SELLING NARCOTICS: IT'S A FELONY THAT DESERVES PUNISHMENT

Looking For Balance, Justice In The Current Drug Laws

The soap bubble arguments recently floated by those who want to change our
drug laws compel me to pull out my pin.

First, regarding the claim of discrimination, the argument for change boils
down to this: A disproportionate number of persons in prison on drug
charges are black or Hispanic; therefore, our drug laws discriminate
against blacks and Hispanics. I wonder if the persons making this argument
are also willing to conclude that, because a disproportionate number of
mobsters incarcerated for racketeering are Italian, our racketeering laws
discriminate against Italians.

Brace yourself for a shock. The reason we have so many minority males in
prison is that so many minority males are selling drugs. Note that I said
"selling," not "using." Selling is a serious felony, whereas using is a
misdemeanor. Sellers of narcotics generally go to prison, whereas users
generally end up in treatment. It's sad to note, but the reality is that
the most readily prosecutable form of drug selling, namely, street-level
pushing, is primarily being committed by young minority males.

Our goal should not be to reduce minority incarceration per se, but to
reduce destructive conduct. Drug pushing is highly destructive, and we must
not trivialize it with powder puff punishments. Don't blame the law for
law-breaking. The blame lies with whatever social forces cause so many of
our young minority males to opt for the easy profits of drug selling over
the challenges of education and employment.

Second, regarding Kim LaSelva, the poster mom for our local Drop The Rock
movement, let's take a look at her situation. The police executed a search
warrant at LaSelva's apartment on East Lincoln Street on the evening of
March 9, 2000. In the bathroom, they found 5.3 ounces of cocaine. That was
enough for 1,500 doses and had a street value of $30,000. The police also
found plastic bags for packaging cocaine and an electronic scale for
weighing it.

The only persons in the apartment when the police entered were two young
boys, one age 8 years and the other age 16 months. In the bedroom, a candle
had been left burning and a large second-story window had been left open,
with a steep drop to the ground below. The two children were LaSelva's to
care for, but she was not home. She was at a tavern across the street where
the police arrested her as she sat at the bar drinking and smoking. She was
eight months pregnant at the time.

LaSelva was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child,
with criminal possession of a controlled substance, and with criminal
possession of drug paraphernalia. Her "defense" was that the drugs belonged
to her boyfriend, not to her. That was really no defense at all, because
the law does not care about ownership, but only about possession, which is
defined in terms of control sufficient to give a person the ability to use
or dispose of the drugs.

LaSelva was the tenant of the apartment. Her boyfriend was no longer living
there. She was aware of the drugs, and she could have destroyed them, but
instead permitted her home to be a drug storage site. She was a knowing
accomplice to drug trafficking, and her guilt was absolutely clear.

We took into account that LaSelva was not the prime mover in the drug
operation, so we made a plea offer that would require only a short prison
stay. She accepted and pleaded guilty, admitting in open court that she
knew the drugs were in her apartment. She ultimately served a little less
than a year of combined local and state time before she was paroled.

LaSelva now suggests that she pleaded guilty out of concern for the welfare
of her children. Nonsense! She pleaded guilty because she was guilty, and
because she was offered a plea bargain guaranteeing her a lesser sentence
than she would receive if she went to trial and lost.

When making that decision she probably considered the things she would miss
while incarcerated, including her children, but take the children out of
the equation and pleading guilty was still the only rational choice.

Finally, for those who decry mandatory jail terms and say that judges
should have more discretion to impose alternative sentences, let's pause
for an update on Anthony Woods. He was the defendant convicted here last
year of selling cocaine on eight different occasions, at shopping centers
downtown and in the northeast.

Exercising the broad discretion given to him, and rejecting the
prosecution's request for a longer sentence, the judge sentenced Woods in
August to a state prison term that was sufficiently light to assure his
eligibility for early parole after six months of shock incarceration. That
has indeed come to pass. Woods was released on parole in March.

If you think that's a good result, ask yourself how you would feel if Woods
had received a sentence assuring no possibility of parole before serving 15
years, as the broad discretion afforded to the judge permitted. If you
think that would be too much, then you are not truly in favor of judicial
discretion; you are just in favor of light sentences for drug crimes.

Therein lies the true agenda of those who would change our drug laws. They
want no one to go to jail, because they simply do not believe that drugs
are a sufficiently evil thing to warrant incarceration. That is an issue
worth discussing.

Does our society wish to continue condemning drugs with punishments that
include jail terms, or have we come to the point where we are going to
reduce drugs to some sort of bad habit that is punished only when others
are put at risk, like the situation with alcohol and drunk driving?

Let the discussion begin, but please, no nonsense about racial
discrimination, unjustly incarcerated mothers, and inadequate judicial
discretion.