Drug Trafficking
Drug trafficking means doing or being concerned in any of the following, producing or supplying a controlled a drug, transporting a controlled drug, importing or exporting a controlled drug, or using any ship for illicit traffic in controlled drugs. In the past decade, the United States Congress and many state legislatures have established harsh criminal penalties for a wide range of drug offenses, often using the vehicle of mandatory minimum prison sentences. As a consequence, drug offenders in the United States face sentences that are uniquely severe among constitutional democracies (Bagley, 1997). Supporters insist that severe mandatory sentences guarantee serious drug offenders are put behind bars offer prosecutors leverage for securing cooperation from drug traffickers, deter prospective offenders, and enhance community safety and well being. Sentences for drug offenders in New York are among the most punitive in the country. ... Long prison sentences may be proportionate for traffickers who run large and violent drug distribution enterprises. But in New York, the vast majority of drug offenders sentenced to prison are nonviolent minor drug dealers or persons only marginally involved in drug transactions. ... Some supporters of harsh drug laws argue that severe punishment is justified to deter drug offenses. ... Egregious drug sentences have also persisted because the courts have not upheld federal and state constitutional prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishments. Although these prohibitions extend to excessive sentences, few drug offenders have succeeded in having disproportionately harsh sentences overturned as unconstitutional (Casteel, 2003). ... Mandatory sentencing laws have seemed to fail to achieve their drug control objectives. New York’s highest court has pointed out that the harsh mandatory treatment of drug offenders has failed to deter drug trafficking or to control the epidemic of drug abuse in society, and has resulted in the incarceration of many offenders whose crimes arose out of their own addiction and for whom the costs of imprisonment would have been better spent on treatment and rehabilitation. ... 1 (1989) is when the Drug Enforcement Administration agents stopped Sokolow upon his arrival at Honolulu International Airport.