Drug-Induced Homicide

A criminal charge, applied under a growing number of United States state statutes since the 2010s amid the opioid overdose crisis, that holds a person who supplies a controlled substance criminally responsible for a resulting fatal overdose, prosecuted under a dedicated drug-induced homicide or drug delivery resulting in death statute, or in some states under an existing felony murder or manslaughter provision applied to a drug-supply fact pattern. Prosecutors have applied the charge most often against a drug dealer who sold the fatal dose, though civil liberties organizations and some public health researchers have documented cases brought against a friend, family member or fellow user who shared or procured the drug for a person who then died. Advocacy organizations including the Drug Policy Alliance track the spread of these statutes and have argued they can conflict with a separate, more widely adopted public health strategy of Good Samaritan overdose laws, which grant limited immunity to a caller who reports an overdose in order to encourage bystanders to seek emergency help.