MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump and opioid drug addiction (all times local):

President Donald Trump says the nation "must get tough" with drug dealers, which includes utilizing the death penalty. "Toughness is the thing that they most fear," the president said as he unveiled a long-awaited plan to combat the national scourge of opioid drug addiction. The New Hampshire event will bring both the President and first lady to the key presidential campaign state for the first time since Trump won the presidency in 2016. The president called for broadening awareness about drug addiction while expanding access to proven treatment and recovery efforts, but the backbone of his plan is to toughen the punishment for those caught trafficking highly addictive drugs. Trump calls for death penalty to 'get tough' on drug pushers

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Unveiling a long-awaited plan to combat the national scourge of opioid drug addiction, President Donald Trump called Monday for stiffer penalties for drug traffickers, including embracing a tactic employed by some of the global strongmen he admires: the death penalty. Trump also wants Congress to pass legislation reducing the amount of drugs needed to trigger mandatory minimum sentences for traffickers who knowingly distribute certain illicit opioids, said Andrew Bremberg, Trump’s domestic policy director, who briefed reporters Sunday on the plan Trump is scheduled to unveil Monday in New Hampshire, a state hard-hit by the crisis and that he once referred to as “drug infested.”

The president will be joined by first lady Melania Trump, who has shown an interest in the issue as it pertains to children. Trump has mused openly in recent weeks about subjecting drug dealers to the “ultimate penalty.”

The president told the audience at a Pennsylvania campaign rally this month that countries like Singapore have fewer issues with drug addiction because they harshly punish their dealers. I want to win this battle.”

The president formalized what he had long mused about publicly and privately: that if a person in the U.S. can get the death penalty or life in prison for shooting one person, a similar punishment should be given to a drug dealer who potentially kills thousands. “So we’re going to have to be very strong on penalties.”

White House officials referred questions about the death penalty and drug traffickers to the Justice Department, which said the federal death penalty is available for several limited drug-related offenses, including violations of the “drug kingpin” provisions in federal law. Doug Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University, said it was not clear that death sentences for drug dealers, even for those whose product causes multiple deaths, would be constitutional. Doug Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University, predicted the issue would be litigated all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Opioids, including prescription opioids, heroin and synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, killed more than 42,000 people in the U.S. in 2016, more than any other year on record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Trump administration's effort has internally been led by Conway, the President's senior aide, but has also included conversations with a series of other agencies, including the departments of Labor, Housing and Urban Development, and State. Tillerson Doesn’t Thank Trump During Speech After Being Ousted As Secretary Of State

Last October, Trump declared the crisis a national public health emergency, short of the national state of emergency sought by a presidential commission he put together to study the issue. He called for a nationwide public awareness campaign, which he announced in October, to scare children away from dabbling in drugs, and said the administration will work to cut the number of opioid prescriptions by one-third within three years.
U.S. President Donald Trump unveils his plan to combat the United States's opioid epidemic which includes harsher penalties for drug traffickers, including the death penalty.