Betty Hunter was 12 years old when her mother introduced her to painkillers.
By her 30s, her drug problem had turned into a full-blown addiction. When the pill mills shut down, she switched to heroin, then finally to fentanyl, the powerful opioid that has supercharged West Virginia’s overdose crisis.
“Fentanyl is a whole other game, because you need more of it,” she said. “I’ve seen people do almost a gram in a shot.”
With a gram of fentanyl/heroin mixture costing roughly $75 to $100 on the streets, Hunter said she turned to selling the drug to support her habit. In 2021, she was arrested and held in jail for seven months, while pregnant.
Today, Hunter is in recovery and helps others get clean. She lives independently and is raising her child. She credits that to the judge in her case allowing her to undergo drug court and receive outpatient treatment.
But under a bill passed last week by the West Virginia Senate, that wouldn’t be an option.
“I would be sitting in jail for even longer, and jail is only networking for criminals,” she said. “You basically come out of jail with more dealers and more customers.”
Known as Lauren’s Law, SB 196 would raise mandatory sentencing minimums across the board for drug trafficking. A gram of fentanyl, less than a day’s use, would result in a mandatory 5 years in prison, with no option for probation or treatment instead.
And under the bill, the whole substance doesn’t have to be fentanyl, a drug that has largely tainted the supply. Just a detectable drop is all it takes to charge an entire weight as if it were fentanyl.
The sentence for basic drug dealing — which can consist of being caught with two bags of a substance or literally handing a drug to a person — would be raised from a one-year minimum to a three-year minimum.
Nearly 50 years into the War on Drugs, federal prisons are packed with non-violent drug offenders, and there are hardly any results to show for it. Now, West Virginia lawmakers are about to go down the same road.
Sen. Vince Deeds, R-Greenbrier, is the lead sponsor on the bill. The former state trooper last year wrote a failed bill that would’ve turned simple possession into a felony. He said this year’s legislation is intended to target high level drug traffickers.
In his office at the Capitol on Friday, he pointed out the window towards a busy traffic corner.
“We can go right down the street here in Charleston and find somebody that may be trying to sell enough to provide for his or her habits,” Deed said. “He’s not going to make a living doing it. That’s the person that we need to incentivize to get treatment.”
But as Hunter recalled, she knew people who needed 6 grams of fentanyl a day to just stay out of withdrawal, which under the bill would result in at least a 10-year sentence.
Deeds said he didn’t believe a typical user would be caught up like a high level dealer. He said a companion bill, which would tier simple possession like the state’s drunk driving laws (three strikes and it’s a felony), could get users into treatment.
“Prosecutors will be able to use their discretion,” he said.
But the federal government’s decades-long drug war has shown many people serving time weren’t cartel bosses, but low-level offenders.
Nearly 60% of people convicted under a federal mandatory drug minimum sentence were considered mules or couriers, such as someone driving drugs across the border, according to a 2017 report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
On the state level, Monongalia County public defender Joe Hershberger said the vast majority of people he has represented in drug cases over his 15-year career were dealing to pay for their habit.
“There are some that are doing it strictly for financial reasons, but they are far in the minority,” he said.
Hershberger said he’s concerned about how the bill raises mandatory penalties for conspiracy to deal drugs. In his experience, it’s typical for a drug user to let an out-of-town dealer use their car or crash at their home in exchange for free narcotics.
“They may not have any clue how much of that particular drug this dealer had, but now they’re on the hook for the conspiracy that had that amount of drugs,” Hershberger said.
And longer sentences could result in higher prison costs, too. But that number is hard to pin down.
Deeds said state prison officials were unable to provide a number because it’s uncertain how many people would be affected.
Sara Whittaker, a policy analyst at the West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy, said it costs the state a little more than $35,000 a year to house one person in prison.
By tripling the amount of years someone has to serve before they see a parole board, the state would hike that cost to $106,000 for someone convicted on a basic drug delivery charge.
And lawmakers are already staring down an increase in corrections costs. The top prison official told state Senators during a finance hearing he needs $49 million more to keep up with the cost of food, medical care and basic utilities.
That same day, just a flight of stairs and a hallway away, the Senate Judiciary Committee was contemplating SB 196.
Senators called up Jack Luikart, the director of the Fusion Center, the state’s intelligence agency, and a former drug cop with decades of experience.
Standing at the lectern, Luikart told the senators that higher penalties keep drugs out of communities.
“I’ve been part of numerous state and federal investigations, and I know first hand, they do work,” he said.
Sen. Joey Garcia, D-Marion, called up Kenny Matthews, a criminal justice advocate who had served about 10 years in prison for drugs.
Matthews warned that under the bill, a gram of marijuana laced with fentanyl could result in a mandatory prison sentence.
Sen. Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha, called Matthews “a remarkable individual … the exception to the rule.”
“Do you believe in the difference between a user and a supplier?” Stuart asked.
Matthews said yes. But a lot of “suppliers” — himself included — are people struggling with addiction supporting their habit.
“Nobody I know in West Virginia with substance abuse is renting U-Hauls and going out of state and picking up pallets of stuff and bringing it into the state,” Matthews said.
Stuart pointed his finger at Matthews and said “you’re an incredibly strong, vibrant, articulate person who understands exactly what he’s fighting for.”
“You’re one of the most brilliant folks I’ve ever met,” Stuart said. “Do you believe in the concept of redemption by incarceration?
Matthews paused.
“In this bill?”
The Senator interrupted, pointing once again.
“No, your life, just your life.”
Matthews said there is redemption in prison for people and it’s a small part of his story. Quoting back Stuart’s own words, he said it’s the exception, not the rule.
He said, “Incarceration breaks people.”