This is unbelievable: Trump To Seek Death Penalty For Some Drug Traffickers In Plan To Eliminate Opioid Crisis - Risingsuntv

The White House announced Sunday that it intends to seek
the death penalty for certain drug traffickers "where
appropriate under the law" in a bid to slow down the
country's opioid epidemic.


The White House also said that President Trump would call
on Congress to pass legislation lowering the amount of
drugs that would invoke mandatory minimum sentences for
traffickers.

Trump was expected to formally announce the plan on
Monday during a visit to New Hampshire. He will be
accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, who has shown
an interest in the issue, particularly as it pertains to children.


The president had promised to make fighting the drug crisis
a priority during the campaign. At a rally in Pennsylvania
last weekend, Trump suggested mandating the death
penalty for drug dealers in the United States and claimed the
American justice system was too soft on traffickers.

"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. And they don’t even put you in jail," Trump said at the
time. "That's why we have a problem, folks. I don't think we
should play games."


Trump made similar comments at a recent White House
summit on opioids. "Some countries have a very, very tough
penalty -- the ultimate penalty. And, by the way, they have
much less of a drug problem than we do," Trump said. "So
we're going to have to be very strong on penalties."
The Justice Department said the federal death penalty is
available for several limited drug-related offenses, including
violations of the "drug kingpin" provisions of federal law.

The White House plan amounts to a three-pronged attack on
the opioid crisis: bolstering law enforcement against
smuggling and trafficking, building up a campaign to
educate Americans about the dangers of opioid abuse and
over-prescription and improving funding for treatment
through the federal government.


The plan's objectives include reducing opioid prescriptions
by one-third within three years and ensuring that all
government healthcare providers adopt best practices for
prescribing such drugs within five years. The White House
has also called for increased research and development
through public-private partnerships between the federal
National Institutes of Health and pharmaceutical
companies.


Opioids, including prescription opioids, heroin and synthetic
drugs such as fentanyl, killed more than 42,000 people in
the U.S. in 2016, more than any year on record, according to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trump has
declared that fighting the epidemic is a priority for the
administration but critics say the effort has fallen short.

Last October, Trump declared the crisis a national public
health emergency, short of the national state of emergency
sought by a presidential commission he put together to
study the issue.

"We call it the crisis next door because everyone knows
someone," said Kellyanne Conway, a Trump senior adviser.

"This is no longer somebody else's community, somebody
else's kid, somebody else's co-worker."