Trump to Propose Executing Drug Dealers

By Paige Winfield Cunningham, The Washington Post

19 March 18

 

resident Trump today will emphasize that the death penalty can be extended to drug dealers. But compared to his tough talk about executing a class of people he seems to view as street thugs, the president's proposal aimed at curbing the opioid epidemic is a little less than it seems.

On a visit to New Hampshire, one of the states hardest-hit by opioid addiction and overdose, Trump will officially propose that his Justice Department pursue stiffer penalties — including capital punishment — for traffickers when appropriate under the law.

That last part is important as the administration had been considering making trafficking in even small doses of fentanyl -- a deadly synthetic opioid -- a capital offense. But instead, Trump is urging more aggressive prosecution of drug dealers, and only seeking the death penalty when it's already available.

U.S. law allows for the death penalty to be applied in four types of drug-related cases, according to the Death Penalty Information Center: murder committed during a drug-related drive-by shooting, murder committed with the use of a firearm during a drug-trafficking crime, murder related to drug trafficking and murder of a law-enforcement officer that relates to drugs.

The measures are part of a three-pronged approach to fighting opioid abuse and overdose the White House rolled out last night. It's aimed at reducing the demand for opioids by slowing overprescribing, cutting off the supply of illicit drugs and helping those who are addicted, my colleague Katie Zezima reports.

“The opioid crisis is viewed by us at the White House as a nonpartisan problem searching for a bipartisan solution,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told reporters.

For weeks, whenever the president mentioned opioid abuse, he has praised the leaders of countries where people are executed for drug crimes, or even shot in cold blood. Exhibit A: Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, whose brutal campaign to crack down on illicit drug has resulted in the deaths of more than 12,000 people without due process, as police and hired guns have slaughtered suspected users and distributors on the streets and in their homes.

Trump applauded Duterte last spring for doing an “unbelievable job” in combating the illegal drug trade, and after meeting with Duterte in November he said the two have a “great relationship.” Last month, Axios’s Jonathan Swan reported that Trump often compares drug dealers to serial killers and advocates they get the death sentence, as in the Philippines and a handful of other countries mostly in Asia and the Middle East.

And a week ago, at a political rally in Pennsylvania, the president again suggested the United States should join the handful of other countries in allowing capital punishment for drug crimes.

“You kill 5,000 people with drugs because you’re smuggling them in, and you are making a lot of money and people are dying,” Trump said, prompting cheers from the gathered crowd. “And they don’t even put you in jail. That’s why we have a problem, folks. I don’t think we should play games.”

Trump's “tough guy” stance stood in stark contrast to the more measured approach preferred by some of his top administrators, such as Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. Azar has gone out of his way to stress better treatment as key to quashing the epidemic.

The United States is one of 32 countries with death penalty laws for drug offenses, but only seven nations actually conduct executions routinely, according to a March report from Harm Reduction International. They include Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Malaysia, as well as China and Singapore, two countries Trump also referred to as examples of ways he thinks the United States should approach the issue.

(The Philippines doesn’t actually allow the death penalty for drug crimes, but executions are being carried out ad hoc under Duterte as noted above.)

Ashok Kumar, Singapore’s U.S. ambassador, argued in a recent letter to The Washington Post that his country is one of the few that have kept drug abuse under control through its “clearheaded approach,” which includes education, rehab programs — and stiff penalties.

But experts in drug law say there’s no evidence that capital punishment on its own reduces dealing or drug use -- and it could even worsen the behavior. The most likely scenario is that lower-level operators, such as drug runners, would be caught and executed while organized criminal leaders remained free to carry on their activities, Georgetown Law professor Larry Gostin told me.

“In the case of trafficking, the economic rewards are so lucrative and the supply networks so sophisticated that, in my view, it would provide no deterrent to organized crime,” Gostin said.

Iran, for example, has one of the highest addiction rates in the world. According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, 2.2 million people — nearly 3 percent of the population — are hooked on drugs. Yet Iran also carries out more executions per capita for drug offenses than any other country, with 242 people executed last year, according to HRI.

Columbia University law professor Jeffrey Fagan also said he sees no scientific evidence that executing drug dealers deters dealing or drug use. “It’s not a smart policy, even if it has some emotional appeal,” Fagan told me.

But it’s well known that Trump acts — and speaks — from his gut, not necessarily because he believes there’s evidence to support his views. From his own blunt rhetoric, he has made clear he admires the same trait in other world leaders, even leaders such as Duterte who show a blatant disregard for human rights.

Duterte announced Wednesday that he's withdrawing the Philippines from the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court, which is looking into his violent campaign to determine whether it justifies an official investigation into charges of crimes against humanity. Duterte said the decision to withdraw was because of “baseless, unprecedented and outrageous attacks” by U.N. officials and an attempt by the ICC prosecutor to seek jurisdiction “in violation of due process and presumption of innocence.”

And last year, Duterte said this: “Hitler massacred 3 million Jews. There are 3 million drug addicts. I'd be happy to slaughter them ... You destroy my country, I kill you. It's a legitimate thing. If you destroy our young children, I will kill you.”