Never forget: punishment must be unusual or else it serves no purpose.
In 2017, 64,000 people -
overwhelming white - died of drug overdoses in America, a horrifying problem President Trump has promised to address. Well, he's coming out swinging against drug dealers, suggesting the death penalty for those convicted of peddling drugs and
aiding in the deaths of thousands of Americans each year:
President Donald Trump on Thursday 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.
"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.
The remarks follow media reports earlier this week that Trump has privately praised countries like Singapore that mandate the death penalty for drug traffickers, arguing a softer approach to substance abuse won't be successful.
This is the type of leadership we need from President Trump, who is putting America lives first and suggesting those drug dealers who promote death are the true enemies the government of the United States must punish.
Put American lives, President Trump.
