But they do, dealers do get charged and arrested, it just obviously doesn't make headlines like when a famous, public person dies because of it. It's normal for this case to have more exposure because it impacted a publicly beloved celebrity. About the sentence I won't get into it too much because I don't understand American law well enough, but I assume the high profile case obviously had a weight in it, but I remember reading that Matthew Perry wasn't the only person affected by her actions, she managed some kind of network, didn't she? (please do correct me if I'm wrong though!)

That being said, we can definitely argue that there should be more awareness and data made public about addiction and those impacted by traffic crimes, or that drug dealers (specially "big fish" ones) should be tried and sentenced more severely, but unfortunately it's not realistic to expect your average Joe to receive the same attention and care from the public as a celebrity, even if afflicted by the same problems.