ENROLLED
2023 Regular Session
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOL UTION NO. 126
BY REPRESENTATIVE STEFANSKI
A CONCURRENT RESOL UTION
To express the intent of the legislature regarding the Act originating as House Bill No. 586
of the 2023 Regular Session of the Legislature.
WHEREAS, R.S. 24:177(B)(2)(b) provides that the "legislature may express the
intended meaning of a law in a duly adopted concurrent resolution, by the same vote and,
except for gubernatorial veto and time limitations for introduction, according to the same
procedures and formalities required for enactment of that law; and
WHEREAS, during the 2023 Regular Session of the Legislature, the Act originating
as House Bill No. 586 (House Bill No. 586) provided for civil liability for any entity or
foreign state engaging in or facilitating any illicit fentanyl trafficking or its related
commercial activity, for serious bodily injury or death to all persons beginning January 1,
2015, resulting from the unintended ingestion of illicit fentanyl in this state if the entity or
foreign state was engaging in or facilitating in illicit fentanyl trafficking or its related
commercial activity; and
WHEREAS, the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby express its intent regarding the
application of House Bill No. 586 to provide civil litigants who have suffered serious bodily
injury or death as a result of the unintended ingestion of illicit fentanyl in this state with the
broadest possible basis, consistent with the constitutions of the United States and Louisiana,
to seek relief against any entity or foreign state that engages in the trafficking of illicit
fentanyl into the United States, by creating a rebuttable presumption of fault of any entity
or foreign state if the entity or foreign state is engaging in or facilitating illicit fentanyl
trafficking or its related commercial activity having a sufficient nexus or substantial contact
with this state at the time of the ingestion resulting in the injury or death or at a time bearing
Page 1 of 5 HCR NO. 126 ENROLLED
a rational nexus to the ingestion, if supported by credible information or statistical data
pertaining thereto, in accordance with this Act, or other evidence satisfactory to the court in
an action brought pursuant to this Act. This presumption of fault is established in favor of
all persons suffering serious bodily injury or death in this state as a result of unintended
ingestion of illicit fentanyl beginning January 1, 2015, pursuant to credible information or
statistical data pertaining to, in accordance with House Bill No. 586, and particularly as an
expression of legislative intent, pertaining to the findings of the Legislature of Louisiana;
and
WHEREAS, the legislature finds that in order to give credence to the stated purpose
of House Bill No. 586 to provide civil litigants who have suffered serious bodily injury or
death beginning January 1, 2015, as a result of the unintended ingestion of illicit fentanyl in
this state with the broadest possible basis to seek relief in keeping with the stated purpose
of House Bill No. 586 and particularly to facilitate the prosecution of the action established
for such civil litigants by the Act; and
WHEREAS, the legislature wishes to express its intent regarding the intended
meaning of the law and its application of House Bill No. 586 pertaining to its finding of
credible information and statistical data of the United States government and of the state of
Louisiana pertaining to illicit fentanyl trafficking. The legislature does hereby find the
following to be credible information or statistical data from sources whose accuracy cannot
reasonably be questioned of the United States government and of the state of Louisiana
constituting sufficient evidence in order for the plaintiff to meet the burden of proof for the
establishment of an action brought pursuant to House Bill No. 586:
(1) International illicit fentanyl trafficking and its related commercial activity is a
serious and deadly problem that threatens the vital interests of the United States, the state
of Louisiana, and the safety and health of every citizen.
(2) Illicit fentanyl is primarily produced in laboratories in Mexico by drug cartels
and trafficked into the United States and Louisiana in powder and pill form, including
fentanyl-laced substances, counterfeit pills, and fentanyl analogues.
(3) The People's Republic of China, hereinafter China, is the primary source country
of fentanyl precursor chemicals used to manufacture the illicit fentanyl.
Page 2 of 5 HCR NO. 126 ENROLLED
(4) Since 2013, China has been the principal source of the fentanyl flooding the
United State illicit drug market through its production of fentanyl precursor agents and
fueling the deadly drug epidemic in the history of the United States.
(5) In 2016, the United States Customs and Border Protection agency seized nearly
two hundred pounds of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, primarily from along the
southwest border of the United States. This is a twenty-five-fold increase over seizures in
2015. Between 2014 and 2015, deaths involving synthetic opioids, including fentanyl,
increased by seventy-two percent and took more than nine thousand five hundred American
lives.
(6) The Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking, established under
Section 7221 of the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2020, reported in
2022 that China, which supplied seventy to eighty percent of fentanyl seized by federal
authorities between 2014 and 2019, has been surpassed by Mexico as the "dominant source"
of illicit fentanyl in the United States.
(7) Illicit fentanyl is primarily trafficked by land into the United States through legal
ports of entry at the Mexican border, as well as between such ports of entry, with some
trafficking facilitated by domestic and foreign-based social media and encrypted
communication applications.
(8) In fiscal years 2021 and 2022, the United States Customs and Border Protection
agency seized over twenty four thousand pounds of fentanyl at ports of entry at the Mexican
border, a two hundred percent increase from the amounts seized in fiscal years 2019 and
2020.
(9) In August 2022, the United States Department of Justice reported that Mexican
cartels are increasingly manufacturing fentanyl for distribution and sale into the United
States.
(10) Deaths caused by the trafficking of illicit fentanyl have reached epidemic
proportions in the United States with fentanyl being involved in nearly two hundred
thousand deaths in the United States between 2014 and 2020.
(11) The number of drug overdose deaths in the United States surpassed one hundred
thousand during the period between May 2020 and April 2021, with sixty four thousand
deaths being related to fentanyl.
Page 3 of 5 HCR NO. 126 ENROLLED
(12) Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids caused approximately two thirds of the
fatal overdoses in the United States in 2021.
(13) The Louisiana Department of Health reported in June 2019 that deaths
involving fentanyl have increased by more than five hundred percent since the end of 2014.
(14) The Louisiana Department of Health reported in December 2022 that fentanyl-
related deaths increased from fewer than two hundred statewide in 2017 to nearly one
thousand in 2021, representing an approximate five hundred percent increase in fentanyl-
related deaths in Louisiana.
(15) The New Orleans division of the Drug Enforcement Administration attributes
the increase in the amount of fentanyl transported into Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and
Alabama to the activities of China and the Mexican drug cartels Sinaloa and Jalisco.
(16) The New Orleans division of the Drug Enforcement Administration reported
a seizure of over twenty million fatal doses in 2022, or enough fentanyl to wipe out the
population of four states and including more than five hundred thousand pills and over six
hundred pounds of powder containing fentanyl.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby
express its intent regarding the intended meaning and application of the Act originating as
House Bill No. 586 of the 2023 Regular Session pertaining to the credible information or
statistical data constituting sufficient evidence in order for the plaintiff to meet the burden
of proof for the establishment of an action brought pursuant to the Act originating as House
Bill No. 586 of the 2023 Regular Session and more particularly to give credence to the stated
purpose of the Act originating as House Bill No. 586 of the 2023 Regular Session, to provide
civil litigants who have suffered serious bodily injury or death beginning January 1, 2015,
as a result of the unintended ingestion of illicit fentanyl in this state, with the broadest
possible basis to seek relief, and to provide a mechanism to facilitate an expeditious
prosecution of the action established for such civil litigants by the Act originating as House
Bill No. 586 of the 2023 Regular Session.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby further
express its intent regarding the intended meaning and application of the Act originating as
House Bill No. 586 of the 2023 Regular Session by finding, upon the foregoing credible
information or statistical data, provided in this Resolution:
Page 4 of 5 HCR NO. 126 ENROLLED
(1) Since 2013, China and the Mexican drug cartels have been engaging in or
facilitating illicit fentanyl trafficking into the United States constituting a regular course of
conduct of commercial activity within the meaning of the Federal Sovereign Immunities Act,
28 U.S.C. §1603 and 1605.
(2) Beginning January 1, 2015, the illicit fentanyl trafficking by China and the
Mexican drug cartels has had substantial contact with and a direct effect in the state of
Louisiana within the meaning of the Federal Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. §1603
and 1605, particularly, in accordance with statistics reported by the Louisiana Department
of Health in June 2019 showing that fentanyl-related deaths have increased in Louisiana by
more than five hundred percent since the end of 2014, and further reporting in December
2022 of an approximate five hundred percent increase of fentanyl-related deaths in Louisiana
between 2017 and 2021.
(3) Illicit fentanyl trafficking, or its related commercial activity, by China and the
Mexican drug cartels has continued through the date of the passage of this Act to have a
substantial conduct with and a direct effect in the State of Louisiana within the meaning of
the Federal Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. §1603 and 1605, through the date of the
passage of the Act originating as House Bill No. 586 of the 2023 Regular Session,
particularly pertaining to the number of fentanyl related deaths and the amount of illicit
fentanyl seized in Louisiana.
(4) The illicit fentanyl trafficking by China and the Mexican drug cartels, in
solidarity with each other, beginning on January 1, 2015, has played a substantial part in
causing or bringing about injury or death to all persons in this state resulting from the
unintended ingestion of illicit fentanyl.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby express
its intent regarding the application of the Act originating as House Bill No. 586 of the 2023
Regular Session.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
Page 5 of 5