“Christina E. Nolan, the U.S. attorney in Vermont, said the drug is so toxic that small amounts are killing people — yet a dealer would have to sell 40 grams, equivalent to 20,000 lethal doses, to earn a mandatory prison term, and prosecutors rarely see cases that reach that threshold.
“Fentanyl is a new kind of threat. It is a new kind of danger,” Ms. Nolan told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The 40-gram threshold just doesn’t make sense.”
The synthetic was responsible for two thirds of the 107 opioid-related deaths that Vermont saw last year, she said.”