A federal court rethinks the practice of punishing drug use as murder
brown wooden chess piece on brown book
A woman who bought heroin with her sister and a friend, who suffered a fatal overdose on the drug later that night, is not a murderer, according to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. That was the June 1 ruling in
USA v. Semler, a case that may not set binding precedent, but does send a signal to the prosecutors and the judiciary that the federal courts do not want to see a federal law aimed at so-called drug kingpins applied to mere drug users.