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Kasich Signs Bill To Increase Penalties For Major Drug Trafficking Offenses

Brenda Ryan looks at a picture of her daughter, Sheena Moore
Jo Ingles
Brenda Ryan looks at a picture of her daughter, Sheena Moore

Gov. John Kasich has signed a bill into law that increases penalties for drug trafficking. 

Cuyahoga Falls resident Brenda Ryan is raising her seven-year-old grandson after his mother, Sheena Moore, died from a drug overdose in 2016. She was only 31 years old. Ryan says the man who provided the deadly drugs to her daughter spent only eight years in prison because the penalties were reduced once it was determined the drug wasn’t heroin.

“What they thought was heroin, when it was tested, they found it was carfentanyl and fentanyl which is way more deadlier than heroin and they actually had to lower his charge," Ryan says.

The bill Kasich signed into law increases penalties for trafficking fentanyl to the same level as the most dangerous drugs. He says this new law will be one more step the state can take to lower the number of opioid deaths in Ohio.

Copyright 2018 The Statehouse News Bureau

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment.