Should drug convictions carry mandatory jail sentences? The fact that the United States has a drug problem is indisputable. The amount of people using and or addicted to illegal substances has increased steadily over the years. A 1917 survey showed that almost 11 percent of 12 to 17-year-olds admitted to using illegal drugs in the months preceding the survey. Other survey results were even more astonishing. The federal government in conjunction with state and local authorities are attempting …showed first 75 words of 1464 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1464 total…that mandatory minimums don’t work is too great to ignore. It creates an unfair system of punishment, overcrowds our prisons, fails to succeed where treatment has and levies incredible costs that have to be absorbed by taxpayers. Could anyone truly support a system of justice that sentences a first time drug offender at the age of eighteen to more time than a thirty-year-old child molester? This is not justice and it must be stopped.