The Indiana House Courts and Criminal Code Committee discussed several bills Wednesday, including House Bill 1203 and HB 1307, both of which were held for more discussion next week.
HB 1203, authored by Rep. Jennifer Meltzer, R-Shelbyville, focuses on making xylazine a controlled substance that has to be prescribed for use.
According to the CDC, “Xylazine—which is not approved for use in people—can be life-threatening and is especially dangerous when combined with opioids like fentanyl.”
“It effectively makes people look like zombies when there's xylazine laced into fentanyl and heroin. Additionally it causes severe wounds,” Meltzer said.
An amendment was added to the bill stating that “instead of making xylazine a schedule II controlled substance, it makes it a class A misdemeanor for your first offense or a level 6 felony for your second offense … Then it exempts out veterinarians and the legal use for veterinary purposes,” Meltzer said.
“If they have xylazine in their possession without their knowledge, this bill does not affect them. You specifically have to knowingly and intentionally possess xylazine. So if xylazine is laced into their drug supply and they do not know it, then they're not in violation of this law for possession, and if someone is dealing it, they are also possessing it.”
HB 1307 was authored by Rep. Ben Smaltz, R-Auburn.
“The first thing that 1307 does is if a sex offender moves from another state to Indiana, they would be required to register for the entire time they are in Indiana and in effect for life. Second, it prevents a serious sex offender from being in a park when they can reasonably expect a child under the age of 18 to be present,” Smaltz said.
Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, asked, “What is the policy reason for just saying if you're from out of state, no matter what the crime was there and how it relates to the Indiana crime, you're going to be on the list for life, as opposed to lesser time?”
Smaltz responded, “I would say the easiest thing to do for the state of Indiana would be to follow suit with 18 other states and make all sex offenses a lifetime registration. All 18 states that have a lifetime registration have a process that an offender can petition after a certain amount of time for them to be removed from the registry.”
Michael Harris is director of Indiana Voices, which he described as “an advocacy organization representing the 20,000-plus Hoosiers that would be negatively impacted by this bill and their families.”
“There are unintended consequences of this bill,” he said. “The restrictions would hinder normal activities of registrants, affecting family events, sports events, recreational pursuits, and there's little evidence that it would increase child safety.”
Both bills were put on hold until next week.