Mortality, incarceration and cost implications of fentanyl felonization laws: A modeling study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Opioid overdose continues to be a major cause of death in the United States. One effort to control opioid use has been to implement policies that enhance criminalization of opioid possession. Laws to further criminalize possession of fentanyl have been enacted or are under consideration across the country, including at the national level.

Objective

Estimate the long-term effects on opioid death and incarceration resulting from increasingly strict fentanyl possession laws .

Design

We built a Markov simulation model to explore the potential outcomes of a 2022 Colorado law which made possession of >1 g of drug with any amount of fentanyl a Level 4 drug felony (and escalation of the previous law, where >4 g of any drug with any amount of fentanyl in possession

SUBMITTER: Savinkina A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10840895 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature