Jennifer Anton | 00:05
This is Jennifer Anton. I’m here today with John Helms, a leading criminal defense attorney here in Dallas, Texas. We are here at Coffee with Q, and we are interviewing John today about this important issue of fentanyl and the legal issues around it. So, John, thanks for being here with us today. We’re looking forward to a good conversation.
John Helms | 00:26
Thanks for having me.
Jennifer Anton | 00:27
He’s going to talk to us about an issue that’s really important, the issue of fentanyl. I know a lot of you have been having a lot of questions about this. And so we’re going to start with the most basic question, which is for John to tell us, what is fentanyl and where does it come from?
John Helms | 00:45
What is fentanyl and where does it come from? So fentanyl is a chemical. It is called a synthetic. Opioid. What that means is opioid is something that comes from the opium plant or the poppy plant. But this is a synthetic opioid. Because if it doesn’t come from the plant. It’s made with chemicals, but it acts like, the kinds of drugs that come from the opium or the opium poppy.
Where it comes from is in the United States, it mostly comes from Mexico. The Mexican drug cartels have made a big business out of sending fentanyl to the United States to be distributed. To drug users. Now, Fentanyl actually can be used legitimately in medicines. For pain relief, but that does not happen very often, but fentanyl, the drug that you hear about from the streets, is a chemical that comes from Mexico.
Jennifer Anton | 01:56
So what makes fentanyl so dangerous?
John Helms | 01:59
Fennel is dangerous because it is extremely potent. It is 50 times more powerful than heroin. What that means is that a very small amount of fentanyl can have very serious effects. So the other thing that makes it dangerous is that the form that we get it in the United States is mixed with other things. And you have pretty much no idea how much fentanyl is in the substances that you may be using, if you even know that there’s fentanyl in it at all. So that’s what really makes it dangerous.
Jennifer Anton| 02:36
Well, can you tell us what it looks like?
John Helms | 02:39
Yes. I’ve got a couple of pictures here. Hope can see these. This is a pencil head with a small amount of white powder on it. That right there, that white powder is fentanyl. And that is a lethal dose of fentanyl right there. So that gives you a sense of how little it could take to kill someone.
Most of the time, we see fentanyl. In the form of these blue pills that are supposed to look like and actually do look very much like oxycodone pills. And that’s a painkiller. So they come in these pills that look like oxycodone, but they’re counterfeit oxycodone. And you don’t know how much fentanyl is in there. That’s up to whoever you know, mix it up and press the pills. So that’s normally what they look like.
Now, sometimes fentanyl is mixed in with other drugs. Especially heroin. So sometimes. Heroin dealers, we’ll add some fentanyl because it’s cheaper than heroin. And so they can get an effect that’s similar to heroin with less actual expensive heroin and more cheap fentanyl.
Jennifer Anton | 04:01
Well, if it’s so dangerous, why are people doing it? Why are people taking it?
John Helms | 04:06
There’s a few reasons. Some people really do like the feeling that it gives them. But that’s usually hard for heroin users or hard for opioid addicts. The other reason is that sometimes the supply of heroin is low and that the quality of heroin is bad. So in that situation, heroin addicts may turn to something else if they can’t find the heroin that they’re looking for. And sometimes that’s fentanyl.
Jennifer Anton | 04:40
Is it true that the Mexican cartels are making the fentanyl pills look like candy to get kids hooked?
John Helms | 04:48
It is true that you can sometimes find those same looking pills, but in different colors. Now, to me, that doesn’t look like candy, it looks like a prescription drug. With that’s a different color because it’s got this M on it and a 30 on it. And I don’t think that the reason that they’re doing that is to make it look like candy so that kids will take it. I think the reason that they’re doing it is to distinguish their product from the product of other people.
So that if you like. If you’re buying fentanyl, and you like the product that you’re getting, If it’s yellow instead of blue, you’ll know that the yellow is the kind that you like. So I don’t think that the purpose is to get kids to take it because it looks like candy.
Jennifer Anton | 05:37
So if it’s so dangerous. Are you saying that the people who are selling the fentanyl are trying to kill the buyers of the fentanyl?
John Helms | 05:46
No, I don’t think that’s the case at all. Well, the cartels, I don’t think, are trying to kill their customers. I don’t think that that’s what they’re trying to do. They want their customers to keep mining and keep taking it. However, you have street dealers who are actually on the ground selling the pills to people and they are probably just looking to sell as much as they can. So they may be willing to sell bad product. Product that’s too powerful to people who don’t know what’s in it. Don’t know that they’re using it. So the dealers that are out there on the ground, on the street, are extremely immoral. And unscrupulous and I don’t think that they’re trying to kill people, but they probably are not exactly taking a lot of caution and care to make sure they don’t.
Jennifer Anton | 06:44
Let’s pivot to the laws around fentanyl. Can you tell us a little bit about how the state laws and the federal laws treat the issue of fentanyl?
John Helms | 06:57
Fentanyl is illegal to possess without a prescription. Under both state and federal laws, it’s treated like I mean, it’s a controlled substance under both state and federal laws. So you can’t possess it and you can’t distribute it and you can’t work with other people in a network to distribute it. So it’s treated very similarly. To other illegal drugs like heroin or cocaine or methamphetamine.
Jennifer Anton | 07:23
So are there any specific laws that relate specifically to fentanyl?
John Helms | 07:28
The state of Texas has a law that was passed in 2023. That makes it a murder. An intentional homicide. To manufacture or distribute heroin to someone who then takes it and dives. Normally, you know, we think of murder as being someone who is trying to kill someone, but this state law makes it clear that if you are distributing to someone and they take it, that is murder. Right there as long as you know that you’re distributing the fentanyl. So that’s a specific law that Texas has enacted.
Jennifer Anton | 08:08
So, with regard to law enforcement, what is our law enforcement doing to reduce the availability of fentanyl?
John Helms | 08:17
Well, law enforcement is doing a lot and especially, at the federal level, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the DEA, has made fentanyl a priority for a number of years. And they are working very hard to find the sources and to prosecute people involved.
So it’s a high priority for them to develop leads to go work up the chain to the people who are higher up. And then eventually the people who were in Mexico, and then they’re working with the Mexican government to try to be able to extradite people who are very large scale dealers of fentanyl. They’re also trying to work with the Chinese government, to reduce the export of the chemicals that are used to make fentanyl. Because most of those chemicals come, if not all, come from China and they’re exported from China to Mexico. Where the cartels get them, mix them up and make fentanyl.
So we’re trying to get the Chinese government. To crack down on the uncontrolled export of these chemicals. Then in addition to that, the DEA in particular has a program that you may have heard about called One Pill Kills. And that program is a social media program. There are billboards about it. It’s designed to educate the public. About how one pill can kill. And that it’s an extremely dangerous drug and to be aware that If you’re buying something on the street and you don’t know what it is, it could be deadly. So those are the kinds of things that law enforcement is doing.
Jennifer Anton | 10:06
So as a criminal defense attorney, how do you go about defending someone who is charged with distributing fentanyl?
John Helms | 10:13
Well, the way that you… Defend someone who’s charged with distributing fentanyl is similar to the way that you would defend anyone in a drug case. There are situations, for example, where a person could be charged but they may not know that they’re involved.
For example, I’ve had a case where a fentanyl distributor was driving in a car with another person and there was a package that has fentanyl under the seat of the car. It’s not a crime to drive with someone who has fentanyl in their car, unless you know the fentanyl is there and you’re trying to help them. So a defense there could be that the person was not aware of the fentanyl at all and had no intent to help the person distribute it and never possessed it because they didn’t even know it was there.
So that’s one example. You have to look at the facts of the case to see whether the person really knew what they were doing, was really involved, what their role was. And then, If it’s clear that the person is guilty, then my job is going to be to make sure that the sentence they get. If they plead guilty, is going to be a fair one to them. So that’s really how you do it.
Jennifer Anton | 11:36
What, tell us a little bit about what is a conspiracy? To distribute fentanyl.
John Helms | 11:41
So a conspiracy, means an agreement between one or more or two or more people to break the law. And that’s really all it is. And you don’t actually have to break the law as long as two people agree to break the law and they take substantial steps for that crime that they want to commit. So a conspiracy to commit to distribute fentanyl is an agreement between two or more people to distribute fentanyl. And those two or more people could have different roles. But in a conspiracy, each person is going to have some role as far as. Distributing the font, getting the font and acquiring it. Distributing it, selling it, getting the money for it, those kinds of things. So that’s what a conspiracy is. It’s an agreement to break the law.
Jennifer Anton | 12:35
So are you saying that someone could be involved in the planning and the preparation? And still be charged with the distribution?
John Helms | 12:44
Yes. Absolutely. Conspiracy to distribute. Let me give an example. Let’s say that, a group of people are planning to buy fentanyl, from a source. And they have contacted the source, and they have agreed on the price, and the people in the conspiracy, they charge one person with going to get the fentanyl and they get money for the person to use to pay for it.
So they’re all agreeing this is what we’re going to do. Then the person goes to the meeting location. To buy the thing. He’s got the money in his pocket. He’s been communicating with the person. He says, I want to buy it. The person comes up to him and says, “Okay, are you ready to buy the fentanyl now?” And the person says yes and hands them the money. At that point, it turns out the person they’ve been dealing with is law enforcement.
So they have not actually gotten the fentanyl from the person. But they’ve done everything to make it absolutely clear that if they hadn’t been stopped by law enforcement, that’s exactly what they would have done. So that’s an example of how you can have people agreeing to commit a crime and taking lots of steps that show that this is not just some wild idea. They’re really serious about it, but they don’t actually commit the crime because law enforcement stops them. So that’s an example of how that can work.
Jennifer Anton | 14:14
Are these kinds of fentanyl cases brought in the state court or federal?
John Helms | 14:19
Fentanyl cases can be brought in either state court in Texas or federal court. Normally, if it’s a just a small amount, that a person is possessing. And that’s all they have. Like say there’s a traffic stop and they find a couple of fentanyl pills on a person. That’s probably going to be a state charge, just possessing it. The federal government will usually come in when they have information about an organization. That is distributing fentanyl and in a larger amount. So not just possessing, but an organization that’s working to distribute it.
That’s where the federal government will come in because it’s a much larger type of case with more fentanyl and more people. That’s the situation that the federal government wants to be involved in.
Jennifer Anton | 15:11
If someone ends up convicted of distributing fentanyl, what kind of sentence are they looking at?
John Helms | 15:17
If someone’s convicted of distributing fentanyl, the sentence they are looking at is going to depend on a lot of factors, including the amount of fentanyl. The higher the amount, probably the longer the sentence is going to be. Whether there were guns involved. Whether there was a large organization and the person was a leader of people in the large organization and things like that.
So I can’t say exactly what a person’s sentence might look like unless I know a lot more individual facts. But what I can say is that if it’s a fentanyl distribution case, a person, even with a minor role, is going to be looking at a number of years in prison.
Jennifer Anton | 16:01
If someone is charged with distributing fentanyl, can they get out on bond?
John Helms | 16:05
Well, a person can get out on bond In a federal case, if they can prove that they are not a flight risk or a danger to the community. It probably in the districts in this area, it probably won’t be on a money bond, but there may be conditions like an ankle monitor things. But you have to prove that you are not a flight risk or danger to the community. And in drug cases like that, the law is going to assume, to presume that you are.
So you have this hurdle to overcome. It’s possible, but it’s very difficult. Most of the time in fentanyl conspiracies, most people are going to be held in custody while the case is going on. But it is possible. And so that’s a situation where you’ve got to talk to your lawyer who is going to need to know about all the facts, not just about the crime, but about your personal circumstances, your ties to the community. Whether there are people who can be what we call a third-party custodian, who can be in charge of you and make sure that you comply with all your conditions of release, if you can get released.
So in federal court, it’s literally possible. The odds are against you. Now, if you’re not a U.S. Citizen, it’s going to be almost impossible for reasons. It’s a little complicated to explain, but just trust me, if you’re not a U.S. Citizen, it’s going to be almost impossible to be released. If you’re charged at the state level in Texas, you can get a money bond, but the bond is going to be probably pretty high. And you might have to ask the lawyer to ask the judge to get it reduced if you can’t pay it. But again, the state court cases are the smaller cases.
Jennifer Anton | 17:53
So if my spouse, for example, is charged with distributing fentanyl, can I be charged also?
John Helms | 18:00
Whether you can be charged depends on whether you were involved in the crime. It’s not a crime to be married to someone who’s a drug distributor. It is a crime to help someone who’s a drug distributor. To help them to distribute the drugs.
So, unless the government can prove that you knew about what was happening and you were helping it in some way, then they’re not going to charge you. You can’t be charged just by being married to a drug dealer. You can’t be charged just for being a family member of a drug dealer. But sometimes, family members will help out in different ways. I’ve had cases where a person has a supply of illegal drugs at their house, And sometimes, maybe one of their customers, or someone who’s gonna pick up drugs, wants to come to the house and get them, but the person is not home. So they have their spouse get it and give it to them. Okay. Well, in that situation, you’re getting the drugs and getting them and handing them. To the customer. And so you are part of the distribution. But if you weren’t, especially if you didn’t know. Then they’re not going to charge you.
Jennifer Anton | 19:30
So if a person is charged with distributing fentanyl, does that put our family, or their family in danger of retaliation by drug traffickers?
John Helms | 19:41
Well, the answer is it might. There are situations, where someone who is well known enough within an organization is arrested. And then people in the organization may make threats to family members. Basically saying, we know where you are. If your family member who’s been arrested starts cooperating with law enforcement, we’re going to hurt you or your family.
So you could be threatened. That’s fairly common. Then if it turns out that a person is cooperating with law enforcement, and it’s discovered by the drug trafficking organization. They might retaliate. They’re usually going to retaliate against the person. But it’s possible that they could retaliate against the family.
However, Law enforcement is very much aware of this, and they want people to cooperate with them. So they are going to do everything they can to try to protect the person who’s cooperating and protect their identity and keep people from finding out. There are some situations where you can’t really do that if the person is going to testify at a trial against someone. That’s public and people are going to know that the person’s testifying.
If that happens, then, the government will try to protect the person by sending them to a prison that’s far away from any of the other people involved in the case. But that’s testifying us how you get the most credit against your sentence. It’s a long way of saying it’s possible, that the family could be threatened. But the government is very good at trying to make sure that doesn’t happen because it happened a lot. No one would cooperate and the government wants people to cooperate.
Jennifer Anton | 21:40
As a parent, what can you do to make sure your child does not take fentanyl?
John Helms | 21:46
As parents, the things you should do to make sure your child doesn’t take fentanyl mostly include making sure they understand. What it is? How deadly it can be, How you can’t tell how much fentanyl is in something, and to tell them, here are the kinds of situations where you might be encountering it.
If someone offers you a pill and you don’t know what it is, and it’s some sort of, you know, it’s some sort of drug, but you don’t know what it is. Don’t take it. It might be one of these counterfeit pet fennel pills. It might be another type of pill that’s been laced with fentanyl. If it’s some sort of powder, like heroin can be. Don’t take it because there could be fentanyl in it.
To me, that’s the case with pretty much any illegal drug. You don’t know what’s in it. The thing that makes fentanyl especially dangerous and especially scary is that you may not know that there’s fentanyl in it at all. And even if you do, you don’t know how much. And just a teeny amount can be deadly. So you’ve just got to let them know, don’t take anything like that if someone offers it to you. It could be deadly. And I mean, it is true that one pill can kill you.
Jennifer Anton | 23:07
So, as a parent, if you’re worried that your child has been exposed to fentanyl, what should you do?
John Helms | 23:14
If you are concerned that your child has been exposed to fentanyl, what you should do is first of all, see if you can find any evidence of it. In their room and their belongings or whatever. Look through them and see if you see anything unusual.
You should probably check their phone. To see if you can see anything in their phone that is unusual. A person that you don’t know, that they’re communicating with, if it looks like you’re, they’re communicating in code, And then you might want to have them drug tested to see if there’s anything in their system. Those are the kinds of things you can do as a parent if you’re really concerned that your child’s been exposed to fentanyl.
Jennifer Anton | 23:58
Has President Trump been honest with the American people when it comes to imposing these emergency tariffs because of the flow of fentanyl coming across the United States borders?
John Helms | 24:10
As far as whether President Trump has been honest with the American people, about using tariffs as a means of combating fentanyl, the answer is no, he has not been honest about it. And there are a number of reasons why. First of all, President Trump has imposed tariffs on Canada. Almost no fentanyl. Comes from Canada. Pretty much all coming from Mexico.
In fact, I think it’s probably even possible that more fentanyl comes from the United States into Canada than from Canada into the United States. So, Fentanyl is not any kind of a justification for terrorism can. As far as Mexico goes, I think that there is certainly a problem with fentanyl coming from Mexico. I don’t think it’s the kind of problem that justifies the president imposing tariffs. The reason for that is because under the law, Congress is the one that decides when we’re going to have tariffs, not the president.
However, Congress has delegated to the president, the ability to impose tariffs, in an emergency situation. The reason for that is because Congress has recognized that there may be situations in which there is a true emergency, meaning a sudden urgent issue. Where Congress doesn’t have time to go into session and deliberate and go through all of their process and impose a tariff. And so the president in that type of urgent, sudden situation, Congress has given the president the ability to do that.-, when Congress doesn’t have time to act.
Fentanyl has been a problem for a number of years now. In fact, the Texas legislature has been dealing with it for at least three years. So, Fentanyl may be a serious problem but it is not something that is sudden. And so sudden that Congress has not had time to act. Congress has lots of time to act. So if there’s not a situation where something comes up, that Congress will not be able to act on quickly enough, that is when the president has the authority under the law to impose tariffs. That’s just not the case here.
So as far as Canada, I think that there’s just no justification at all for that, for imposing tariffs based on fentanyl, because fentanyl doesn’t come from Canada. As far as Mexico, it’s a serious problem, but it’s not the kind of emergency, sudden emergency situation where the president can legally impose tariffs.
Jennifer Anton | 26:54
Thanks, everyone, for joining us today on Coffee with Q. This is Jennifer Anton, legal reporter. I have John Helms with me here today, one of the leading criminal defense lawyers in Dallas, Texas. It was a pleasure having you with us, John and please stay tuned in with us next time when we have John back to talk about the legal issue of the day.
John Helms | 27:17
Thanks for having me.
Jennifer Anton | 27:17
Thank you, John.