Executions Advocated For Drug Smugglers

House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday he plans to introduce legislation requiring a mandatory death sentence for drug smugglers.

“We’re tough enough and we love our children enough that we will do what it takes,” he told a crowd of about 500 at a breakfast fund-raiser for U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth. “We are sick of watching our children be destroyed so other people can get rich.”

Gingrich said he plans to introduce the bill in the House, and “Trent Lott tells me he will introduce (it) in the Senate.”

Lott, the Senate majority leader, was traveling Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

Gingrich said under his bill, “If you cross the American border with a commercial quantity of drugs, and the jury is convinced you’re an amateur, first-time offender, you will get life without parole.

“If the jury is convinced you are a professional narcotics trafficker who has made his living by destroying our children, you will get a mandatory death penalty.”

The crowd of Chenoweth supporters jumped to its feet and gave Gingrich a standing ovation.

Gingrich blamed the Clinton Administration for an increase in drug use by youngsters, after the president “made a joke out of inhaling.”

“Now you have today twice as many teenagers doing drugs as under George Bush,” Gingrich thundered.

He said Republicans want to “break the back of the drug trade.”

Jim Whitney, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said of Gingrich’s comments, “This is more evidence that there’s no issue that Newt Gingrich won’t demagogue on for political gain.”

Without seeing Gingrich’s bill, Whitney said, “It certainly seems to be a fairly transparent effort to score political gain in light of the recent drug figures.”

“It’s not surprising,” Whitney said. “Gingrich has gotten more personal, more bitter as this election year has progressed. They can’t go to the voters with their record, so what they’ve decided to do is to launch into personal, very divisive attacks, and this appears to be one more example of that.”

Spokesmen for the White House and for Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate declined to comment on Gingrich’s proposal without seeing the legislation.

, DataTimes