What Happens If You Are Connected to Someone Else’s Drug Overdose?

Draconian laws breed fear, fear breeds paranoia, and paranoia breeds misinformation.  Add to this the short attention span video format, the Tik Toks and YouTube Shorts of the world, where there is never room for half of a truth, and it is easy to understand why everyone is confused about what happens when you get charged with drug crimes.  There are the law enforcement equivalents of war hawks equating drug distribution with murder, the lonely retirees and skittish trad wives who eagerly share every video someone forwards them about a friend of a friend who died after accidentally touching a microscopic granule of fentanyl powder on the handle of a sink in a Walmart bathroom, and then there is your stoner buddy who is so confident in his belief in the existence of legal loopholes that will enable you to avoid jail time for any and all drug crimes that you will willingly accept one of his no name pills in exchange for your generosity in sharing your weed with him.  While it is possible to summarize the criminal process in a 90-second video, every case is unique and the range of plausible outcomes you could face after being arrested or investigated in connection to drug crimes depends on the details of your case.  Here, our Miami drug crimes defense lawyer explains the recent indictments for drug-induced homicide, and why your case is probably nothing like them.

The Limits of Florida’s Good Samaritan Laws

Almost all states have some form of Good Samaritan laws, and Florida is one of them.  Broadly defined, Good Samaritan laws are laws that protect you from civil or criminal liability when acting in good faith to render assistance to someone suffering a medical emergency.  The laws most often apply in personal injury cases.  For example, a physician who attends to an injured person in a public place or at a social gathering while he is not on duty cannot be sued for medical malpractice unless the injured person can prove that the doctor made her injuries worse.  Good Samaritan laws also apply if you call 911 when someone in your presence shows signs of a drug or alcohol overdose.  The law specifically states that you are exempt from penalties for violating probation or parole conditions related to abstaining from alcohol or drugs.  In practice, if police find drugs at the scene, they will probably confiscate them to test them, but you probably will not get criminal charges for drug possession.  The fact that you saved someone’s life is more important than the fact that you used drugs.  It is hard to know how many people who have died from drug overdoses would have survived if the people with them had called 911 instead of fleeing out of fear of criminal prosecution.

Are You Guilty of Drug-Induced Homicide or Just Lucky to Be Alive?

In 2024, federal courts in Florida issued indictments against five defendants in drug-induced homicide cases.  In one case, two sisters overdosed on drugs together, and the man who had sold them the drugs earlier that day.  In another case, a 10-month-old baby died after accidentally ingesting fentanyl powder.  Her mother, who also faced criminal charges related to the child’s death, had bought the drugs the previous day from a South Florida couple, who both got charged with drug-induced homicide.  The other two cases resembled each other in that a man bought pills from the defendant and was found dead the next day by members of his household.

At least one of these cases has resulted in a defendant getting prison time.  The man who sold drugs to a Palm Beach County man on Christmas Eve 2023, pleaded guilty to drug-induced homicide.  In January 2025, a court handed down a sentence of 320 months in prison.  The minimum sentence for drug-induced homicide is 20 years in prison, and the maximum is life imprisonment.

Chances are, your case is nothing like these.  You do not get charged with drug-induced homicide simply because you possessed drugs from the same batch as the ones that caused a fatal overdose.  You also do not get charges for drug-induced homicide simply because you sold counterfeit pills that tested positive for a lethal dose of fentanyl; more than half of counterfeit pills do.

Contact Our Criminal Defense Attorneys

A South Florida criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing charges for felony drug crimes.  Contact Ratzan & Faccidomo in Miami, Florida for a confidential consultation about your case.

Sources:

local10.com/news/local/2025/01/22/man-sentenced-to-over-2-decades-in-prison-over-deadly-drugs-in-south-florida/

justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/february-2024-one-defendant-pled-guilty-and-five-others-have-been-charged-distributing#:~:text=Pursuant%20to%20Title%2021%2C%20United,a%20maximum%20sentence%20of%20life.