Donald Trump called on Monday for some drug dealers to receive the death penalty in a new opioids policy rollout in New Hampshire, a state hard hit by the national crisis.
“We’re wasting our time if we don’t get tough with drug dealers, and that toughness includes the death penalty,” said Trump in typically combative style.
He later added: “The ultimate penalty has to be the death penalty. Maybe our country is not ready for that, it’s possible, it’s possible.” Trump said “personally I can’t understand that” about those opposed to such drastic measures.
Some states already charge drug dealers with murder if customers overdose. In Florida, people who provide cocaine, heroin or the powerful opioid fentanyl to a person who dies from using the drug in question can be charged with first-degree murder and sentenced to either life in prison or death.
Drug-induced homicide laws, which emerged in the 1980s, are being used more frequently because of the opioids crisis, according to a November 2017 report by the Drug Policy Alliance. However, there is no evidence that such laws reduce drug use.
On Monday Trump was effectively sending a message to prosecutors to be harsher on drug dealers, who traffic in street drugs like heroin as well as black market prescription painkillers, such as OxyContin, and various versions of the potent narcotic fentanyl. But he did not call specifically for legislation to expand use of the death penalty for federal drug crimes.
The justice department said the federal death penalty is already available for limited drug-related offenses, including violations of the “drug kingpin” provisions of federal law.
The attorney general, Jeff Sessions, attended the event on Monday and sat next to Melania Trump. The DoJ later issued a statement, saying: “At the Department of Justice, we have made ending the drug epidemic a priority. We will continue to aggressively prosecute drug traffickers and we will use federal law to seek the death penalty wherever appropriate.”
Doug Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University, said it was not clear federal death sentences for drug dealers, even for those whose product causes multiple deaths, would be constitutional. Berman said the issue would be litigated extensively and would have to be definitively decided by the supreme court.
New Hampshire has been hit hard by the opioid crisis, a fact Trump acknowledged last August when he said: “We have the drug lords in Mexico that are knocking the hell out of our country. They are sending drugs to Chicago, Los Angeles, and to New York. Up in New Hampshire – I won New Hampshire because New Hampshire is a drug-infested den – [it] is coming from the southern border.”
The comment caused offence in the state, with the Democratic senator Maggie Hassan responding: “Instead of insulting people in the throes of addiction, [Trump] needs to work across party lines to actually stem the tide of this crisis.”
Though Trump is visiting to lobby for harsher sentencing for opioid-related crimes, New Hampshire is one of many states now pushing criminal justice reform.
On Monday, the state judiciary announced it would review bail policies, after nationwide criticism of courts that serve as de facto debtor’s prisons for people too poor to pay bail.
In 2012, substance use disorders such as opioid dependence cost New Hampshire $284m in criminal justice costs. More than half of jail and prison costs in the state are attributed to drug abuse, according to a report by the advocacy group New Futures. Nationally, 76% of inmates are believed to have substance use disorders, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Trump, who aims to be seen as tough on crime, has repeatedly highlighted his preference for the “ultimate penalty” for drug dealers.
At a Pennsylvania rally this month, Trump told supporters countries like Singapore have fewer issues with drug addiction because they harshly punish dealers. He argued that a person in the US can get the death penalty or life in prison for shooting one person, but a drug dealer who potentially kills thousands can spend little or no time in jail.
“The only way to solve the drug problem is through toughness,” Trump said in remarks he echoed on Monday.
Trump also wants Congress to pass legislation reducing the amount of drugs needed to trigger mandatory minimum sentences for traffickers who knowingly distribute certain opioids, said Andrew Bremberg, Trump’s domestic policy director, who briefed reporters on the White House plan.
The president was joined in New Hampshire by the first lady, Melania Trump, who has shown an interest in the issue, particularly as it pertains to her focus on child welfare.
Trump’s plan concerns law enforcement and interdiction to break the international and domestic flow of drugs into and across the US. It also includes broadening education and awareness, expanding access to treatment and recovery efforts and government funding for efforts to develop non-addictive painkillers. He also said that the Department of Justice was “looking very seriously into bringing major litigation against some of these drug companies.” Leading opioids makers in the US are already engulfed in a flurry of civil litigation brought by cities, counties and states.
Opioids, including prescription opioids, heroin and synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, killed more than 42,000 people in the US in 2016, more than any year on record, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Q&AWhy is there an opioid crisis in America?
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Almost 100 people are dying every day across America from opioid overdoses – more than car crashes and shootings combined. The majority of these fatalities reveal widespread addiction to powerful prescription painkillers. The crisis unfolded in the mid-90s when the US pharmaceutical industry began marketing legal narcotics, particularly OxyContin, to treat everyday pain. This slow-release opioid was vigorously promoted to doctors and, amid lax regulation and slick sales tactics, people were assured it was safe. But the drug was akin to luxury morphine, doled out like super aspirin, and highly addictive. What resulted was a commercial triumph and a public health tragedy. Belated efforts to rein in distribution fueled a resurgence of heroin and the emergence of a deadly, black market version of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. The crisis is so deep because it affects all races, regions and incomes
“We call it the crisis next door because everyone knows someone,” said Kellyanne Conway, a senior Trump adviser. “This is no longer somebody else’s community, somebody else’s kid, somebody else’s co-worker.”
- The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report