There's no way drug dealers can take the blame for purchasers' overdoses. Are they supposed to hold the buyers' hands?

A new Michigan law mandating tougher sentences for drug sellers whose drugs cause people to die from an overdose was signed into legislation on Thursday. The law was passed unanimously in the state Senate and 103-4 in the state House. The bill was prompted by the death of a college student who died of an overdose four years ago.

Drug dealers would be charged with something they did not do directly. They did not force their patron to buy or take the drug.

The classic adage is buyer beware, not seller beware.

We're not condoning buying or selling drugs. Let's try and stop this by making drug dealers responsible for their clients' deaths. Shouldn't this law apply to everyone?

If we apply that logic to everyone - pharmaceutical companies, fast-food chains, drug stores and gun manufacturers - very few people and businesses would be faultless.

In an effort to be tagged as the recurrent 'good guys,' politicians, prosecutors and law officials fully back the new law, without looking at the immense double standard that many sellers of different products can indirectly cause the death of their customers.

Do we really expect drug traffickers to check up on their buyers? Will it become a new drug dealing policy to call or make a pleasant house visit, just to see if everything's OK? That's obviously not going to happen.

East Lansing police Lt. Kevin Daley described the new penalty as "amazing."

"I hope it makes somebody think twice," Daley said.

This logic is flawed: If it makes somebody think twice, is it automatically just? Thinking twice isn't enough to stop drug dealers from selling.

The act of selling drugs is already illegal, but to add more legislation that makes sellers responsible for an individual's choice is ridiculous.