Mandatory minimum laws have been among the more popular crime-fighting measures of recent years. Such laws require that a judge impose a sentence of at least a specified length if certain criteria are met. For example, a person convicted by a federal court of possessing 1 gram of LSD must be sentenced to at least 5 years in prison no exception. The problem with LSD specifically is that it comes in many forms. For instance, if a person is holding 1 hit of liquid LSD that is placed on a strawberry can get up to 10 years in jail whereas another person with 100 hits of acid in paper form may not even get a mandatory sentence if it weighs under

"Well, since 1989 I've taken the position that I don't think criminal penalties are the way to deal with the drug problem. It is a policy that has not worked. I don't think it's going to work in the future. It creates a great deal of distress and further, it really is dishonest because I think the American people perhaps are of the view that these punitive measures are effective, where in fact, they are not. The idea of using the criminal law to deal with something which is basically a health problem, basically an education problem, I think that that's a bad mistake in public policy. But then when you heighten that with the draconian penalties, which we've had since 1984 and seem to be increasing, that just makes the situation worse. In fact, it was in 1988 that I had a mandatory minimum sentence that I had to impose on a young Puerto Rican fellow, a first time offender. He had no deep involvement, yet ... the situation was such that it had to be a mandatory minimum of 10 years, and it was that sentence which made me think to myself, is this policy working? Is this right? And so I started doing some research and did some thinking about it on my own and one thing and another, and came to the conclusion that the criminal prohibition was wrong. But it was the drama of that 10-year sentence on that 17-year-old that really forced me to focus on the problem and drove me to the conclusion that I just don't think the policy works."

"Through these mandatory minimums [Congress has shifted] a certain amount of the decision making from the courts to the prosecutors. The minute that it shifted to the prosecutors, then the chief malefactor who does have some information to give up, that person can make a deal with the government and escape the mandatory minimum, while the messenger or the conveyor of information or the person that's just carrying the package--of course they have to know what the package is, but relatively minor role--those are the people that are getting the mandatory minimums because they have no way to cooperate. They, by and large, don't know anything (Sweet)."

a gram. The whole point behind the legislation comes in response to the American public's desire to crack down on those sell drugs. Fifty-five percent (55%) of all federa

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1521
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)