Laws passed to target drug dealers, so-called “drug delivery resulting in death” laws, are being abused to persecute drug users who did nothing more than share a substance with someone else, often a loved one, that posed an equal risk to both parties. It doesn’t matter if the defendant was present, or even if they took life-saving measures; all that matters is that they supplied a drug that killed someone.
Why is this happening?
Maybe, some proponents think, removing a user from a community will reduce the flow of drugs, according to a New York Times piece that investigated the practice. Others adhere to the eye-for-an-eye school of justice. One prosecutor compared it to charging a driver responsible for a fatal collision.
This isn’t an isolated practice.
In 15 states where data was available, The New York Times found more than 1,000 prosecutions or arrests in accidental overdose deaths since 2015. Between 2015 and 2017, the number of cases nearly doubled. Dozens more cases were documented in news reports. In all, overdose prosecutions were found in 36 states, with charges ranging from involuntary manslaughter to first-degree murder.
Rather than treatment, friends, siblings, and partners, themselves addicted and in mourning, receive harsh sentences.
Many of those convicted are serving hard time: A Long Island woman whose best friend texted her from a business trip asking for heroin was sentenced to six years after he died taking the drugs she sent him. A former pipe fitter in Minnesota who shot speedballs with a mother of three got 11 years. A Louisiana man who injected his fiancée — both were addicted, his lawyer said — got life without parole.
In at least one case, the defendant didn’t even intend to provide the drug at fault, fentanyl: He’d bought what he thought was Adderall for his girlfriend. After being charged, he committed suicide.
Drug delivery laws date to the 1980s; their purpose was to hold drug dealers accountable. But some states, now comfortable using these laws against users who share drugs, are passing new versions of the law with that use in mind.
These laws don’t make sense. It’s $33,000 per year on average to imprison someone who may well leave prison with not only the same addiction but a heightened risk of committing a crime. Meanwhile it’s $5,000 to $7,000 to treat addiction with methadone. Even prosecutors who pursue these charges avidly recognize that they have no deterrent effect and they’re not leading to high-level drug dealers.
Then there’s human decency. That, too, would counsel against injudicious overdose prosecutions.