Meth and Sentencing

Whenever the issue of drugs or drug usage is brought up into the court system, certain sentencing guidelines always apply. Sentencing guidelines have come a long ways and in my opinion are far from perfect. Although sentencing has evolved into treatment plans and meetings instead of incarceration, sometimes the only option left is to incarcerate. The Drug Policy Alliance Network states that, “More than 19,000 methamphetamine users are treated each year in California under the state’s treatment-instead-of-incarceration initiative.” This shows the number of people that need programs to get through their drug problems and the state needs to give it to them. Along with these programs come better citizens and less people in prison for drug related crimes. Obviously these programs do not work for everybody and some people just need to be incarcerated for what they have done.

Meth is a highly popular and growing drug that is rapidly taking over all other drugs on the streets. It is easy to make and cheap to buy, and that is why its addiction is growing. Along with the addiction level come the penalties for using the drug. As more people use the drug, more penalties and laws come out to fight against it. For example, “Senate Bill 2024 increases methamphetamine sentencing to the same as crack cocaine: 5 grams meth will bring a mandatory sentence of 5 years and 50 grams meth has a mandatory sentence of 10 years.” This bill may sound nice on the outside, but once it is examined, the real consequences can be seen. This bill will only affect the low-level meth offenders and states that possession itself can result in long prison sentencing. This will bring continuous prison overcrowding and will then cost the taxpayers to house them. Typically we are talking about incarcerating a non-violent, stay at home drug user who poses no threat to anybody except himself and now we are throwing him in prison because of some lousy drugs. To me, this makes absolutely no sense and is a complete waste of money.

There is always another side to every argument that emerges at some point. The Sentencing Project is a great place for information and arguments alike. The Sentencing Project states that, “Only 0.2 percent of Americans are regular users of methamphetamine – four times as many use cocaine and 30 times as many use marijuana regularly.” This goes to show that we are just incarcerating something we don’t like, not necessarily something that is bad or “taking over” America. All other statistics dealing with meth are either declining in some aspects or staying about the same as a couple years ago. I do believe that in some places meth is more readily available and that is where the “epidemic” is located, but do we really need to raise the bar on sentencing to accomplish something? It just seems like the wrong way to go in helping people that have a drug problem. Throwing them in prison will not help them cope with the addiction they suffer from, but only make it worse. Without the proper programs and resources to deal with drug abuse effectively, the issue and problem will never have a chance to go away.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/drugbydrug/methamphetam/index.cfm
http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/10/1016.html
http://www.famm.org/Resources/OtherReports/SentencingProjectMethReport.aspx