The war on drugs is one of the best battles and Texas is one of the hardest states when it comes to discipline. However, along with the pros of the battle come the cons, and a serious negative side of the war on drugs has been the prison sentences handed down to people who truly did not deserve them. 

Think about this for a moment: how many of you have answered your friend or boyfriend’s phone while he was in the shower or had run up to the convenience store? How many of you have answered your own phone and heard someone ask for your child and you took a message to have him return the call? Did you know that there are women in prison simply because they picked up a phone?

Think about how a seventeen year old gets life in prison for marijuana use while a wealthy guy gets probation for killing a male prostitute and yet flunks drug tests time and again. The same judge keeps letting him get off.

Texas has drug court which is known as problem-solving court. This means, the court deals with “social behavior problems” which include more drugs than not. The fact that 70 percent of women in prison for drug convictions are non-violent, many with no adult record whatsoever, is raising red flags. Simply telling the truth, that you do not know anything, that you only picked up a phone and took a message for your husband, your boyfriend, your son, your daughter, your friend, led many women to serious drug sentences.

The war on drugs is commendable but it also has to involve common sense. Drug conspiracy charges should involve true conspiracy on the part of the ones being sentenced, not on the part of the ones wanting to win the battle against drugs.

Judges are refusing to hear drug conspiracy cases under the mandatory minimum sentencing law. A little common sense can go a long way. When judges and prosecutors balk at such cases, something needs to be done. Getting twenty years for answering a phone when someone else actually doing or dealing the drugs gets a lighter sentence? There are people who commit murder getting lighter sentences than someone who simply takes a message for a loved one that “so and so called and asked you to return his call”.

If someone is truly involved in drug dealing and conspiracy, mandatory minimum sentences might be the only way to give the nation a wake up call. But when the ones getting punished truly are innocent, the double standards could hurt the war on drugs in the long run. Something to think about.