A Catholic group has voiced its opposition against President Donald Trump's plan in curbing the drug crisis in the United States after Attorney General Jeff Sessions released a memo urging federal persecutors to seek the death penalty for drug dealers.
The Catholic Mobilizing Network, through its managing director Krisanne Murphy, released a statement to call out the move. The group believes in restorative justice and shuns the death penalty since it is a "flawed and broken system."
"Suggesting the death penalty as a solution to the opioid epidemic is simply a distraction from dealing with the real problem," Murphy told the Catholic News Agency. She insisted that the drug crisis should be addressed as a public health crisis.
U.S. laws on death penalty for drug cases have existed since 1994. Sessions actually listed the statutes that qualify for capital punishment in his memo to federal persecutors.
There are, however, specific procedures that must be followed in every particular drug case to determine if it is punishable by death, hence past administrations have not pursued grounds and charges in this direction, according to the Justice Department. Usually, prosecutors seek the death penalty for drug charges only if they are tied to a murder case but the last execution of a drug trafficker linked to murder happened 15 years ago.
Over 64,000 Americans overdosed and died due to drug use in 2016 and it remains one of the leading causes of death for those below 50 years old, according to the CDC. Drugs have also found their way into the hands of children as young as 12 years old and the opioid crisis has worsened since a number of users also move on to heroin as their addiction worsens.
The government views drug dealers as contributors to this deadly epidemic. Like the Catholic Mobilizing Network, however, reform and human rights activist groups believe that capital punishment would be the wrong response in dealing with the war on drugs.
