Federal law allows for capital punishment in drug trafficking cases involving murder or homicide. § 3591(b)(1), lays out quantities of drugs that could trigger capital punishment even in the absence of any accompanying violent crime. Still, for the time being, a zealous federal prosecutor could seek the death penalty for certain drug traffickers on the basis of drug quantity alone. Just under 0.6 kilograms of LSD could trigger the death penalty in a federal drug trafficking case, the lowest such threshold in the statute. The quantity-based capital punishment provision is of particular concern to state-legal marijuana businesses.

Source: Washington Post March 26, 2018 18:45 UTC