President Donald Trump spoke out against the opioid crisis this past week in New Hampshire, proposing a very controversial solution to the problem: the death penalty.
The president spoke to the audience in Manchester, New Hampshire, lambasting softer measures to curb the growing drug epidemic. “If we don’t get tough on the drug dealers, we are wasting our time, and that toughness includes the death penalty,” Trump said.
Trump continued by talking about the deaths drug dealers cause, stating that some drug dealers kill thousands in their lifetime but are never adequately punished for the deaths they caused. He prefaced his use of the death penalty slightly, claiming the punishments would only target the “big pushers, the ones who are really killing people.”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a Trump appointee who has continually vexed the president throughout the first year of his presidency, stood with the president on the issue. Sessions sat in the audience during the speech and provided his support in the following interviews with a commitment to “seek the death penalty wherever appropriate.”
The speech, however, drew the ire of many public groups and figures. For instance, the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Office, Jesselyn McCurdy, called the speech absurd. “Drug trafficking is not an offense for which someone can receive the death penalty,” McCurdy said.
The vitriol surrounding Trump’s latest speech against the drug epidemic also diminishes the focus on the issue at hand.
In the latest recorded data, over 60,000 Americans died from drug overdose in 2016. The number at the turn of the century fell at a comparatively meager 15,000. Meanwhile, new drugs have taken the market by storm and are wreaking havoc on America’s populace. The drug Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, has proven remarkably lethal. In 2016 alone, the drug killed 20,000 people, a remarkable 540 percent increase in the last three years.
Given the increasing threat of drugs to our nation, the president’s response to the situation is critical. However, beyond the death penalty, a legal inviability, the president offered little else to curb the epidemic.
The president offered no new funding beyond the inadequate six billion dollar two-year program already moving through Congress. He also attempted to link the drug increases to immigration in order to spur funding for his border wall.
The president offered a solution nearly guaranteed to make headlines, but the political feasibility of the death penalty for drug dealers is questionable. As the drug epidemic continues to grow, the president’s next calls to action will prove critical. Until change comes, the drugs ravaging the country will only grow more fearsome.
Cassidy Sorenson • Mar 29, 2018 at 8:16 am
Although harsher punishments for drug dealers should be implemented, I believe that the death penalty is excessive. Well written article, and very informative.