Victims’ families say “death by distribution” laws are a step forward, but they want more prosecutions.
With overdose deaths at all-time highs, North Carolina lawmakers moved this year to make easier to prosecute drug dealers who sell a fatal dose.
Victims’ families say “death by distribution” laws are a step forward, but they want more prosecutions.
Debbie Peeden’s granddaughter, Ashley, overdosed in a Greensboro apartment in 2021.
In the years since, Peeden has been relentless: holding signs in the rain outside the state capitol, showing up at meetings and reaching out to law enforcement, all to try and raise awareness of the threat of fentanyl, and a tool she says prosecutors often fail to use: North Carolina’s death by distribution law.
She saw some success last week when Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law a change that makes it easier to link a drug dealer to an overdose death. The law now no longer requires proof that drugs were sold to the victim in the case of a fatal overdose, just that those drugs were supplied by the suspect.
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