{"id":24564,"date":"2014-07-23T12:12:53","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T12:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the-tester.blawgcloud.com\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T15:28:01","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T19:28:01","slug":"federal-drug-sentences-lowered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Drug Sentences Lowered"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-813\" src=\"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/gavel-300x201.jpg\" alt=\"gavel-300x201\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" \/>The United States has the sorry distinction of locking up a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country.\u00a0 It is not that Americans break the law more than people in other countries.\u00a0 We don\u2019t. The problem lies with the idea that putting people in prison is the cure for every act we believe to be criminal.\u00a0 The idea that being \u201ctough on crime\u201d by locking up people will make crime go away is ingrained in our politicians\u2019 minds.\u00a0 That solution to crime utterly failed to win the war on drugs.\u00a0 The only thing it got us is a huge prison population at the cost of billions of dollars each year to catch, prosecute and warehouse Americans.\u00a0 The vast majority of these prisoners are non-violent offenders who pose little danger to the community.<\/p>\n<p>Two sets of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/federal-and-state-criminal-defense\/federal-and-state-drug-laws\/\">drug laws<\/a>\u00a0(federal sentencing laws) contributed the most to this problem of imprisoning too many of our non-violent fellow citizens.\u00a0 The first was a set of mandatory minimum drug laws based on drug quantity.\u00a0 The second was the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.<\/p>\n<p>Congress passed laws creating mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes based on drug quantity.\u00a0 Before 2011 a person who sold 500 grams or more of cocaine powder faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years in prison.\u00a0 Five kilograms resulted in a 10 year mandatory minimum.\u00a0 And these drug amounts were not based on the amount of drugs the person had at any one time.\u00a0 The Guidelines added up the amount of drugs sold over time.\u00a0 A one time sale of 500 grams of coke or the sale of two grams each week for a year both resulted in a 5-year minimum sentence.\u00a0 Twenty years of these sentences did nothing to reduce the traffic in drugs.\u00a0 Worse, these laws were both arbitrary and racially discriminatory.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Federal Drug Sentences Lowered\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States has the sorry distinction of locking up a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country.\u00a0 It is not that Americans break the law more than people in other countries.\u00a0 We don\u2019t. The problem lies with the idea that putting people in prison is the cure for every act we believe [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-defense"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Federal Drug Sentences Lowered | Criminal Defense News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The idea that being &quot;tough on crime&quot; by locking up people will make crime go away is ingrained in our politicians&#039; minds.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Federal Drug Sentences Lowered | Criminal Defense News\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"The idea that being &quot;tough on crime&quot; by locking up people will make crime go away is ingrained in our politicians&#039; minds.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Webb Law Firm\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Federal Drug Sentences Lowered | Criminal Defense News","description":"The idea that being \"tough on crime\" by locking up people will make crime go away is ingrained in our politicians' minds.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Federal Drug Sentences Lowered | Criminal Defense News","twitter_description":"The idea that being \"tough on crime\" by locking up people will make crime go away is ingrained in our politicians' minds.","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Webb Law Firm","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/"},"author":{"name":"Webb Law Firm","@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2a779c0cfb58df839ae19364412f5dc6"},"headline":"Federal Drug Sentences Lowered","datePublished":"2014-07-23T12:12:53+00:00","dateModified":"2025-10-23T19:28:01+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/"},"wordCount":1207,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/gavel-300x201.jpg","articleSection":["Criminal Defense"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/","url":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/","name":"Federal Drug Sentences Lowered | Criminal Defense News","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/gavel-300x201.jpg","datePublished":"2014-07-23T12:12:53+00:00","dateModified":"2025-10-23T19:28:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2a779c0cfb58df839ae19364412f5dc6"},"description":"The idea that being \"tough on crime\" by locking up people will make crime go away is ingrained in our politicians' minds.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/#primaryimage","url":"","contentUrl":""},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/federal-drug-sentences-lowered\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Federal Drug Sentences Lowered"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/","name":"Southern Maine Criminal Lawyer Blog","description":"Published by Southern Maine Criminal Attorneys \u2014 Webb Law Firm","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2a779c0cfb58df839ae19364412f5dc6","name":"Webb Law Firm","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2afcd916a78ff321dd8392daa3d25f2dc39da8470fd2d178a4e928eb658992f7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2afcd916a78ff321dd8392daa3d25f2dc39da8470fd2d178a4e928eb658992f7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2afcd916a78ff321dd8392daa3d25f2dc39da8470fd2d178a4e928eb658992f7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Webb Law Firm"}}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbDekU-6oc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25374,"href":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24564\/revisions\/25374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webblawmaine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}