President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested using the death penalty on drug dealers to address the opioid epidemic.
“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.”
“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,” he said.
Addressing the group Thursday, which included Attorney General Jeff Sessions as well as families and individuals affected by the opioid epidemic, Trump promised action from his administration “over the next three weeks.”
He also said that he’d spoken to “Jeff” about wanting to bring lawsuits against some opioid manufacturers, saying the companies were responsible for killing thousands of people, but had not been punished for it.
They’re killing thousands. If a drug pusher shoots a few thousand people they’d get the death penalty. So, why not? I say go for it.