‘Punishing death dealers’: examining claims to expand the death penalty to people who deal drugs

In 1988, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act authorized the use of the death penalty for individuals who committed murder while involved in certain federal drug crimes. In recent years, as America has grappled with rising opioid overdose deaths, there has been an increase in calls for expanding murder charges and capital punishment for individuals who deliver drugs that result in an overdose death. Utilizing content analysis of news media and presidential speeches, this paper explores the claims-making process surrounding the arguments in favor of sentencing people who deal drugs to death during the 1980s and the contemporary opioid crisis. Findings demonstrate that three rhetorical tactics were employed during the Reagan and Trump Administrations to garner support for this practice: focusing on intent and impact of drug dealing, engaging in the argumentative fallacy of appealing to emotion, and utilizing racial scapegoating. Such claims seek to widen the definition of murder, in turn broadening the criminalization of people who use drugs. Such an approach may increase the number of overdose deaths by undermining Good Samaritan Laws and impacting the likelihood that users will contact emergency services during an overdose event, thus undermining the purported intent of these policies to reduce overdose deaths.