Causing death by the unlawful supply of drugs: a remodelling of criminal causation using tortious precepts

In this chapter, we objectively review criminal and civil law (focusing on the tort of negligence) causality precepts in a novel and original manner and propose de novo a new broadened offence of causing death by the unlawful supply of drugs. This will apply in bespoke circumstances where concurrent causes may apply to an unlawful killing or where a defendant has contributed in a causatively salient way to the victim’s harm(s). Liability is predicated on fair labelling precepts for a new type of homicide offence, reflecting appropriately culpability and blame standardisations, beyond inculpation ‘only’ for the supply of the drugs within the purview of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Constitutively, the offence ought to apply where an individual actor has intentionally supplied a drug where both its ingestion by the victim, and ultimately their death, are reasonably foreseeable consequences of the supply of the substance to the victim by the defendant.