StopTheDrugWar.Org: Mandatory Minimums: Phillip Smith: Justice Safety Valve Act Introduced in The U.S. House of Representatives

Justice Safety Valve Act Introduced in House | StoptheDrugWar.org

You want to know why we have so many people in prison in America and why we have so many overcrowded prisons. And why we now spend more money on prisons then we do schools and infrastructure. Of course look at the War on Drugs but also look at what are called mandatory minimum sentences. Where people can be sent away to prison with their prison sentences being based on how much in illegal-narcotics that they are in possession of. Not what they sold illegally or have used but what they are in simple possession of and as a result we now have thousands of people in prison. In this country doing five, seven, ten years in prison for simply being in possession of illegal-narcotics. People who are real criminals and certainly not professional-criminals, perhaps college students or people with. Good jobs now serving time in prison for being in possession for a certain amount of illegal-narcotics. That's all just simple possession of illegal-narcotics.

Marijuana should obviously be legalized for reasons I've already blogged and have argued for. And what the Obama Administration should at least do is draft an executive-order. Unless they could get it approved by both chambers of Congress which might not be likely that would say the administration. Will no longer enforce or prosecute people for marijuana  offenses at least in states where marijuana has already been. Legalized or decriminalized which would encourage more states to decriminalize or legalize marijuana in their states. And this should include medical-marijuana as well which would be a huge first sept to drafting an effective, intelligent and sane narcotics-policy in the United States. There's already a Bipartisan bill in the U.S. House that would do this, not likely to be passed in a Tea Party House of Representatives.

The bill in the House is a good first step and maybe the Liberal-Democrats and the real Conservative-Republicans in the House. Would form an interesting coalition to pass that bill and Senator Rand Paul already has a bill like this in the U.S. Senate as well.  But what we should be doing is going even further  and get rid of mandatory minimum sentences all together. And look to decriminalizing narcotics period and get heroin, cocaine and meth addicts into drug-rehab and halfway-houses at their expense and keep. These people out of prison all together.