The Trump administration is considering using the death penalty to help combat the opioid epidemic that has spread across the nation.
According to Politico, a White House plan being circulated this week includes capital punishment for certain drug dealers when people overdose on opioids.
The proposal calls for having the option of the death penalty in "certain cases where opioid, including Fentanyl-related, drug dealing and trafficking are directly responsible for death."
President Donald Trump has publicly discussed using the death penalty as a way to deal with America's opioid abuse problem. At a March 1 White House event, he said, "If you shot one person, they give you life, they give you the death penalty. [Drug dealers] can kill 2,000, 3,000 people and nothing happens to them."
More than 64,000 Americans died of opioid overdoses in 2016, which has prompted lawmakers to begin working on ways to solve the deadly problem.
Trump may announce his plan, which could include the death penalty option, as soon as next Monday during a visit to New Hampshire — a state that's been hit hard by the opioid problem.
During the aforementioned March 1 event, Trump noted that countries with a death penalty sentencing option for drug dealers "have much less of a drug problem than we do."
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