W<\/span>hile U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions seems to be chomping at the bit to ramp up the drug war in an effort to \u201cmake America safe again,\u201d one of the Justice Department\u2019s former enforcers has come out to ensure the nation that his plan is dangerously flawed.<\/p>\n In a recent op-ed<\/a> in the Washington Post, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, who was dismissed by President Donald Trump at the beginning of the year, said Sessions\u2019 dastardly scheme to seek the maximum sentence for people convicted of drug-related crimes is one based on antiquated ideals regurgitated from the 1980s.<\/p>\n She says it would be more effective to maintain the leniency imposed by the Obama administration, as it was one that gave prosecutors some leeway on a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n Yates, who spent nearly 30 years at the Department of Justice, says Sessions is wrong about the previous administration\u2019s \u201cSmart on Crime\u201d approach to criminal justice causing an increase in violent crime across the country.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only are violent crime rates still at historic lows \u2014 nearly half of what they were when I became a federal prosecutor in 1989 \u2014 but there is also no evidence that the increase in violent crime some cities have experienced is the result of drug offenders not serving enough time in prison,\u201d she wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIn fact, a recent study by the bipartisan U.S. Sentencing Commission found that drug defendants with shorter sentences were actually slightly less likely to commit crimes when released than those sentenced under older, more severe penalties.\u201d<\/p>\n Yates, a former federal prosecutor, penned her opinion in direct response to an op-ed published last week by Sessions.<\/p>\n In his piece, the Alabama Senator turned Trump\u2019s leading law enforcement hammer said it was absolutely necessary to take a \u201ctough\u201d stance on drug offenders in order to \u201cmake American safe again.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not secret by now that Sessions is no friend to the drug trade \u2013 illegal or otherwise.<\/p>\n In his political career, not only has he supported policies that would have made it possible for prosecutors to seek the death penalty for habitual drug offenders, he has also spent the bulk of his time as attorney general trying to mastermind a shutdown of the legal cannabis trade.<\/p>\n It seems there is no stopping him from trying to drag the nation back to a time when federal policy dictated lengthy prison sentences for any of those folks who dared not to \u201cSay No to Drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n It is for that reason that Yates wants the general public to understand that Sessions\u2019s old school combat tactics against the national drug problem is already a failure. These types of idea have not been successful for decades.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile there is always room to debate the most effective approach to criminal justice, that debate should be based on facts, not fear,\u201d she wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s time to move past the campaign-style rhetoric of being \u2018tough\u2019 or \u2018soft\u2019 on crime. Justice and the safety of our communities depend on it.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the latest statistics show that the federal prison population increased 700 percent between 1980 and 2013. Yet, despite the United States presently housing 2.4 million drug offenders, there are more drugs pulsing through the country than ever before.<\/p>\n A recent study<\/a> by the Pew Charitable Trusts shows there is \u201cno statistically significant relationship between states\u2019 drug offender imprisonment rates and three measures of drug problems: rates of illicit use, overdose deaths, and arrests.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US, <\/strong>has your life been disrupted by the War on Drugs?<\/p>\n The post Former Deputy AG Yates: Sessions Drug Policy is Based on Fear<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A recent op-ed reveals that the former deputy attorney general does not agree with DOJ plans to seek the maximum sentence for people convicted of drug-related crimes. While U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions seems to be chomping at the bit to ramp up the drug war in an effort toContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[40,50,80,485,81,129,486],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17437,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17436\/revisions\/17437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Former Deputy AG Yates: Sessions Drug Policy is Based on Fear<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"