The Trump administration plans to seek the death penalty against people trafficking in fentanyl and other opioids, where appropriate under current law, White House officials said.
The tough stance is part of President Donald Trump's strategy to combat the opioid crisis. He plans to unveil it during his March 19 trip to New Hampshire — one of the states hardest hit by the epidemic, which is killing 115 Americans per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
During a March 18 evening briefing with reporters, White House officials insisted the trip to New Hampshire was not political and was focused solely on Trump's blueprint for solving the opioid crisis.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Office of National Drug Control Policy Acting Director James Carroll will be traveling with Trump to New Hampshire, the White House confirmed.
Federal lawmakers have also been invited, although White House officials said they doubted Democrats would show up.
The officials declined to give specifics about the types of opioid trafficking crimes that would qualify for U.S. prosecutors seeking the death penalty, saying that would be left up to the U.S. Department of Justice.
But they said Trump wants criminal penalties strengthened and will call on Congress to pass legislation that would reduce the threshold amount of drugs needed to invoke mandatory minimum sentences for drug traffickers who knowingly distribute certain illicit opioids that are lethal in trace amounts.
Trump first suggested the possibility of using the death penalty during a March 1 White House opioid summit, where he said other countries employ such measures for drug traffickers.
He repeated the idea during a March 10 campaign rally in Pennsylvania, where he praised countries like Singapore for executing drug traffickers.
"They don't play games," Trump said. They have a "zero-tolerance policy" and if they "catch a drug dealer, death penalty."
Other law enforcement actions
The Justice Department plans to advance its Prescription Interdiction and Litigation, or PIL, Task Force, which was formed in late February, officials said.
The PIL task force is charged with aggressively deploying and coordinating all of the agency's available criminal and civil law enforcement capabilities. The task force has worked to stem the tide of opioid overdoses in the U.S., with a particular focus on holding drug manufacturers and distributors responsible for any unlawful practices, Attorney General Jeff Sessions told reporters in February.
Under his plan, Trump wants to better secure the nation's borders, ports of entry and waterways to keep smugglers of illicit drugs out of the U.S.
The administration wants to make it easier for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to flag high-risk packages. It wants better screening technology and drug-detecting canines to identify and inspect high-risk shipments.
Officials said the administration also plans to take new actions aimed at shutting down illicit opioid sales conducted online and seizing any related assets. They said the Justice Department plans to scale up its internet enforcement efforts under its new Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement team.
Overprescribing
The White House did not respond to questions about whether prosecutors would seek the death penalty for doctors who overprescribe fentanyl and other opioids if someone involved overdosed and died. Nor did they say if someone who profited from selling their legally prescribed opioids to a person who overdosed and died would face that penalty.
But they said the Justice Department would expand its Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit's efforts to prosecute corrupt or criminally negligent doctors, pharmacies and distributors.
Trump's strategy calls for taking certain actions intended to prevent overprescribing, including implementing a "Safer Prescribing Plan" that seeks to cut the nationwide prescription fills of those medicines by one-third within three years.
The White House said the program would aim to ensure that 75% of opioid prescriptions reimbursed by federal healthcare programs are issued using best practices within three years, with 95% within five years.
In addition, at least half of all federally employed healthcare providers would be required to adopt best practices for opioid prescribing within two years, with all of them doing so within five years.
The White House said Trump also wants states to leverage federal funding opportunities to transition to a national prescription drug monitoring program network.
Providing better treatment
The administration also plans to up the nation's efforts on treating addiction, like ensuring access to treatment facilities and medication-assisted therapies.
In addition, officials said the White House will work to ensure first responders are supplied with the opioid overdose-reversal agent naloxone.
But officials insisted that there was no need currently to pursue new legislation or actions to force drugmakers to lower the costs of naloxone — arguing many communities are already "pooling their market power" to gain lower prices.
They also noted that the National Institutes of Health has been working on a public-private partnership since May 2017 to accelerate the development of nonaddictive alternatives to opioids and better overdose-reversal agents.
But a White House spokesman confirmed to S&P Global Market Intelligence that no biopharmaceutical companies have officially signed on as collaborators.
