'English Criminal law fails to deal with the drug supplier whose Essay

'English Criminal law fails to deal with the drug supplier whose client dies after voluntarily self-injecting or ingesting in a consistent and principled manner Discuss - Essay Example This is a question English criminal law seems to provide us with inconsistent answers. In some cases such as R v. Kennedy2this has been considered as unlawful act manslaughter, while in other cases, such as R v. Evans3this hasbeen considered as gross negligence manslaughter. It is however rare to have drug supplier charged with murder. According to Mitchel4, it is not possible to charge a drug supplier with murder because their actions do have the mensrea(guilty mind) needed to prove murder. The English criminal law are however clear on that the supply of drugs is unlawful act. The unlawfulness of supplying drugs is specified in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 specifies that it is an offence to be in possession of controlled drugs5; to have the controlled drugs with intention to supply it6; supplying unlawful drug7; and allowing your premise to be used for supplying drugs.8 Therefore, if someone dies from the drug supplier’s unlawful act of supplying drug, the drug supplier should be charged with unlawful act manslaughter. The criminal law on unlawful manslaughter or constructive manslaughter, requires sufficient prove of unintentionallinkbetween the supplier’s act and the death of the client for the supplier to be held liable9. Therefore, for the supplier to be held liable of manslaughter, it must be proved that the death of the drug user is attributed to the actions of the supplier10. The court needs to determine that were it not for the drug supplier’s act, the deceased could not have died (factual causation). Further to that, the court needs to prove that the act of the supplier was sufficiently significant in the death of the user(legal causation).English courts have failed to apply the principle of causation in a consistent and principled manner in most cases involving involuntary manslaughter11. It seems that, at