What's the Leading Cause of Death of Americans in the Prime of Their Lives?

Fentanyl. But we wouldn't want to be too tough on pushers or anything.

The Washington Post has a story by longtime liberal columnist Courtland Milloy that displays pretty much everything that’s wrong with the soft-on-crime approach to our epidemic of drug overdose deaths.

Look, I understand the impulse to want to give people a second chance. What I don’t understand is indulging that impulse without ever asking, “Second chance to do what?” This would be true in any event, but is overwhelmingly true when we know that the recidivism rate for drug offenders is over three-quarters.

Here’s how the Post story begins.

At age 47, Andrew Cooper is facing up to 20 years in prison for distributing fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid that is driving record-high drug overdose deaths in the United States. Cooper, a D.C. resident, admitted selling fentanyl to a man and woman who would drive in from Virginia to buy the pills, and he acknowledged that the man overdosed and died in 2021 after consuming the drug Cooper had provided.

He sold a drug knowing it was more lethal than rat poison, but hey, look, everybody’s got to bring home the bacon.

Do any of these people think of getting a normal job?

Cooper was not charged with the man’s death, but his admission of culpability was part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors that helped him avoid a longer prison term.

One might ask why prosecutors wanted to play a role in helping Cooper avoid a longer term. Given Cooper’s record (see below) and the fact that death resulted, you might think that prosecutors would seek the longest term available for any readily provable offense. But then again, this is Merrick Garland’s Justice Department; all the real starch is reserved for the January 6 defendants (and now maybe George Santos).

At his sentencing hearing in D.C. federal court Monday, Cooper appeared to be having second thoughts about the deal. “He is uncomfortable,” his attorney Brian K. McDaniel told U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta. “He’s been thinking long and hard about how to go forward.”

Mehta agreed to reschedule the hearing for late June, adding that he would also be thinking about the kind of sentence that would be appropriate for such a case.

As I noted in my entry about plea bargaining, the plea will not go forward if the defendant shows any hesitation with the deal, even if there’s no doubt that he did what the factual statement supporting the bargain says he did. The real source of hesitation at the plea-taking proceeding is not that the prosecutor has “overcharged” the case or is alleging something the defendant didn’t do. It’s simpler than that: The defendant gets cold feet faced with the imminent prospect of heading to the slammer.

Here’s the news you don’t hear about on Oprah (emphasis added):

Fentanyl, a powerful painkiller, is at the center of the deadliest drug epidemic in American history [and] is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 49, according to a Washington Post analysis of death data for 2021 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention….

Jail time is often meted out in the name of public safety, although the public rarely has a direct say in how long and for what purpose.

Of course, the public virtually never has a direct say in sentencing (and liberals would be plenty unhappy if it did). Sentencing is done by judges within ranges set by statute, often refined in federal and state practice by sentencing commissions. The people who write those statutes and sit on those commissions are, however, determined with plenty of public input, some direct and some indirect.

In recommending that Cooper spend 20 years behind bars, the office of Matthew M. Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District, wrote, “A severe sentence is designed to deter others from making the same choice [Cooper] did and will hopefully mean fewer people end up like” the person who overdosed and died.

No doubt many will agree.

One would hope. But it’s the Washington Post, so it’s time for the Parade of Mush.

But in addition to the retributive intent of putting someone in prison, Graves also cites rehabilitative goals. The recommended sentence would also give Cooper “ample time to pursue further educational and vocational training and participate in other programs that will hopefully break the cycle of his reoffending.”

Returning from prison with a skill and a job would be a socioeconomic boost for both urban and rural America. But does anybody really believe it takes 20 years to learn a trade?

Does anybody really believe a man 47 years old hasn’t had time to learn a trade if he wanted to? So maybe it’s worth asking whether Mr. Cooper has an interest in learning a trade now — or ever.

Pretty far down in the story, we get a clue.

He was 18 when arrested the first time. There have been many more busts since.

“To be sure, the Defendant had a relatively difficult upbringing,” the U.S. attorney’s sentencing memorandum stated. “He grew up in a single-parent home with no siblings and reported feelings of neglect.”

Hey wait a minute! Haven’t we stuffed shirt conservatives been lectured at least since the 1960’s that single parenting is just “an alternative lifestyle” and that we shouldn’t be such Puritanical white supremacists about it?

The report credited Cooper with trying to make better choices, noting that he had completed some classes and held some jobs during earlier stints in prison. He had obtained his GED.

Translation: He had his chances to right the ship — about 30 years’ worth of chances — but preferred drug dealing. And this is our fault?

“Nevertheless, after spending more than ten years in prison, he returned to trafficking drugs at the age of 37. He spent still more time in prison, and then escalated his conduct to dealing fentanyl,” it said.

A federal drug task force recovered more than $100,000 from Cooper’s house and financial account. Law enforcement officials also discovered a video in which Cooper films a large pile of cash, which he picks up and shows to the camera. He is described as looking proud in the video and declares that he has “Tesla money.”

In a three-month period, in 2021, he titled a Tesla in his name and bought a $600,000 house with a $60,000 down payment.

So now it comes out. The problem is not Cooper’s difficult upbringing (which ended decades ago). The problem is not that the system didn’t give him a chance (it gave him plenty — too many actually, and now someone is dead). The problem isn’t sociology or racism or class structure. The main problem is greed. The subsidiary problem is the Left’s obdurate refusal to see the main problem and blame everyone for crime but the criminal. Hence Mr. Milloy’s story continues:

The prison system that had him under lock and key for more than 10 years failed in its mission to rehabilitate.

We do know, from experience, that we can’t arrest our way out of this lethal epidemic.

Even Singapore, which executes drug traffickers, can’t stop the supply if there’s a demand.

That means drug prevention and treatment will be critical.

The problem with this take on things is not that it’s complete hogwash. It’s true that we can’t entirely arrest our way out of our drug problem. It’s also true that, given the stakes, prevention and treatment are worth trying, even for all their failures and limited effectiveness. The problem, in a nutshell, is that it views the criminal as the passive vessel of adverse social forces without will or direction, and thus without responsibility for his behavior. As long as the people running our justice system operate from that belief, we’ll continue to get the backlog at the morgue we’re getting now.