Should drug dealing be considered murder? Are all drug dealers murderers? Are drugs and murder mutually inclusive? Does one always lead to the other? Let us find out.

Person A buys drugs from Person B. After he returns home, he fixes the needle, shoots it in his arm, and dies on the spot. So, who is responsible, the dealer, or the user, or maybe both? 

Would it be our moral responsibility to charge the dealer with depraved indifference murder, considering that it was his drugs that caused Person A to die? No.

The answer is the user. He is the one who bought an illegal controlled substance; he is the one who injected himself with that same drug; and he is the one who must face the consequences of his actions.

If we blame the dealer for selling him the drug, we would first have to prove that he knew that the drug was fatal and sold it anyway. The best outcome to hope for in this situation, would be “depraved indifference” and a murder in the second degree charge. But, the charge would never stick. And the family that lost their loved one to the drug, feels like they lost him or her a second time.

Why not? Why would the drug dealer not receive this charge? Consider this. You go into a pharmacy to get a prescription that your doctor gave you to take. You get it filled, take it home, take the drug, go to sleep, and never wake up. Whose fault is that? Would it be the doctor who prescribed the medication, the pharmacist for filling it, or yours for taking it?

You cannot excuse the doctor, or pharmacist, for the same result that the drug dealer got because of the methods. Methods are not an element of a crime. Intent is. Neither the dealer or doctor intended for the person to die. The dealer would lose a customer and a doctor would lose a patient.

Take, for example, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s personal choice. He decided to use heroin and prescription drugs that ultimately led to his death. Philip made a conscious decision and acted on it. The dealer, it can be argued, did not want to lose his “gravy train” and therefore had no intention of killing him. That goes the same for the pharmacist who prescribed him the medication. 

With no intention, there is no crime. Therefore, you must blame the death on the one who used. Although society would more than likely be better off without the drugs and the violence that comes with them, you cannot charge one for the crime and not another for doing the exact same thing with exception to the illegal drugs. The end result remains the same. A person is dead for taking a drug.

The best solution for this scenario, is tighter drug laws and less access to those drugs. Defend our borders against those who would bring the poison to our streets, and permanently put an end to the drug problem.