North Carolina’s attorney general is asking for funding to create a new unit to help local district attorneys handle large-scale fentanyl trafficking, wiretap, and overdose cases.
Attorney General Josh Stein said the new Fentanyl Control Unit would prosecute fentanyl and other drug traffickers and dealers.
Stein said too many North Carolinians overdose from fentanyl and are dying. In 2021, more than 70,000 people died of fentanyl overdose in the United States. North Carolina is also experiencing similar increases; in 2022, fentanyl rose to become the number two drug found in drug evidence tested at the state crime lab.
Legislators are being asked to add prosecutors at the Department of Justice to create a the new unit to help local prosecutors around the state with the increasing number of fentanyl cases.
