Mandatory Minimums a Smoke Screen

Discussion in 'Marijuana Legalization' started by IndianaToker, May 24, 2005.

  1. Editorial
    Source: Journal Standard

    USA -- Lost in the debate over Terri Schiavo and the filibuster - two less harmful examples of the new GOP judicial obsession - is Congress' latest push to do an end-around a recent Supreme Court ruling that found the draconian sentencing guidelines imposed during the crime and drug war hysteria of the 1980s unconstitutional. One of those new creates a stricter definition of "gang crime," allowing alleged gang defendants to be federally prosecuted. Another imposes insanely harsh sentences for a variety of low-level drug crimes, even though alcohol and cigarettes still kill far more people each year in America - legally.

    Both bills have drawn fierce opposition from human rights, religious and civil rights groups, and are vehemently opposed by the American Bar Association. But in their zeal to bang the old "tough on crime" drum, the GOP rages forward, undaunted and oblivious to the obvious hypocrisy. For example, even as states across the nation, not to mention Great Britain, Canada and Russia, move toward decriminalization of small amounts of cannabis, the proposed new law requires anyone convicted in federal court of passing a joint to someone who ever set foot in drug treatment to prison for a minimum of five years - 10 years for a second offense.

    Meanwhile, the average time served by convicted rapists in America is about seven years.

    What's more, despite its obsession with low-level drug offenders of all stripes, Congress has done nothing to reverse the sentencing disparity for possession of crack - a scourge disproportionately found in black communities. Federal sentences for crack defendants remain far harsher than those for powder cocaine, a drug of choice favored by white America, including lawyers and Wall Street types with money to blow.

    The Congressional push comes amid news last week of a dramatic shift over the past decade in U.S. drug policy from the most dangerous substances - cocaine and heroin - to the least harmful, diverting precious resources away from the prosecution of violent and white-collar crime.

    That has contributed to a U.S. prison population that has swelled to 2.1 million, placing the U.S. far ahead of communist China in putting its people behind bars. We and USA Today, along with a growing number of conservatives and liberals alike, agree that all drugs use should be discouraged by a healthy society. Period. Big-time dealers of heroin, opiates, cocaine and methamphetamine, should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and users sentenced to treatment.


    "But it's a smoke screen to suggest that rising arrest numbers (of low-level offenders) show the war on drugs is working," writes USA Today, in a May 17 editorial. "It's time for a serious debate on whether massive arrests of low-level users are worth the cost or having any benefit."

    Ronald Reagan sold the nation on a "drug war" targeting cocaine cartels and hard drugs in crime-infested inner cities. Now it's a self-perpetuating and profitable de facto war against the nation's young people - rural, urban and in between.

    No, the real threat to America isn't "judicial activism."

    It is the insanity of putting more and more Americans in prison for low-level drug crimes - leaving millions of broken families, newly dependent on government handouts, behind.

    The issue: Congress defies Supreme Court on sentencing rules

    Our view: GOP obsession with low-level offenders is unjust and costly.

    Source: Journal Standard, The (Freeport, IL)
    Published: Sunday, May 22, 2005
    Copyright: 2005 The Journal Standard
    Contact: tim.crosby@journalstandard.com
    Website: http://www.journalstandard.com/
    Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20715.shtml
     

Share This Page