Connecticut Lawmakers Say Death Penalty For Drug Dealers Is 'Rhetoric,' Not Solution

March 20--More than 1,000 people died from drug overdoses in Connecticut last year but the state's congressional delegation is rejecting President Donald Trump's plan to tackle the problem in part by ramping up the use of the death penalty.

"It's eye-catching," Sen. Richard Blumenthal said, "but the opioid addiction epidemic is a public health crisis that requires real remedies, not just rhetoric."

Trump visited New Hampshire Monday to announce his administration's multipronged approach to tackling the country's sharp increase in overdose deaths. In a wide-ranging speech that spanned nearly 40 minutes Trump repeatedly pledged to "get tough" on dealers.

"We can have all the blue-ribbon committees we want, but if we don't get tough on drug dealers we're wasting our time," he said. "And that toughness includes the death penalty."

Rep. Elizabeth Esty said when she talks with law enforcement about the problem they talk more about the need for additional funding for addiction treatment and less about the need for stiffer penalties.

"That's not the first thing on their list," she said.

Under current law, the death penalty can be applied in relatively few drug cases, said Blumenthal, a former U.S. attorney and longtime attorney general in Connecticut.

"The decision will be for a federal judge, and the death penalty in federal court is very sparingly applied," he said. "The drug dealers will never take it seriously unless it's a real threat. The real and effective deterrent is to ... increase apprehension, which involves more resources for law enforcement."

Mark Jenkins, executive director of the Greater Hartford Harm Reduction Coalition, said he was not surprised by Trump's calls for tougher penalties for dealers but questioned whether it was simply a repeat of the so-called "war on drugs" from decades earlier.

"What difference is that approach?" he asked. "What happened to 'We can't arrest our way out of the problem?'"

Jenkins, whose organization helps train people to use the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, said Connecticut, which saw a 15.9 percent increase in drug overdose deaths from 2016 to 2017, "still has a long way to go."

A spokesman for Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said he "does not support the death penalty." Last month, Connecticut rolled out a public awareness campaign "Change the Script" aimed at cutting down on prescription drug misuse.

Since taking office, Malloy has signed a half-dozen pieces of legislation to reduce drug overdoses, ranging from expanding the availability of naloxone to improving the state's prescription monitoring program.

Sen. Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate's health committee, said there "have been too many broken promises and too much unhelpful rhetoric" when it comes to combating drug overdose deaths.

"If President Trump wants to help stem the opioid crisis, he should stop trying to gut programs like Medicaid and instead work with Congress to make real investments in recovery."

Esty and Blumenthal both accused the Trump administration of keeping funds that Congress had appropriated from making their way to prevention and treatment providers.

"A lot of that money has not made its way out into actually helping people," Esty said. "I want to see that concerted, thoughtful policy that was worked through in a bipartisan way actually be implemented. It is up to the administration to implement that."

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