Trump to call for death penalty for drug dealers, says MSNBC

Imitating Duterte, whose methods he has praised, the Duce probably only regrets he can't run death squads like those in the Philippines.

His White House has already repealed Obama regulations aimed at shrinking the vast over-supply of opioids that feeds the epidemic and that the drug companies prosper by.

Update, 3/21/18, 1058 hrs EDT.

Trump’s Bluster on the Opioid Epidemic

The president went on at length about his preposterous proposal to fight the scourge of drugs by executing drug dealers — an idea that many experts say would not stand up in court and would do little to end this epidemic. 

He also reprised his cockamamie idea to build a wall along the nation’s southern border, arguing that it would “keep the damn drugs out,” and accused so-called sanctuary cities of releasing “illegal immigrants and drug dealers, traffickers and gang members back into our communities.”

It was Mr. Trump playing his greatest “law and order” hits — as usual, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.

Mr. Trump seems so enamored with autocrats and strongmen that he wants the United States to imitate governments like China and the Philippines by executing drug dealers, claiming such countries “don’t have a drug problem” because of their brutality. 

This is patently absurd. 

While it is hard to analyze the experience of many of these countries because they do not collect and publish reliable data about substance use, experts say it is clear that they have not eliminated drug abuse or the crime that often accompanies it. 

More broadly speaking, many scholars have concluded that there is no good evidence that capital punishment deters crime.

It's not about deterrence but prevention.

Dead men don't resume dealing.

Dealers completing prison terms often do.

Which is not to say . . . .