From: ebstokes@maxwell.crd.ge.com (Ed Stokes)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: Anti-WOD propaganda
Date: 25 Jan 93 16:30:45 GMT
Organization: GE Corp. Research & Development, Schenectady, NY

In article <1jp8enINN9f9@gap.caltech.edu> silly@ugcs.caltech.edu (Brad Threatt) writes:
>Okay...
>So people who deal LSD on sugarcubes and get nailed by the Federales end up
>with an ironclad guarantee to spend 20 or so years rotting in a Federal pen.
>On the other hand, rapists, murderers, robbers, thugs, and not-nice-people
>do far less time and then get out again.  
>
>Has anyone considered the excellent anti-WOD propaganda that could be built 
>from this?  Just the facts would probably present a powerful statement in
>themselves.
>
>I'd be interested in talking with anyone who's doing work along these lines,
>just to see what's going on.
>
>Brad Threatt

It is an interesting and informative exercise to go through the
"local crime & sentencing" section of _any_ daily newspaper on
_any_ given day. Then, write a letter back to the same newspaper
exposing the WoD related sentencing double standards which you
identify. These double standards can be found almost every day.
It's truly amazing when you start comparing sentencing for
various crimes.

For example, here's a letter that I wrote to the Schenectady
"Daily Gazette" in December 1989. They printed it, so I
assume that some people read it. They also wrote the headline.

	Society has misplaced priorities on crime

	Editor, Gazette:
		On Nov. 30 (1989), the Gazette reported on
	the final dispostion of two different local court
	cases, the combined effect of which disturbs me
	greatly. In Albany County Court on Nov. 29, a
	Schenectady man named Donald Green was sentenced
	to 25 years-to-life for possession of 6.75 oz.
	of cocaine at the Albany bus terminal. Meanwhile,
	in Schenectady County Court, Emanuel Encarnacion
	was sentenced to 1-to-4 years for "seriously
	injuring the eye of a 16 year old girl by striking
	her with a knife handle on the same day that he
	allegedly raped and sodomized her." Apparantly,
	Mr. Encarnacion was allowed to plead guilty to
	the assault charge and have other charges (including
	rape, sodomy, sexual abuse, and unlawful imprisonment)
	dropped.
		This means that when my 2 year old daughter
	is 16, Mr. Green will still be behind bars. Meanwhile,
	Mr. Encarnacion will have been free for at least
	10 years. As a parent of young children, I find the
	combined message behind these two cases offensive.
	I can and will try to teach my daughter to "say no"
	to cocaine, but I cannot teach her to say no to
	a deranged and armed rapist.
		Apparantly, in our zeal to attempt to protect
	would-be-drug users from themselves, we are willing
	to let extremely dangerous people get off with
	a slap on the wrist, as long as they aren't involved
	with drugs. The "victims" of cocaine freely choose
	to be victims and, as such, the "crime" of
	possessing and distributing cocaine belongs in
	a completely different category than genuine
	crimes such as rape and assault. Until we as a
	society recognize and remedy this obvious
	discrepancy, our beleagured criminal justice system
	will continue to suffert from a blatently misplaced
	set of primary priorities.
				Ed Stokes
				December 1989

Do it ! Check your local paper, and write'em a letter.
Think globally, act locally.

Ed Stokes
ebstokes@crd.ge.com
	
Xref: sparky talk.politics.drugs:8274 talk.politics.medicine:765 sci.med:24602