No one questions that. The question is over what amount of HARM was done and what is a reasonable response to that.
In other words, if you accept the existing laws at face value, then this is, indeed, terrible "drug kingpin" behavior deserving of severe punishment. And (ducking Godwin's law) if you accept the laws of North Korea, then thousands of people deserve lives of horror and torture for the crime of being born to a prisoner at a re-education camp. The question that I believe we should be asking is whether such laws are just and the punishment appropriate.
The fact that an unjust law is still on the books just means that politics and law move too slowly.
I don't know how anyone can stand behind an unjust law "because law, duh," and that's why you're getting downvoted.
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, as they say.
I find it really hard to feel sorry for criminals that are selling so much drugs that they can live comfortably on drug money. That's a significant amount of illegal activity.
They knew about the risk, and they took it. Now they have to live with the consequences of their decisions.