I completely disagree with you. Think how many lives he destroyed by hooking people to cocaine. I have a friend who became a cocaine addict by falling for a nice guy who turned out to be dealer. She's still struggling, but she'll never get last 10 years of her life back. Now, multiply that with 30+ people he was dealing to, and you get much more than 25 years. Punishment should be hard unless we want to see more and more people doing it. It's all about perceived risk and profit, after all and if risk is higher there would be less people doing it.
However, the dealer is not wholly to blame for that. It's the person's choice to use the drugs in the first place, and, sometimes with help, you can quit.
A gun store is not blamed for someone dying at the hand of a gun they sold.
I don't think I agree completely with your second statement. You are comparing the drug dealer with the gun store, while in fact you should be comparing a drug store to a pharmacy, in the sense that both sell stuff that can be misused but has lots of other uses, and where both have a code they are expected to adhere to.
A drug dealer, on the other hand, has a business model based on addicting his customers to his product (unless there are dealers who advice their customers to stop buying and try and keep their addiction in line, as it is hurting them and their loved ones).
A better comparison, I think, would be a drug dealer and an arms dealer selling AK-47 on Irak.
A drug dealer, on the other hand, has a business model based on addicting his customers
It's clear you haven't known many (or any) drug dealers. Drugs are taken for pleasure, and drug dealers (who are often primarily also users just trying to make ends meet) sell pleasure to people who are gladly buying it.
What the criminal did in this case is no different at all from what major supermarkets do all the time with alcohol, with the sole exception that it's illegal because society has some very naive and stupid laws.
It is not inevitable that if your significant other deals drugs you will do drugs. Some would say that unless coercion of any kind was used, the user is fully responsible for their own actions.
Taking cocaine does not imply you'll become an addict and it will control your life. Many high functioning drug users never get in trouble with drug use, but we never hear those stories.
People can become alcoholics, and some people are more susceptible to it, that doesn't make everyone an alcoholic.
A much more effective strategy is education and regulated legal supply. People require licenses to sell, and potentially to use, and tax the harms in order to provide health resources for the people that do get in trouble.
