Fentanyl is the biggest public safety threat facing Montana. In recent years, illicit drugs and ensuing violent crime in Montana have skyrocketed, for the most part due to the country’s wide-open southern border.
The illicit fentanyl is trafficked into the state from Mexico and it’s killing Montanans. Since 2019, fentanyl seizures in Montana have increased 20,000 percent. Fentanyl-linked deaths also continue to trend upward in Montana. The State Crime Lab has preliminarily reported 80 overdose deaths involving fentanyl in 2023 – an increase of 1,900 percent from 2017 when there were just four.
To combat the problem, Attorney General Knudsen Attorney General Knudsen secured funding for two narcotics agents at the Division of Criminal Investigation, during the 2023 Legislative Session. He also supported bills that will help combat the crisis, including House Bill 791 which imposes a mandatory two years of jail time, a $50,000 fine, or both, for anyone convicted of selling fentanyl in Montana, and Senate Bill 67 which revises drugs scheduled for Schedule I, Schedule II, Schedule III, Schedule IV, and Schedule V controlled substances and provides updates to each listed schedule, enabling more state-level prosecutions.
In addition to increasing the number of Montana Department of Justice narcotics and major case agents, Attorney General Knudsen has added a statewide drug intelligence officer who assists local law enforcement and public health agencies and spearheaded a grant program that helped deploy two dozen drug detecting K9s across the state.
Attorney General Knudsen continues to hold the federal government accountable for their role in the fentanyl crisis. In January 2024, he testified in a U.S. House of Representatives impeachment hearing against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his failure to enforce federal immigration law and properly secure the southern border.
Attorney General Knudsen has also called on the Biden to designate drug cartels as terrorist organizations and classify fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.
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