(The Center Square) – A bill strengthening state law to prosecute child endangerment related to fentanyl has passed both the House and Senate nearly unanimously.
State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, filed HB 166, the Fentanyl Child Endangerment Act, which passed the House (140-1) and Senate (30-1) and was sent to Gov. Greg Abbott to sign.
The legislation was developed in coordination with the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office and makes it a felony to expose children, the elderly or disabled to fentanyl and its derivatives.
It was filed because there have been instances where child endangerment offenses couldn’t be prosecuted to the fullest extent because fentanyl isn’t referenced in the statute governing the offense, the bill analysis explains.
The bill amends state penal code to include fentanyl as a controlled substance for purposes of the offense of endangering a child, the elderly or disabled. The offense includes manufacturing or possessing fentanyl, introducing it into someone else’s body or conduct related to the proximity or accessibility of fentanyl to a child the elderly or disabled, according to the bill language.
The section of the penal code includes methamphetamine endangerment and establishing the same severe penalties for fentanyl-related endangerment. It does not impact the medical use of the drug in certain medications used by anesthesiologists.
State Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills, who represents Tarrant County and carried the bill in the Senate, said, “In the wrong hands, fentanyl is not just dangerous, it’s deadly. These added protections are designed to give local law enforcement and District Attorneys the tools they need to keep our children and vulnerable adults safe in the ongoing fight against drug-poisoning deaths.”
Fentanyl poisoning deaths in Texas spiked under the Biden administration from 891 in 2020 to 1,648 in 2021, to 2,197 in 2022, to 2,306 in 2023. They dropped in 2024 to 1,307, according to state data.
As the border crisis worsened, law enforcement officers across Texas and the country began dealing with an unfamiliar crises: children not waking up after taking a Percocet or other pills. It was only later that they, parents, and lawmakers would discover that pills were being laced with fentanyl. With two milligrams considered a lethal dose and fentanyl up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, alarm spread throughout the state and country.
Texas parents testified before Congress, including Hays County resident Brandon Dunn, after his high school sophomore son, Noah, and two other teenage boys in the county died from fentanyl poisoning within two months. Dunn founded the Forever 15 Project to raise awareness about fentanyl poisoning and called on the Biden administration, Congress and state legislature to act. Noah “was murdered by a drug dealer selling counterfeit Percocet pills,” Dunn testified. The pill contained no Percocet. Instead, it contained 8 milligrams of fentanyl, he said, The Center Square reported.
Under Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, Texas law enforcement officers seized more than 691 million lethal doses of fentanyl over a period of four years – enough to kill everyone in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, according to the latest data from the governor’s office. Every ounce of fentanyl OLS officers seized “would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to Biden administration open border policies,” Abbott argues.
Once Abbott signs the bill into law, it takes effect Sept. 1, 2025.
In the last legislative session, he signed four bills into law to address the fentanyl crisis, The Center Square reported.
He signed HB 6 into law, establishing a criminal offense of murder for supplying fentanyl that results in death. It also enhanced the criminal penalty for the manufacturing or delivery of fentanyl and requires deaths caused by fentanyl to be designated as fentanyl toxicity or fentanyl poisoning on a death certificate. Prior to this law, no such requirement for a death certificate existed, as fentanyl-related deaths are classified as overdoses.
He also signed into law HB 3908 requiring public schools to provide research-based instruction on fentanyl abuse prevention and drug poisoning awareness to 6th-12th-grade students. He also signed into law SB 867 to allow for the distribution of opioid antagonists, including NARCAN, to Texas colleges and universities to prevent opioid poisonings and HB 3144 to establish October as Fentanyl Poisoning Awareness Month to help increase awareness of the dangers of fentanyl.
Texas also launched a “One Pill Can Kill” campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of fentanyl and provide free resources.
