One of the top political stories this week was the recent arrest of Rep. Trey Radel, a freshman Republican congressman from Florida. Radel pleaded guilty to cocaine possession yesterday and was sentenced to a year of supervised probation. Last night he gave a press conference to apologize to the country and his constituents and family, and announced he would be taking a leave of absence to pursue counseling and drug treatment.
Radel is also one of just three Republican sponsors of the Justice Safety Valve Act, a bill to undo mandatory minimum sentencing by allowing judges to impose sentences below any specified minimums. Although mandatory minimums extend to more issues than drugs, it is drug offenders who are the principle targets of them. So Radel has actually done more than most members of Congress to try to at least reduce the use of incarceration in America, and for drug offenders in particular. A piece published on ThinkProgress.org Tuesday in fact noted a number of statements Radel has made that express skepticism about drug war policies. It also noted that he has expressed opposition to marijuana legalization, so there are facts on both sides. On the other hand, most members of Congress are still likely to say they're not for legalization, despite our movement's recent victories and where opinion polls have gone, so I'm not inclined to attach much significance to that.
More important than piling on a member of Congress who probably doesn't deserve it, but more important in any case, is to make the points that the incident helps to illustrate about the discrimination and injustices inherent in drug war policies -- like drug testing poor people who don't use drugs more than anyone else, and throwing them out the window when they make the same mistakes in their stressful lives that many others who have easier lives make too.
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Clairification
I apreciate your attempt to clarify the story re. Rep. Radel. The news media made him out to be just another right-wing conservative like Limbaugh who was caught doing drugs while espousing prohibition for everyone else. Mr. Borden's story kind of puts it in a whole new light. I thought that if the news stories were correct, he deserved whatever punishment was meted out. Now however, it appears he may be another victim of our wasteful war on drugs. At least now I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt..
mistakes? just to clarify,
mistakes? just to clarify, was the mistake to possess an illicit medicinal/recreational 'drug'? or was it getting caught? maybe the mistake was that it shouldn't have been illegal in the first place??
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