War on Drugs

How Helping Someone Buy Drugs Can Send You to Prison for 20 Years

State and federal prosecutors responded to fentanyl overdoses by treating accidents as homicides.

Jacob Sullum | 10.23.2026 4:50 PM

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Scott Hancock (Joshua Greene/hancockonaddiction.org)

Eight years ago, Scott Hancock, then 28, helped a 19-year-old acquaintance, identified in court records as T.G., buy fentanyl. At her request, Hancock, who had been addicted to opioids for years, got in touch with his drug dealer, who gave him five capsules that he handed over to T.G. in exchange for $20. Then Hancock gave the money to his dealer. Because T.G. subsequently died from a fentanyl overdose, Hancock is serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Illinois.

That was the mandatory minimum sentence under 21 USC 241, which prescribes penalties for drug distribution resulting in death. Although that law has been on the books since 1986, the dramatic increase in fentanyl-related deaths during the last decade prompted a surge in federal drug prosecutions involving overdoses, which rose by 44 percent between FY 2019 and FY 2023. Hancock's case was part of that trend, and it prompted his mother, G.D. Hancock, a retired finance professor, to delve into the subject, resulting in a database that sheds light on what happens when the government treats accidental deaths as homicides.

So far, Hancock has identified 2,930 sentences in such cases since 2010. That includes 1,399 federal cases and 1,531 state cases, which rely either on laws dealing specifically with drug-induced deaths or on more general statutes addressing felony murder, "depraved heart" homicide, or manslaughter.

Sentences of 20 years or more were pretty common at the federal level, accounting for 37 percent of the cases, compared to 13 percent at the state level. The vast majority of the cases (84 percent) were resolved by plea deals. That is not surprising, given the potential consequences of........

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