Should drug dealers be charged with murder? States ponder

[Calista241]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by DonViejo (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: AP

Having lost his 29-year-old son to a fentanyl overdose, Dean Palozej believes dealers who peddle drugs that kill should be locked up for a very long time — for the rest of their life, in some cases.

A state representative who heard the story felt the same way. With a piece of legislation introduced this year, he joined lawmakers around the country who have been pushing for murder or manslaughter charges in a get-tough campaign against people who supply drugs that cause fatal overdoses, in efforts to curb the opioid overdose crisis.

...

Lawmakers in Connecticut, Hawaii, Mississippi and Virginia have proposed murder and manslaughter charges for overdoses this year. Several states passed such laws over the past two years, while others have taken to charging drug deaths under murder and manslaughter statutes that don’t specifically mention overdoses.

Twenty states now have so-called “drug-induced homicide” laws that carry the same sentences as murder and manslaughter, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, a nonprofit drug policy organization based in New York.

Read more: https://www.apnews.com/a5deb83c79974ff3a40188043e5a6931

[Hekate]

1. I'm down with that, as long as they start with the Sackler Family...

And I mean that.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. !!! Busting the little guys just brings out more little guys,

[ret5hd]

3. Can we expand that to law/policy makers that oppose...

funding treatment options?

What about law/policy makers that spread AIDS by opposing needle exchanges?

[LogicFirst]

4. How about this?

Parent doesn't get child vaccinated; child dies of a preventable disease. Parents charged with murder. In the case of the drug addict, the addict made the choice, but in the case of the child, the child had no say in the matter.

[cstanleytech]

5. Stiff prison sentences and laws regarding drugs have been a failure in the past to lower the drug

usage in this country so what makes them think this will accomplish anything other than stuffing crowded prisons with even more people?

[Devil Child]

6. Only if this extends to prescribing doctors and pharmaceutical companies

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

[Ponietz]

7. The elements for involuntary manslaughter are present

I agree that doctors and pharmaceutical companys should be held to the same standard.

[link:https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/involuntary-manslaughter-overview.html|

[safeinOhio]

8. I've had some experience with drugs and drug dealers

from many years ago.
Every addict is a dealer. I'd bet that 29 year old that died, had coped a dope bag for someone else.
Only the lowest on the ladder ever get caught. The importer and big time movers are lawyered up and have lots to flip.
If you never been there, you have no idea.

[bitterross]

10. Thank you.

I love how so many people who've never been close to the actual dealing and people have such certainty in their opinions. Their woefully uninformed, naive opinions based on movies and TV.

Some one suggests something like this and, all of a sudden, we turn into hard-right, "tough-on-crime," "LOCK THEM UP!" Republicans around here.

[Demsrule86]

9. I am opposed to the death penalty for any reason. And I find this idea terrible.

[DonViejo]

11. Locking...

The consensus of Forum Hosts agrees this is not LBN, but rather, an AP feature story of opinion and analysis about what might occur some day. Please post this in the General Discussions Forum