ST. PAUL – On Tuesday, May 14, the Minnesota House of Representatives passed House File 2446 – a bill that cracks down on the sale and use of synthetic drugs in Minnesota – and now heads to the Senate where it is expected to pass overwhelmingly. It will then head to the governor’s desk for his signature.
The bill was co-authored by Rep. Kathy Lohmer (R-Stillwater) and passed the House unanimously. The House had passed a similar version of this legislation on April 9 and the Senate passed its own version on May 7. This current version came from a conference committee of members of the House and the Senate.
As a member of the conference committee, Lohmer successfully advocated to keep the House language requiring a court to order that a person convicted of selling synthetic drugs pay restitution to emergency medical service providers who treated persons who bought drugs from a dealer or shop. The initial Senate version did not have that language.
This bipartisan bill is a result of the work of the Select Committee on Controlled Substances and Synthetic Drugs that met while the legislature was out of session and made numerous recommendations aimed at further tackling the synthetic drug problem Minnesota is facing.
“The trauma endured by those who have fallen victim to synthetic drug abuse – as well as the anguish family members have gone through – is, in many cases, beyond repair,” said Lohmer. “From aggressive and violent psychosis, to grand mal seizures with the inability to drive a car or hold down a job, physical mutilation, lack of ability to care for children, the uncompensated costs to ambulance services and hospitals, my hope is that this legislation gives the state the tools necessary to begin to prevent these tragedies from occurring.”
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