WOMAN'S LIFE REVEALS FLAWS IN DRUG WAR

IT'S TAKEN 10 years, but 27-year-old Toni Bunton has earned her bachelor's
degree in business. In addition, she's completed paralegal training and
earned certificates in HIV-AIDS peer education and computer-aided design.
Who knows how many degrees she'll stack up over the next 40 years?

That's how much longer she may be behind bars.

On the front lines

When she was 17, Toni Bunton was involved in a deal to sell marijuana in her
southwest Detroit neighborhood. Her attorney, Craig Daly, says she admits
dropping off two teenage friends with what she thought was a bag full of
marijuana. But Toni was as shocked as anyone when the deal went sour, he
says.

According to court transcripts and records, this is what happened: Toni's
friends were supposed to meet two more teenage buyers, close the deal and
pay her $50 for driving them around.

But her friends didn't have a bag of marijuana, they had a bag of towels.
Secretly carrying guns, they'd planned to bilk the would-be buyers of
several thousand dollars.

The buyers, both 19, had a similar plan. They had planned to take the
marijuana in exchange for $40 wrapped around a wad of fake bills. And they,
too, were carrying guns.

Toni dropped her friends off with the bag, then drove around while they
supposedly completed the deal. When she heard gunshots, her blood went cold.
She later testified that she sped away, only stopping when her friends
tracked her down and forced her at gunpoint to let them into her car.

It was then that she discovered that one teen lay dead at the scene, and
another was paralyzed for life.

One of the sellers, age 16, was sentenced to life in prison. The other, 15,
was not charged. Toni, a first-time offender, was convicted of second-degree
murder and two counts of armed robbery.

Toni knew she must pay for her mistakes but never expected to be slapped
with a 25- to 50-year sentence, the maximum allowed under state sentencing
guidelines. One wonders whether the sentencing judge simply had been unable
to stomach one more lost life, one more young person caught up in the
culture of drugs and violence. All of the young people involved, save the
15-year-old, paid dearly for their involvement in the deal -- and for
America's failed war on drugs.

Behind prison walls, Toni has worked and kept pursuing an education. Partly
in hopes that someday she will be able to return to society. Partly to dull
the knowledge that she may not go free until she's nearly 70 years old.

"Ms. Bunton continues to be a great asset to the class," wrote her
communications instructor. "She has leadership skills and can be counted on
for getting the job done."

Time for a new battlefront

As you read this story, Toni is in Plymouth's Scott Correctional Facility
hoping that a Wayne County Circuit Court judge will reconsider her case.
Whatever his decision, there is a bigger policy that needs to be
reconsidered: the strategy for winning the war on drugs.

A war that could cost us more than $1 million to incarcerate Toni for most
of her life. A war that would be better waged against ignorance, poverty and
addiction, the intractable enemies within.

"Toni is sorry for what she did and has proven that she would never get
involved with anything like that again," said Valerie Zavala, Toni's mother.
"When I look at how we live now because of drugs in our society, I think
there's got to be a better way."