Bad Reaction

IT'S TIME CONGRESS END HARSH AND COSTLY MANDATORY DRUG LAWS

To the Editor:

Twenty-two years ago this week, former University of Maryland
basketball star Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose. His death
stunned the sports world and left an indelible mark on our justice system.

In the months following his death, Congress passed harsh new
mandatory minimum drug laws that set a 100:1 disparity between the
amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine that trigger the same
five-year mandatory prison sentence. The result: One-size-fits-all
sentencing, regardless of an individual's role in the case.

We punish low-level drug users and dealers the same or worse than the
drug kingpins that mandatory sentences were intended to catch.

Crack-cocaine offenders serve sentences up to eight times longer than
those sentenced for powder cocaine.

I believe the taxpayers of this country are fed up with the
government spending billions of dollars incarcerating individuals who
might otherwise be contributing members of society.

Broken families must seek out resources from the local government to
help support them when the father or mother are in jail. Federal
judges should have their power reinstated and taken away from power
hungry prosecutors who have to answer to no one.

By continuing to lock away first time and nonviolent crack cocaine
offenders for extraordinarily long sentences instead of treating the
problem, we are repeating the mistake, not the lesson, of Len Bias' story.

We are repeating a tale of lost promise.

In recent months, we have seen a new effort among the courts, the
public and even among some of our politicians to rewrite the ending
for these prisoners. What is Congress waiting for?

Joan Squier

Liverpool