home
The Failure of the War on Drugs | 29 comments (29 topical)

Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

In 1970 the average cost of gasoline was $0.34 (5.00 / 1) (#7)
by JSN on Mon Nov 26, 2007 at 08:07:45 AM EST
per gallon so a 40% increase in the cost of cocaine looks pretty good in comparison to gasoline. As far as I can tell good quality illegal drugs are readily available at reasonable prices so we are not getting a lot of bang for our drug enforcement buck. As a drug court judge said recently "If it does not work try something else."

The most serious charges with the highest probability of admission to an Iowa prisons are a class C drug felony, a class D drug felony and a class D  DUI felony (they start out as a serious misdemeanor). The probability of admission for a violent crime is rather low. About 90% of the drug charges are for trafficking. There is no mandatory minimum for drug possession in Iowa but the amount of drugs it takes to trigger a trafficking charge is very small. My guess is that maybe 20% of the trafficking charges are really possession charges.

Most mandatory minimum sentences are for violent crimes with some mandatory minimum drug sentences at the class B and C level. Because there are so many persons admitted for class C drug charges the mandatory minimum drug population is increasing.

My own view is that only a small minority of these drug prisoners are violent. A study by the DOJ about ten years ago indicated that about 25% of the drug prisoners had violent crimes in their criminal record. I think they lost credibility because they included arrests as well as convictions for violent offenses. My understanding is that only convictions can be considered when a judge does a pre-sentence investigation (that seems sensible to me because someone can be arrested and charged on imaginary evidence). I think the study should be done over giving more detail about how the violence is related to drug activity.

The Failure of the War on Drugs | 29 comments (29 topical)

Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

  • Premium Ads

  • Blog Ads

  • Contribute To TalkLeft

    donate to TalkLeft