President Trump on Monday railed against drug dealers responsible for the deadly opioid epidemic that has devastated the United States — vowing “tough action,” including the death penalty for some dealers.
“We have to get tough on those people because we can have all the blue ribbon committees we want, but if we don’t get tough on the drug dealers, we are wasting our time. Just remember that. We’re wasting our time. [And] that toughness includes the death penalty,” Trump told a crowd at Manchester Community College in New Hampshire.
The Granite State ranks third per capita — behind West Virginia and Ohio — in drug overdose deaths, and Trump focused on the state’s woes repeatedly during his campaign as a symbol of the national scourge.
The president called for better education to prevent addiction, expanding access to treatment, preventing drugs from entering the country and encouraging pharmaceutical companies to develop non-addictive painkillers.
But the heart of his plan was to crack down on those who profit from the misery of others by dealing addictive drugs.
“This isn’t about nice anymore,” Trump told the supportive crowd of several hundred, including families who had lost loved ones to opiates.
“This is about winning a very, very tough problem, and if we don’t get very tough on these dealers, it’s not going to happen, folks. I want to win this battle. I love tough guys.”
The president also suggested public service commercials that would scare people away from addictive drugs — and unveiled a video, “Opioids: The Crisis Next Door,” that provided information and invited those affected by the crisis to share their stories.
“This is something that I have been very strongly in favor of, spending a lot of money on great commercials . . . so that kids seeing those on television shows or on the Internet, when they see these commercials, they say, ‘I don’t want any part of it,’ ” he said.
“That’s the least expensive thing we can do, where you scare them from ending up like the people in the commercials and we’ll make them very, very bad commercials.”
The president at one point veered off into politics, claiming that “90 percent” of the heroin in the US comes across the southern border — and castigated Democrats for opposing his border wall.
“Eventually the Democrats will agree with us and will build the wall to keep the damn drugs out,” he said.
Trump also alluded to draconian methods some countries used to fight illegal drugs.
“If you look at other countries, I’ve gotten to know the leaders of many countries. And I won’t mention names, but you know the countries I’m talking about,” he said, referring to China and the Philippines, where drug dealers can be executed and countries whose policies Trump has praised in the past.
“I think unless you do that, unless you have really, really powerful penalty, the death penalty for the really bad pushers and abusers, we are going to get nowhere, and I’m telling you, we are going to get somewhere.”
Meanwhile, Mayor de Blasio upped the city’s commitment to battling the opioid epidemic from $38 million to $60 million annually, with full-funding starting in 2020.
“The goal is simple: save as many lives as humanly possible,” the mayor said at Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island.
The funding includes $5 million to hire 29 additional health professionals to respond to overdose calls with offers of support and other post-incident services.
Opioids, including prescription opioids, heroin and synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, killed more than 42,000 people in the US in 2016, more than any other year on record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Additional reporting by Yoav Gonen
