. Now Fentanyl is a very powerful opioid painkiller. It does have legitimate medical uses in small doses but more and more it’s being used illegally. It’s being cut into heroin or counterfeit pills like Oxycontin or Percocet. People are dying when they’re using those pills. The police have taken notice and they are cracking down, and they’re especially looking at anyone who might be associated with a heroin or pill overdose death especially where Fentanyl is involved.
If you are the last person who gave the drugs to the person who died, the police can arrest you and hold you legally responsible for that person’s death. It doesn’t matter that the person ingested the substance voluntarily. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t know that there was a deadly dose of Fentanyl inside of the product. You may not have even known there was Fentanyl there at all, but none of that matters. The police can arrest you and hold you responsible for the death.
However, there are defenses in these types of cases. The courts have said that Fentanyl or the drug that the person took has to be the sole cause of their death. If there were other things in their system, if they had medical conditions that may have contributed to the death in combination with the substance they ingested, there may be a defense that way.
Also, the police aren’t necessarily just looking to get the last person who gave the drugs to the person who overdosed and died. What they’re trying to do is find the source of the drugs and try to get them off the street. So they may be looking to the last person who gave the drugs to the person who overdosed for cooperation, to help them find the source of those drugs.
In any event, you’ll need a lawyer who’s well versed in both toxicology and on guiding people through a cooperation process in these types of cases.
