Posted on 12/16/2012 5:35:02 AM PST by Kaslin
"Mandatory sentences breed injustice," Judge Roger Vinson told the New York Times. A Ronald Reagan appointee to the federal bench in Florida, Vinson was railing against a federal system that forced him to sentence a 27-year-old single mother to prison life without parole because her dealer ex-boyfriend had stored cocaine in her house.
Note to D.C. Republicans: This would be a great time to take on the excesses of the war on drugs.
The Times was writing about conservatives, including Jeb Bush and former Watergate conspirator Chuck Colson, who advocate for smarter, more humane incarceration policies under the rubric "Right on Crime." In light of the GOP's need to woo more young voters, drug-war reforms offer an ideological good -- limited government -- and also might be politically savvy. Think: Ron Paul and his rock star status on college campuses.
Two areas cry for immediate action.
One: Sentencing reform. The single mother, Stephanie George, had prior drug convictions, which contributed to her draconian prison term. Even she says that she deserved to do time, but not the rest of her natural life.
What's more, her costly incarceration won't do anything to dry up the nation's drug supply or scare kingpins straight. Career dealers, like George's ex-boyfriend, who was released five years ago, know how to game the system and reduce their sentences by testifying against amateurs and patsies who think they can win at trial. As the judge explained, the guiltiest parties "get reduced sentences, while the small fry, the little workers who don't have that information, get the mandatory sentences."
When the federal government imprisons small-time criminals for life, the system grows too costly and too ineffective. It embodies the definition of big government. University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt found that American penal policies decreased crime in the 1990s. Since then, incarceration rates have risen so steeply that Levitt told the Times he now thinks that the prison population -- more than 2 million people are in prison or jail -- could be reduced by a third. If he's even half right, Washington should act.
President Obama was critical of mandatory minimums before he was elected to the White House. But he has failed to use his presidential power to pardon as he should. Obama has commuted only one sentence to date, and right now, a commutation is George's only hope of release.
Julie Stewart, who founded Families Against Mandatory Minimums, knows Democratic and Republican politicians who have issues with the war on drugs. Congress should not wait on the White House to enact sentencing reform; GOP members should lead the way.
Two: Marijuana. Though the Obama administration has rewarded sanctuary cities that choose to flout federal immigration law, the Obama Department of Justice has had a no-sanctuary approach to medical-marijuana dispensaries in states where voters have legalized medical use. In California, U.S. attorneys have gone to extremes, seizing assets without prosecuting dispensaries and suing landlords who aren't even distributing the drug.
In November, Washington and Colorado voted to legalize possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., opposed the Colorado measure, but he supports the Respect States' and Citizens' Rights Act of 2012, which would exempt states with medical or recreational marijuana laws from the Federal Controlled Substances Act. Is Coffman ahead of Obama?
The administration has announced no policy change. Talking to ABC on Friday, Obama reiterated his 2008 view that arresting recreational users should not be a priority and said he does not support legalizing marijuana "at this point."
Marijuana Majority's Tom Angell is not impressed. "The federal government rarely goes after individual users," he noted in a statement. "The real question is whether the Obama administration will try to prevent voter-approved marijuana sales systems from being enacted or if they will force individual users to buy marijuana from the black market, where much of the profits go to cartels and gangs that kill people." And: The executive branch should reschedule marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act.
"We want to put away the bad guys," former California GOP Assembly leader Pat Nolan, who served time in federal prison and now works for the Prison Justice Fellowship, stressed, but the federal system no longer is limited to hard time for hard crimes. Still, Nolan sees more conservative support for sentencing reform on the state level than on Capitol Hill.
It's time for a change. Smart conservatives should fight for government that works and an end to laws that do not. Compassionate conservatives must stand against laws that are harder on small fish than career criminals. Fiscal conservatives should oppose the policies that burn dollars without promoting public safety. Constitutional conservatives should stand up for states' rights.
And young conservatives instinctively understand this.
No it’s not a good argument. It’s pathetic. The favorite tactic of the left is to resort to personal attcks when holding an opinion that cannot be supported by rational thought or facts.
You would fit in well over at DUmmyland.
And no, I don’t smoke marijuana and still find the WOD to be a monumental waste of resources, unconstitutional and an infringment upon personal liberty.
I will be sure to never post anything to you again. I respectfully ask that you do the same.
The second point is that even at the state level, the war on drugs is futile (and unjust), does more harm than good, and should be abandoned or not taken up, IMO.
Okay, your response was just opaque enough to make no sense at all. Unless it was off-hand, care to elaborate?
No, it wasn't. It made perfect sense, but you had to come back with something.
You guys want to party with drugs and are desperate to convince the rest of us to slack off. You want what you want. You're like a bunch of 16-year-olds. End of discussion, your answer is NO, you can't have what you want, because there are still enough adults in the room to keep it from you. You'll have to go over to Barack and his pals to get what you want.
It isn't pathetic at all -- it's firmly rooted in the experience of societies that indulged that kind of mind-altering behavior, including our own before Prohibition. China ruined herself, and European drug-tolerant states (the Netherlands, Switzerland) don't exactly present a rosy picture of unrestricted or slightly-restricted drug use.
It's malum in se and a social evil; and you can't get around that.
I will be sure to never post anything to you again. I respectfully ask that you do the same.
Suit yourself, but this is an open forum, and anyone can post to anyone else about anything, within JR's rules.
The drug trade is international, and the fraction of it that is not international, is for the most part interstate.
Even granting arguendo that you are correct and that the federal drug laws are unconstitutional, you still bear the burden of showing why an objectively bad thing should be cossetted and coddled by a society that doesn't want its kids turned into choom monsters by self-interested suppliers.
I wrote about legalizing hemp. You say I want drugs. The two are not the same. Hemp does not contain any more than a trace amount of THC.
Since hemp reduces the potency of marijuana, I have to assume that you are pro-marijuana, and that you want it full strength to get the drugs you crave. It is you that is a drug crazed, 16 year old Obama supporter.
Which explains your muddled thinking.
Was Prohibition a good policy? Was our repealing it a mistake?
China ruined herself,
The USA never came close to that level of opiate use when it was legal here. (In fact, by the feds' own figures the percentage of addicts was lower then than now.)
and European drug-tolerant states (the Netherlands, Switzerland) don't exactly present a rosy picture of unrestricted or slightly-restricted drug use.
How do they not?
'Joao Goulao, Portugal's top drug official, said that before decriminalization "we had a huge problem with drug use ... around 100,000 people hooked on heroin."
'Then they started treating drug use more like a parking ticket. People caught with drugs get a slap on the wrist, sometimes a fine.
'Independent studies have found the number of people in Portugal who say they regularly do drugs stayed about the same. And the best news, said Goulao: "Addiction itself decreased a lot."
'At first, police were skeptical of the law, but Joao Figueira, chief inspector of Lisbon's drug unit, told me that decriminalization changed lots of minds.
'"The level of conflicts on the street are reduced. Drug-related robberies are reduced. And now the police are not the enemies of the consumers!"
'And teen drug use is down.'
Old ploy worn out by Woody Harrelson. They are the identical taxon; you admitted it. Legalization of hemp = legalization of marijuana, the moral/legal crack in the dike the Left wants, in order to break down resistance to full legalization of marijuana => full legalization of drugs = Nirvana.
Call me after you've graduated high school.
It created a lot of problems, but it solved one problem that would have otherwise gone unaddressed: the incidence of alcoholism fell, and overall consumption fell. Patterns of consumption also changed; white liquors and wine almost went away, and the nation's drinkers rotated to beer and brown liquors.
America in 1934 was a lot less lush and drunken than America in 1914.
Prohibition broke the freedom of drunkards and alcoholics and put the whip in other hands, esp. those of women who were Not Amused by their husbands' recreant behavior.
'Joao Goulao, Portugal's top drug official, ....'
....is in the same position as a Clintonoid or Obamarrhoid SecDef who is called upon to defend either DADT in the first instance or its repealer in favor of open catamitism and barrack-room sodomy in the other.
He likes his job and he knows what the politicians want, so he's not the best guy to ask.
Oh, and btw, "subverted authority" is a legitimate debating technique. Unlike appeals to motive, ad-hom, and all the rest of the Leftist toolkit.
Such foolishness. Yes, technically a Wolf and a Chihuahua are both dogs, but cross breed them and you only get a mess.
Canada has legalized hemp production, and is expected to have 100,000 acres in industrial hemp being grown within the next two years; yet that has presented them with zero confusion about illegal marijuana.
Which means not only that your argument is foolish, but that you are stupider than a 16 year old Canadian.
It created a lot of problems,
Did they outweight the (alleged) benefits?
but it solved one problem that would have otherwise gone unaddressed: the incidence of alcoholism fell,
More claims from you. I don't suppose I ought to hold my breath waiting for evidence.
and overall consumption fell. Patterns of consumption also changed; white liquors and wine almost went away, and the nation's drinkers rotated to beer and brown liquors.
America in 1934 was a lot less lush and drunken than America in 1914.
Yet another claim.
Prohibition broke the freedom of drunkards and alcoholics
And social drinkers.
and put the whip in other hands, esp. those of women who were Not Amused by their husbands' recreant behavior.
And you think this is conservative governance?
'Joao Goulao, Portugal's top drug official, ....'
....is in the same position as a Clintonoid or Obamarrhoid SecDef who is called upon to defend either DADT in the first instance or its repealer in favor of open catamitism and barrack-room sodomy in the other.
He likes his job and he knows what the politicians want, so he's not the best guy to ask.
What about Joao Figueira, chief inspector of Lisbon's drug unit, also quoted in favor of the new policy?
And what about producing any evidence whatsoever for your claim that "European drug-tolerant states (the Netherlands, Switzerland) don't exactly present a rosy picture of unrestricted or slightly-restricted drug use"?
Oh, and btw, "subverted authority" is a legitimate debating technique. Unlike appeals to motive, ad-hom
I searched and can find no evidence for your claim that "subverted authority" is a legitimate debating technique - nor for the implied claim that "subverted authority" is anything other than an ad-hominem appeal to motive.
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