A Good Idea

 A GOOD IDEA

 

I read where Trump is proposing that drug dealers be executed.  You have to give the guy credit for coming up with a good idea once in a while.  Now, I presume he doesn’t mean pharmacists or other health professionals although I don’t believe he specified.

 

If you give, sell, donate, or otherwise transfer possession of an illegal or legal drug, say, you are technically a drug dealer.  This would apply to illegal substances as well as legal medications.  If you, for instance, have some oxycodone in the medicine cabinet and give one to a member of the family, being in excruciating pain, on your own without a prescription from a licensed physician, you are by definition a drug dealer liable to prosecution.

 

So, the question is:  Who will be put to death and who will not be put to death?  The answer to this question has significant consequences to a whole lot of people.  After all, one does not want to be put to death needlessly or for lack of a proper definition.

 

This statement by Trump comes, unfortunately,  at the waning of the war on drugs.  We have been fighting this war for several decades now and it’s not time, necessarily, that we move on to other wars, such as the war against sex.  And if you ask what the war on drugs has accomplished, it has given employment to thousands of people who otherwise would be unemployable.  Unfortunately the use of the mantra “Drugs destroy lives” has slowly ebbed.  We decided, as a nation, that in order to properly destroy lives the best way is by putting drug dealers in prison for decades and sometimes for life.  So, it is not a matter of destroying lives, but on how it is to be done.  Executing them is simply one further step in a process.

 

Of course, if you are dead, your life is destroyed by definition.  What we are talking about here is not how not to destroy lives, but on how and who is to do it.  Let’s be clear about that.  It is much better to have your life destroyed by the government than by illegal drugs. At least, having your life destroyed by the government has a purpose, to convince other people not to use or deliver illegal substances and that they are in charge, not you.  What could be clearer than that?

 

So once again, we need to give credit where credit is due and to congratulate Trump on his pronouncement that drug dealers should be executed.

 

                                             Richard E. H. Phelps II

                                             Mingo