Trump wants to introduce the death penalty for selling drugs

President Trump proposed the introduction of the death penalty for drug dealers as a fight against an opioid epidemic, equating the sale of deadly substances to murder, writes Politico.

Photo: facebook / The White House

“We have drug dealers who are killing hundreds and thousands of people,” Trump said at a White House summit on opioid abuse. “If you shoot one person, you could face the death penalty.” And these people [opioid sellers – ed. Forumdaily] two and three thousand people can be killed, and nothing happens to them. ”

Trump added that countries that have imposed the death penalty for selling drugs can boast better progress in the fight against drug addiction than the United States.

“Some countries have very harsh penalties—the death penalty—and by the way, they have much less of a drug problem than we do,” he said.

According to media reports earlier this week, Trump praised the fight against drug addiction in Singapore, which provides for the death penalty for drug traffickers.

The president’s comments did not address health approaches, such as providing additional funding for treatment.

"It makes us all very nervous" that the US could return to a "penal approach," said Andrew Kessler, who heads Slingshot solutions consulting firm specializing in behavioral health care policies that advocate for the treatment and prevention of substance abuse. "I do not like drug dealers, but a very high percentage of people who sell drugs do this to support their own addiction."

He and other critics have said that it is better for the government to offer people with drug addiction to seek help than to imprison them.

“We did an arrest experiment to reduce the drug market, and the results failed,” said Mark Kleiman, who heads the crime and justice program at New York University's Marrone Institute for Urban Government. — Between 1980 and the present, the number of drug traffickers arrested has increased 30-fold, and the prices of heroin and cocaine have fallen by more than 90 percent. So the problem with putting drug dealers in prison is that another drug dealer will take the place of one.”

It is also unclear whether harsh sentences for drug traffickers reduce drug consumption in the country. While Singapore "did a pretty good job of reducing drug use," countries such as the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia still have "huge" problems with drugs, said Kleiman.

Trump said his administration will introduce a new policy to tackle the crisis over the next few weeks, but did not provide any details, simply stating that they would be "very, very tough."

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said this week that the Department of Justice will submit a statement of interest in legal proceedings, which includes hundreds of state and local lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors.

The Department of Justice will argue that the federal government has incurred significant costs due to an opioid epidemic and should be reimbursed by health programs and law enforcement efforts to deal with the crisis.

Cities, counties, and states seek to recover costs associated with treatment and public safety by targeting companies that they claim are using false, fraudulent, or dishonest marketing methods for opioid prescription drugs.

Sessions also reported that the federal government is exploring the possibility of initiating its own opioid lawsuits.

The federal government previously participated in numerous anti-opioid cases in court ten years ago, when companies such as Purdue Pharma, pleaded guilty to misleading regulators, doctors, and patients about the risks of addiction and drug abuse.

Lawyers and drug policy experts said they want to see follow-up actions.

Read also on ForumDaily:

Drug epidemic in the United States: who earns it

Why are so many Americans addicted to opioids

How one family made a fortune from the opioid crisis in the United States

Who is really guilty of the US opioid crisis?

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