Latest news with #NeighborhoodAssistanceandRejuvenationCompactAct
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Instead of helping West Virginians, some GOP lawmakers seem intent on passing bills to harm
The Lincoln Walks at Midnight Statue sits in front of the West Virginia state Capitol building in Charleston, (Lexi Browning | West Virginia Watch) We're almost at the halfway point of the legislative session, so let's take a little look at what our legislators have been doing. Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, is proposing with Senate Bill 109 to incentivize residents to report drug activity to police by offering reward money. The money from the Narc on Your Neighbor for Money Act — whoops, I mean the Neighborhood Assistance and Rejuvenation Compact Act — would come from a new excise tax on naloxone and drug testing strips. Tarr has said the state could market the program by posting mugshots of people convicted of drug crimes to billboards in areas with high drug activity. He said his inspiration came after watching the news and seeing 'bodies hanging off of bridges' in a report on cartels in Mexico. Please don't let this guy watch 'The Handmaid's Tale.' Taxing products designed to prevent people from dying does not seem like the answer here. Narcan, one of the brand names for naloxone, is already prohibitively expensive for some people. And while there are groups that provide both naloxone and drug testing strips for free, why would we want to make it more expensive for them to help people? Instead of shaming people convicted of drug crimes and asking their neighbors to spy and tattle on them, maybe the state should consider not banning harm reduction programs? Helping people instead of shaming seems like the more humane option. Another bill that seems designed to make life harder for West Virginians is House Bill 3016. The state passed a voter ID law in 2016 and when it went into effect two years later, residents could prove who they were with more than a dozen different forms of identification other than a driver's license, including a hunting or fishing license, a utility bill or their Social Security card. HB 3016 would do away with most of those forms of identification and whittles it down to six — all of which require a photo: driver's license, state ID, passport, employee ID, student ID and military ID. The lead sponsor on this bill is Del. Erica Moore, R-Roane. The bill also adds text that a valid voter registration card 'that includes the voter's photograph issued by a county clerk in the State of West Virginia or the Secretary of State' will work. Of course, lawmakers also said during a meeting that this isn't required, and would be up to each county clerk if they wanted to create and issue voter registration cards with photos. This will just add another layer to confusion to voting. Am I registered? Where is my polling place? Is my registration active? What ID do I need? What kind of voter registration card does my county have? Absentee ballots aren't safe either. House Bill 2117 would make it illegal for anyone — including an election official — to mail or deliver absentee ballot applications unless it's been specifically requested by the voter or their family/caregiver. Six Republicans thought this was such a great idea, they sponsored the bill: Doug Smith (Mercer), Mike Hornby (Berkeley), Geno Chiarelli (Monongalia), Chris Phillips (Barbour), Michael Hite (Berkeley) and Kathie Hess Crouse (Putnam). Why is an application for an absentee ballot something that should require consent? Do they not want us to vote? Another head scratcher comes from Sen. Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha. His bill would reinstate the death penalty in West Virginia for people convicted of killing a law-enforcement officer or first responder. It has a price tag of $26 million to implement. In the last 45 years, only 21 people would have been eligible for the death penalty. It's odd to me that Stuart, who says he is 'unapologetically pro-life' wants the state to spend about $1.2 million per state-sanctioned killing. But at least, he knows the monetary cost of his bill. That's more than we can say for House Bill 2515, which would require counties to create alternative learning centers for chronically disruptive students. The bill from lead sponsor Del. Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, has advanced to the Senate, but it has no proposed funding to build the centers or staff them. Details, details. Today is day 28 of 60. Will the Legislature do better during the second half of the session? For West Virginians' sake, I hope so. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Bill creating monetary reward for those who tip off police on drug activity advances in WV Senate
Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, the lone sponsor of Senate Bill 109, speaks on the Senate floor on Wednesday, March 5, 2025, in Charleston, (Will Price | West Virginia Legislative Photography) The Senate Committee on Substance Use Disorder and Mental Health advanced a bill Wednesday that, if adopted, will incentivize residents to report drug activity to law enforcement with monetary rewards funded by a new excise tax on harm reduction tools. The excise tax would add one cent to all purchases of naloxone and drug testing strips — two life saving interventions that help prevent fatal overdoses in people who use drugs — in West Virginia. Under a committee substitute adopted by the substance use disorder committee, nonprofits would be exempt from paying the excise tax. Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, is the lone sponsor of Senate Bill 109, which he named the Neighborhood Assistance and Rejuvenation Compact Act. He said that while he would like to see a permanent, state-backed funding source for the new fund, a tax on naloxone and other overdose mitigation tools was appropriate for the time being. It remained unclear how much money, however, could actually be raised by such a tax since nonprofits largely distribute naloxone free of charge and receive it often through federal and state grant dollars. Sen. Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, said he worried that placing the tax on proven intervention strategies could send the 'wrong message' as the state attempts to target higher level dealers and traffickers instead of low level offenders. Tarr, however, alleged that drug traffickers have incentive to use and purchase naloxone and testing strips to prove the potency of the drugs they sell. 'The reason that we went after Narcan and test strips was because the people — both traffickers and [drug] users — are the reason we have to do this in the first place,' Tarr said. Many people who use or overdose on fentanyl are unaware that the drug is present in what they're using and fentanyl test strips, according to experts, allow them to use more safely. Naloxone is an effective opioid overdose reversal drug proven to dramatically lower the risk of fatal overdose, according to countless peer-reviewed studies. The money raised by the excise tax would be put in a special revenue account overseen by the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Ten percent of anything raised would go to administering the new program while the rest of the money could be used for marketing and payments to people whose tips to police successfully help with getting someone convicted for a drug crime. The bill tasked the Homeland Security and the police with creating an anonymous tip line that could be used to submit tips. Payments to individuals would only be levied if a tip proves useful in securing a drug conviction against someone. Confidential informants and those who work for law enforcement would not be eligible for the reward. Marketing for the program, Tarr said, could include buying and posting billboards in areas known to have high drug activity. Those billboards would show mugshots of people convicted of drug crimes and the sentence they received for such crimes in an attempt to deter others from violating the law. Tarr said his inspiration for the billboards came after watching the news one night and seeing 'bodies hanging off of bridges' in a report on cartels in Mexico. The actions, he said, were meant to show what would happen if someone crossed the cartel. 'That's pretty difficult to fight,' Tarr said. 'It's that kind of intimidation — how do you go and have that kind of intimidation and fight back?' After speaking to people in law enforcement, he said he learned that it would be helpful if they could find a way to 'put a price on [drug dealers'] heads.' Tarr clarified that he did not mean to kill them, but to show what the price — i.e. prison sentence — would be for dealing and trafficking drugs in the state of West Virginia. SB 109 passed the Senate Committee on Substance Use Disorder and Mental Health via voice vote. It will now advance to the Senate Finance Committee. Lawmakers on the committee were also considering a bill Wednesday to prohibit opioid treatment programs in the state of West Virginia. Action, however, was not taken on that bill by publication time. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
