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[–] ArsCortica ago 

To be fair, it's not like people who deal in hard drugs (say, heroin) are oblivious to the fact that a good number of their costumers will be driven to a very untimely death by them (and perhaps live under miserable conditions beforehand).

Naturally, you could counter this by arguing that the Tobacco and, perhaps to a lesser extend, the alcohol industry are not much better, but I think the strength of the addiction caused by a drug should be taken into consideration here.

As for the death penalty - I think it is fairly pointless, in that reducing the number of dealers only increases the demand on the black market and thus also the prices, making drug trafficking more attractive for new dealers. A more reasonable approach would be to a) decrease the demand for drugs via educational and medical programs, and b) kill the problem at its roots by targeting the drug barons for whom the traders are nothing more than another form of disposable income anyway.

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[–] Copernicus ago  (edited ago)

But you're thinking if the death penalty as some kind of deterrent. I don't see it that way. People will always commit crimes because people get irrational. Putting people in jail certainly doesn't work as a deterrent for other people, and neither would the death penalty. But as a punishment for a particular crime (I.e. intentional murder) it works beautifully.

But we should be tackling the drug problem from every angle. From the users right up to the drug lords.

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[–] ArsCortica ago 

I think we're having a bit of miscommunication here - I don't support the death penalty in this case - as I laid out, it's pointless in that it only increases drug prices and hence the attractiveness of drug dealing for potential criminals.