The budget proposal North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein unveiled last month renews his request, now for the third year in a row, for a special unit of state prosecutors and law enforcement agents focused on combating fentanyl trafficking.

Stein first called on the General Assembly to create a fentanyl control unit within the N.C. Department of Justice in February 2023. As head of the department in his role as attorney general at the time, Stein said there was a need for additional prosecutors dedicated to helping local district attorneys go after large-scale trafficking, wiretap, and overdose cases.

His first recommended budget as governor this year includes a funding request for a fentanyl control unit with attorney positions at the DOJ, and law enforcement positions at the State Bureau of Investigation.

Asked about the proposal this week, Stein told reporters that even though initial data appeared to show a downturn in overdose deaths in North Carolina last year, it remains a priority for the state to “dedicate resources to getting this poison out of our communities to the fullest extent possible.”

There were 4,442 overdose deaths in the state in 2023, or about 12 deaths per day, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. Data for last year isn’t final, DHHS advises, but overdose deaths are estimated to have dropped to 3,025 in 2024, or about eight deaths per day.

What would the fentanyl control unit entail?

The first part of the unit is the drug agents and investigators. Stein’s budget proposal asks for nearly $2 million over two years to pay for seven additional law enforcement positions at the SBI. This item also asks for $360,000 in one-time money in the first year. Together, the money would fund four drug agents and three financial crimes investigators.

Stein’s proposal says the additional drug agents would help manage the state’s wiretapping program and the agency’s Clandestine Laboratory Response Program that targets illegal methamphetamine and other drug labs. The financial crimes investigators would meanwhile target drug traffickers and their “assets and revenue for criminal cases.”

In the last two years alone, Stein’s proposal notes, the SBI’s drug unit has seized more than 139 kilograms of fentanyl, 62,000 fentanyl tablets and 3,100 bricks of heroin.

The second part of Stein’s request for the control unit is for just over $1 million over two years to fund three attorneys within the Special Prosecution Unit at the DOJ. The special prosecutors would work with local district attorneys to “pursue fentanyl traffickers and sellers and support regional task forces,” the request states.

“These cases are very time consuming, very complicated,” Stein said while speaking with reporters after Tuesday’s Council of State meeting. “They cross jurisdictions, they require wiretaps that you go up and up the chain, so that’s why we want a unit that is exclusively focused to fighting this hateful, deadly crime and drug.”

Asked if he believes the funding request will make it into the budget GOP lawmakers put together, Stein said he knows the General Assembly “recognizes the problem of fentanyl.”

“I worked with them when I was attorney general on a number of bipartisan measures to tackle fentanyl, to tackle the opioid crisis, so I’m optimistic that we can find common ground in fighting fentanyl,” Stein said.

Is there support among lawmakers, district attorneys?

The fentanyl control unit was one of the few specific proposals Stein highlighted in his State of the State address to a joint session of the General Assembly last month, before he released his full budget recommendation.

It was also one of the notable moments in his speech that drew bipartisan applause, and got everyone in the House chamber to rise to their feet in support.

The News & Observer asked both Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Destin Hall what they made of Stein’s proposal and whether they were open to appropriating money for it.

Berger said he would like to look at the proposal, and said senators who take the lead on putting together the Justice and Public Safety sections of the budget would have to determine if and how Stein’s request would fit in the Senate’s spending plan.

Hall, meanwhile, said he would want to know the opinions of district attorneys about the proposal, and see if local prosecutors are lacking the resources they need to combat fentanyl trafficking.

The head of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys told The N&O that the group only became aware of Stein’s proposal when his budget recommendation was released in mid-March, and said it was “still in the process of evaluating its specifics.”

Kimberly Spahos, the group’s executive director, said in an email that “the devastating impact of fentanyl and opioid-related overdoses is undeniable, and we fully support efforts to hold traffickers accountable and protect our communities from this crisis.”

Spahos added, “While additional resources to fight the fentanyl epidemic are welcomed, it is critical that they be allocated in a manner that aligns with the constitutional and statutory structure of our criminal justice system.”

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