Lawmakers look to ramp up penalties for fentanyl trafficking
Jonathan Pullen, special agent in charge of the DEA's Rocky Mountain Field Division, holds a bag of fentanyl that agents recently seized at the DEA's Salt Lake City office on Thursday, July 25, 2025. (Kyle Dunphey/Utah News Dispatch)
The Utah Legislature is looking to increase penalties for people who traffic fentanyl in the state, part of a recent crackdown from policymakers and law enforcement on the opioid epidemic.
Sponsored by Rep. Matthew Gwynn, R-Farr West, HB87 would create a new criminal penalty for fentanyl trafficking which, if the bill passes, would be a first degree felony with no possibility of probation or a suspended sentence.
The penalty — titled trafficking of fentanyl or a fentanyl-related substance — would be imposed on anyone caught with more than 100 grams of fentanyl, or other synthetic opioids like carfentanil or sufentanil.
Gwynn's bill passed the Utah House of Representatives unanimously on Friday and will now be considered by the Senate.
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According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, or DEA, just 2 milligrams of fentanyl can be considered a lethal dose to people without an opioid tolerance. Its lethality has resulted in record-breaking overdose deaths in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, nationwide.
Gwynn's bill 'recognizes that fentanyl is the worst of the worst, and those who traffic in fentanyl are the worst of the worst,' he said on the House floor Friday.
Utah has mostly bucked the country's trend of overdose deaths, with average rates in the last 10 years declining, while the national average has increased, according to data analyzed by the Kaiser Family Foundation. In 2013, Utah had 15.9 opioid-related deaths per 100,000, compared to the national average of 7.9. In 2024, Utah's rate was 13.5, while the national average was 25.
But despite that decline, scores of Utahns are still dying from fentanyl overdoses.
'In 2023, over 600 families were impacted due to the deaths of a loved one because of an overdose. It knows no age, it knows no race, it knows no gender. But what we do know is it's taking Utahns who are in the prime of their life and otherwise healthy,' Gwynn said.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox recently announced a new task force aimed at combating the flow of fentanyl into the state, which includes partnering with federal agencies like the DEA, and pushing the legislature to pass public safety-related bills, like Gwynn's HB87.
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