The Alabama House of Representatives voted unanimously last week in favor of Rep. Matt Simpson's bill to tackle fentanyl trafficking.

All 105 members voted in favor, and 101 signed on as co-sponsors, the most of any bill in recent memory.

"I'm very happy with the 105-0 vote. It's not often you see a unanimous vote of all the members. I have never seen a bill get 101 co-sponsors," said Simpson, who  represents District 96 in Daphne and Spanish Fort. "It goes to show how much fentanyl is hurting our communities. It's killing our people. This is above partisan politics; this is a problem that we must tackle head on."

The bill now heads to the Senate for approval. Gov. Kay Ivey urged lawmakers to work with haste to move the bill to her desk through a Tweet posted shortly after the vote.

"The Alabama House sent a strong message today by unanimously passing HB 1 – the bill to combat fentanyl. I've instructed ALEA to make combatting this deadly drug a top priority, and I urge our legislators to quickly send HB1 to my desk so I can sign it into law," Ivey wrote in the Tweet.

HB1 puts mandatory minimum prison sentences in place for trafficking fentanyl, the only drug that currently does not require jail time with a trafficking conviction in Alabama. According to the language of the bill, possession of 1-2 grams of the drug would result in a mandatory minimum sentence of three years, 2-4 grams would results in at least 10 years, 4-8 grams would come with a minimum of 25 years, and being convicted of possession more than 8 grams would be punished by life in prison.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, pharmaceutical fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, approved for treating severe pain, typically advanced cancer pain. It is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.

Most cases of overdose are linked to illegally made fentanyl that is often mixed with heroin or cocaine to increase its euphoric effects.

The number of fentanyl-linked deaths have skyrocketed in recent months.

The CDC said overdose deaths increased over 56% from 2019 to 2020, with more than 56,000 people dying nationwide from overdoses in 2020.

The number of overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids in 2020 was more than 18 times the number in 2013, CDC numbers show.

The Gulf Coast High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which covers multiple states, reported 1,069 fentanyl deaths in Alabama in 2021, up nearly 136% from 2020.

Simpson's legislation was pre-filed earlier this year. Simpson began touting the bill's details last September when he announced its creation in front of the Mobile County Courthouse with Baldwin and Mobile county sheriffs and several members of both counties' district attorneys' offices at his side.

At the time, Simpson said he was appalled at the number of deaths tied to the drug, calling that number too "big to put into words."
Sen. April Weaver, R-Alabaster, is expected to carry the bill in the Senate when the legislature returns from spring break next week.