Wednesday, July 28, 2010
LIGHTENING UP
We are beginning to see the softening of the rhetoric when it comes to sentencing for drug use.
For too long, we have been filling prisons with disproportionate sentences.
The softening of marijuana laws has already occurred even to the point that, in California, we will be voting whether to simply legalize it. Oakland has already allotted acreage for pot farming.
This may not get by the Feds but, certainly, this would never have been possible up to now.
The politicians have had a "made for demagoguery" issue with drugs. Now, it is less than ideal and there is more rational discourse on the subject.
One disparity which is notorious is that between conviction for dry white cocaine use and the use of crack.
The former, notably, usually involves white defendants. The latter, black. So there is a racial component to the issue.
Today that changed.
I have a friend now serving up to six years for crack possession. It is hard time.
No. He shouldn't have had it. He is an addict. Nothing is more natural than an addict to have possession. Unless he is sober. But the sobriety with crack is shaky at best. It is a pernicious drug which is very, very hard to shake.
If he had powder cocaine he might have walked. Or been sent to rehab.
I think it is notable that national partisan politics were not engaged with this bill today.
There has been a lot of progress in our time.
Labels: drugs
