President Trump just took “getting tough” to a whole new level.
The famously teetotaling President spares no good will for drug dealers, whom he views as a scourge on American society. And why shouldn’t he? The white, working-class counties that delivered the White House to Trump are currently being rattled by an opioid crisis that has claimed as many lives since 2000 as those lost in World War II.
While tens of thousands of young men and women slowly kill themselves with Fentanyl-loaded pills and needles each year, some families reap billions off the corpses. It’s a disgrace to our nation that such rampant abuse isn’t prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
President Trump is fed up too, if his private comments are to be believed. Jonathan Swan of Axios reports:
In Singapore, the death penalty is mandatory for drug trafficking offenses. And President Trump loves it. He’s been telling friends for months that the country’s policy to execute drug traffickers is the reason its drug consumption rates are so low.
“He says that a lot,” said a source who’s spoken to Trump at length about the subject. “He says, ‘When I ask the prime minister of Singapore do they have a drug problem [the prime minister replies,] ‘No. Death penalty’.”
Well it’s about damn time. Major drug dealers are usually ignored by Washington for two reasons. First, the wealthy elites like to partake in dubious substances from time to time, and want cheap, easy access to illicit material when it strikes their fancy. And second, most of the well-to-do class who live along the Potomac lack exposure to how opioids absolutely devastate rural areas in the country.
Out of sight, out of mind, outside the purview of public policy.
President Trump’s solution may be over the top, but it’s a far better proposal than the non-existent ones coming out of Congress.
What do you think of President Trump’s proposal to execute big-time drug dealers? Is it wise? Is it reckless? Tell us what you think below!
