SB429 was updated on July 10, 2025.
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NC Senate Updates SB429 Public Safety Act
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ENC law enforcement trains in Morehead City on death by distribution cases
Read the original article and watch the video on the WCTI News 12 website.
Law enforcement officials from across eastern North Carolina gathered in Morehead City to enhance their understanding of death by distribution cases. Carteret County officials emphasized the importance of this training.
Officers, detectives, and deputies from Carteret and Craven counties convened at the Morehead City Police Department to stay informed on trends and strategies for handling these cases. Sheriff Asa Buck highlighted the local efforts to strengthen their approach since the introduction of the new law in 2019.
“For the past couple of years one of my detectives, Corey Bishop, and Assistant District Attorney David Spence have been putting on this training session — not just here in our county, but across the state in various trainings, homicide investigator events, and other conferences as well,” said Sheriff Buck.
Since 2020, the Carteret County Sheriff’s Office has charged 30 individuals under the death by distribution law, leading the state in such prosecutions. Sheriff Buck and Assistant District Attorney David Spence were present to lead the training and discuss the significance of these cases.
Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office Press Release
Davidson County Sheriff’s Office Press Release
Sheriff Buck Announces Arrest of Down East Drug Trafficker
New Report: U.S. drug overdose deaths rise again after hopeful decline
Read the original article on the NPR website.
For the first time in more than a year, street drug deaths appear to be rising across the U.S. according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The latest available data, compiled in January of this year, shows fatal overdoses over the previous 12-month period increased by roughly 1,400 deaths.
“This slight increase reflects historic data and suggests that the U.S. saw more overdose deaths in January 2025 than it did in January 2024,” the CDC said in a statement sent to NPR. “We are working on analyses to better understand geographic trends.”
The CDC data suggests roughly 82,138 deaths during the 12-month period ending in January 2025. That would be a significant increase from the December 2024 report, but it’s still far below the overdose crisis peak of 114,664 recorded in August 2023.
Still, after seventeen months of declines in fatal overdoses that stunned drug policy experts and an unprecedented 27 percent drop in drug deaths in 2024, some addiction researchers described this report as troubling.
Keith Humphreys, a researcher at Stanford University, said the new CDC data could be an early warning that drug death declines brought on by a number of factors, including the end of COVID pandemic disruptions and weaker fentanyl being sold on U.S. streets, could be fading.
“If we assume it’s not a blip, this makes it more likely that the sudden drop [in fatal overdoses] was a one-off event rather than a fundamental change in epidemic dynamics,” Humphreys said in an email.
Most overdose deaths in the U.S. are caused by fentanyl, but researchers who sample the street drug supply have warned of an increasingly dangerous mix of chemicals being sold by dealers, including cocaine and methamphetamines, as well veterinary tranquilizers such as medetomidine and xylazine.
“Overdose trends are not a one-way street, and there will be periodic local increases,” said Nabarun Dasgupta, who studies overdose trends at the University of North Carolina.
His analysis of the latest CDC data suggested “most of the country is still trending down in the right direction.”
According to Dasgupta, the “increase in predicted national numbers are driven primarily by upticks in Texas, Arizona, California and Washington.”
Continue reading “New Report: U.S. drug overdose deaths rise again after hopeful decline”Man charged with supplying deadly dose of fentanyl
Read the original article on the Sampson Independent website.
A fentanyl overdose that killed a Clinton woman earlier this year has led to the arrest of a 32-year-old man who authorities believe supplied the drug that took her life.
Christopher Trevon Graham, of Clinton, was taken into custody late Tuesday and charged with multiple felonies related to the woman’s death. The arrest, noted Sheriff’s Capt. Marcus Smith, came on the heels of a months-long county probe into the overdose and a review of the charges Friday by the District Attorney’s Office, which gave the go-ahead to make the arrest.
Graham was arrested on outstanding warrants for two counts death by distribution of certain controlled substances and possession with intent to manufacture, sell or distribute a Schedule II controlled substance.
The probe, Smith said, began in March 2025 in partnership with the FBI after the Clinton woman died from an apparent fentanyl overdose.
Evidence gathered during that investigation, the captain said, identified Graham as the supplier of the fatal dose.
Graham was located Tuesday in a vehicle on Bonnetsville Road and taken into custody without incident.
He has a prior record that includes multiple felony conviction related to firearms and narcotics trafficking.
Graham is currently being held without bond in the Sampson County Detention Center and is expected to make a first appearance on those charges later this week.
“This arrest underscores our agency’s continued commitment to identify and prosecute those responsible for distributing dangerous drugs in our community,” noted Sheriff Jimmy Thornton in a prepared statement. “We will not stop pursuing individuals who profit from poisoning our citizens.”
Information from the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner notes that over 1,900 overdose deaths in 2024 were attributed to use of fentanyl.
Statewide, the information noted, communities continue to face rising threats from unregulated and deadly mixtures of illicit substances.
The Death by Distribution Law, enacted in 2019 and revised in 2023, allows law enforcement officers and prosecutors to hold drug suppliers accountable for overdose deaths.
The charge against Graham is classified as a Class B1 to Class C felony in North Carolina punishable by a potential prison sentence of 10 to 30 years.
“The Sampson County Sheriff’s Office remains committed to working with state and federal partners to aggressively combat drug trafficking and safeguard the health and safety of its residents,” attested Smith.
Havelock Woman Extradited from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania after being Charged in a Drug Overdose Death
Havelock woman extradited from Pennsylvania on death by distribution charge
Read the original article on the WNCT News9 website.
CARTERET COUNTY, N.C. (WNCT) — Detectives with the Carteret County Sheriff’s Office extradited a woman from Pittsburgh, Pa. in connection to a drug overdose death.
Aryanna Marquise Carter, 29, of Havelock, was charged in connection to the death of Tyler Lee Hall, 22, of Newport, in April of 2021.
Hall died from methamphetamine and fentanyl toxicity. Carter was arrested May 5, 2024 in Pennsylvania on an unrelated weapon charge.
Carter is charged with selling and delivering a schedule II controlled substance and felony death by distribution. Carter was jailed in the Carteret County Detention Center under a $470,000 bond.
After Years of Meetings, Davidson County’s $25 Million Opioid Settlement committee pushes to finally hire coordinator
Read the original article on DavidsonLocal.com.
The Davidson County Opioid Settlement Fund Committee is looking at hiring a coordinator to oversee how to use the $12 million the county will have in opioid settlement funds.
Currently Davidson County has been paid $6.9 million in opioid settlement funds and is slated to receive another $1.9 million in the 2025-2026 fiscal year, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
These settlement funds are part of the $56 billion North Carolina received from the national opioid settlement lawsuit in 2021. Davidson County is slated to receive $23.4 million over the next 13 years.
On Monday, North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson announced North Carolina will receive $145 million in a settlement with Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sacker family. Davidson County is slated to receive an additional $2.3 million in funding from this recent settlement. Most of these funds will be distributed in the next three years according to the NC Department of Justice.
This would bring the Davidson County Opioid Settlement fund to approximately $12 million, which has mostly not been used. Last year, the county approved $1.2 million from opioid settlement funds toward the Medically Assisted Treatment program at the Davidson County Jail.
During the meeting on Tuesday, several committee members vented frustration on the lack of progress, stating they have met for several years and have yet to come up with a clear plan on how to spend these funds.
Lillian Koontz, director of the Davidson County Health Department, said she proposed the idea of hiring a coordinator for the opioid settlement funds over a year ago.
“These were the exact things we talked about and here we are a year later,” said Koontz. “We have not spent any money; we have not done any coordination… I strongly support using some of the opioid funds to identify a human being to do the research for us, to say how much money we have, to vet the programs and then bring solid ideas to us. As it is now, we just come into a meeting, hear some ideas and then we don’t meet again for several months and we are not doing anything.”
The committee members voted to send their recommendations to hire a coordinator/director to oversee the county opioid settlement funds to the county commissioners for approval during their meeting on June 23. If approved, the county manager would work with the county human resource director to create a job description and begin the hiring process.
Committee member Billy West, executive director of Daymark Recovery Services, said the committee should also consider granting smaller requests, under $10,000, to community partners until the new coordinator can be hired.
“It could be three or four months before that person actually gets (here),” said West. “In the meantime, there are other things that can be done so we are not viewed as a bunch of people sitting around with $12 million and won’t even spend $20,000 of it on local things.”
Mike Loomis, founder of Race Against Drugs, currently has a request for approximately $6,000 in funding from the Davidson County Opioid Settlement Committee and has not had any response from the group, or had his request sent to the county commissioners.
He is currently paying for educational materials, like several billboards to raise awareness of the impact of fentanyl overdoses, out of his own pocket. He purchases doses of Naloxone and distributes them in the community. Race Against Drugs also has an awareness event at Breeden Insurance Amphitheater in Lexington on Aug. 9.
Loomis said he is disappointed in the progress of the opioid committee, especially when it comes to supporting those in the community who are “boots on the ground” in battling opioid addiction.
“They are just waiting for another life to be lost,” said Loomis. “I have been doing this by myself for so long and I am up against the stigma of people struggling with addiction. I am disappointed, but I will keep doing what I do.”
County commissioner Steve Shell said the opioid committee can already bring any spending request for use of settlement funds for approval by the county commissioners.
The committee also discussed other options available to combat opioid addiction, including Naloxone (Narcan) vending machines, which would be available to citizens after hours. Several members showed hesitation on placing these machines in the community but voted to create a list of community partners which are already providing Naloxone.
The providers list would be available on the United Way 211 system. NC 211 is an information and referral service that connects people with local resources 24-hours a day.
Major Billy Louya, who oversees operations at the Davidson County Detention Center, gave an update on MAT program. He said since Jan. 1, there have been 27 participants in the program, which equals about 1% of inmates booked into the jail.
The MAT program uses once a month medication administered at the jail, instead of transporting inmates to local treatment clinics weekly and includes a peer support program after the inmate is released from detention.
The committee also discussed finding additional community partners to provide more post incarceration peer support.
The Davidson County Opioid Settlement Fund Committee meets quarterly and includes representatives from organizations impacted by opioid addiction, including the health department, law enforcement, family services, emergency services, county government, elected officials and community partners involved in prevention and recovery.