CRIME/DRUGS/JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump on Thursday [3-1-18] suggested using the death penalty on drug dealers to address the opioid epidemic, equating providing lethal drugs with murder.
‘We have pushers and drugs dealers, they are killing hundreds and hundreds of people,’ Trump said at a White House summit on opioid abuse. ‘If you shoot one person, they give you life, they give you the death penalty. These people can kill 2,000, 3,000 people and nothing happens to them.’
Trump said countries that impose the death penalty on drug dealers have a better record than the United States in combating substance abuse… The remarks are likely to rankle administration critics who have urged the White House to focus on the public health component of the opioid crisis. The president’s remarks did not touch on health approaches like providing additional funding for treatment… Trump’s remarks also deviate from the tone taken by his own Surgeon General Jerome Adams earlier Thursday. At a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event on the opioid crisis, Adams talked about his brother, who is in state prison due to crimes he committed to support his addiction. He emphasized the need for the country to move toward earlier intervention and strengthening its mental health services so that drug-related crimes and prison can be avoided…
Trump also said his administration will unveil new policies to address the crisis over the next few weeks but did not provide any details, simply stating they would be ‘very, very strong.’
He expressed support for going after pharmaceutical companies and distributors that supply prescription painkillers for their role in the crisis.”
-Sarah Karlin-Smith and Brianna Ehley, “Trump suggests death penalty to stop opioid epidemic,” Politico, Mar. 1, 2018 04:58pm