As a response to the opioid epidemic, Attorney General Jeff Sessions "strongly encouraged" U.S. attorneys to pursue the death penalty in applicable drug-related cases in a memo sent on Wednesday morning, saying "we cannot continue with business as usual."

Why it matters: President Trump has repeatedly suggested that drug dealers receive the death penalty, as a way to confront the U.S. opioid epidemic and "general drug crisis."

Thanks mostly to a 1994 law signed by then-President Bill Clinton during the crack cocaine epidemic, prosecutors can legally pursue the death penalty for: