Forty Years of Failure
You want to know why we have so many people in prison in America. Well of course it has to do with the War on Drugs, not just the War on Drugs but the War on Drugs is a big factor. But one of the big components in the War on Drugs and a reason why we are now spending more money on prisons in. This country then on schools and on infrastructure have to do with a specific part of the War on Drugs. And one of the worst aspects of the War on Drugs and they are called mandatory minimum sentences. Where people caught and convicted of possessing not purchasing or selling or using but in simple possession. Of a certain amount of illegal-narcotics in the United States, can look to spending five, seven, ten years in prison for simple possession of lets say. Marijuana, cocaine, heroin or meth people who otherwise would be in college at this point or working a good job. Not professional-criminals or real criminals at all.
Marijuana should already be legalized for reasons that I’ve already argued and blogged before. But what the Obama Administration could do if they weren’t able to get this passed in a divided. Congress is to write an executive order that would say we are no longer going to enforce or prosecute the Federal. Marijuana laws in states that have already legalized or decriminalized marijuana in their state. There’s already a Bipartisan bill in the U.S. House to do this with Rep. Bobby Scott being one of the cosponsors. And Senator Rand Paul in the U.S. Senate has a similar bill which aren’t likely to pass in the Tea Party House of Representatives. But who knows maybe an interesting coalition of Liberal-Democrats and Conservative-Republicans with strong Federalist. Feelings can come up with the votes to pass this bill and something like that could pass the Senate as well. Not likely in 2013 where both chambers of Congress already have plenty of work to do.
This would be a solid first step but what we really need to do moving forward to to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences all together. And stop sending people to jail and prison for simple possession or usage of narcotics in America. And get addicts who aren’t criminals into halfway-houses and drug-rehab at their expense and save our prisons. For real criminals who are real threats to society.
