We jumped on the bandwagon.....

many of us believed mandatory sentences for drug offenses would solve our crime problems and that's not how it worked.

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Tens of thousands of people are in federal prison - sometimes for life - for low-level nonviolent drug offenses.

Weldon Angelos is one of the many victims of these draconian laws. He is serving 55 years for selling small amounts of marijuana while possessing guns that weren't displayed or used. He was 24 years old and it was only his first arrest. Even the judge in his case thought the sentence was "cruel, unjust and irrational."

Let's tell our Senators to support reform of mandatory minimum drug laws now.

Thanks for all you do!

Bob Fertik

	Our criminal justice system is broken. Now you have a chance to fix it. Write your U.S. Senators today: tell them to support legislation that would reform federal drug sentencing policies.

Tens of thousands of people are in federal prison -- sometimes for life -- for low-level nonviolent drug offenses.

But with your help, we can roll back the disastrous mandatory minimum sentencing policies that put so many people behind bars. We’re working with the Senate to change these laws, and that’s why we need you to tell your Senators to support reform of mandatory minimum drug laws now!

Weldon Angelos is one of the many victims of these draconian laws. He is serving 55 years for selling small amounts of marijuana while possessing guns that weren’t displayed or used. He was 24 years old and it was only his first arrest. He’s been in prison for 10 years and will remain there for the next 45 years. That means he’ll be 80 years old before he can go home to his children, sister and father. Even the judge in his case thought it was a “cruel, unjust and irrational” sentence.

The drug war is ruining the lives of tens of thousands of people like Weldon Angelos. It’s especially infuriating when you consider that people convicted of nonviolent drug law violations can receive much longer sentences than people convicted of rape and murder.

These harsh sentences, which mostly apply to drug offenses, have significantly contributed to our country’s appalling mass incarceration problem. It’s laws like these that result in the United States leading the world in incarceration, with less than five percent of the world’s population but almost twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners.

There is something fundamentally wrong with this equation. But there’s hope. Between several reform bills in Congress and the Obama administration’s directive to scale back mandatory minimums, we have a real chance to roll back these draconian sentencing laws.

That’s why your Senators need to hear from you now. Time is of the essence: pressure your Senators to end the cruel and wasteful practice of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug law violations.

We’re working with a broad coalition of criminal justice reform and civil rights allies to finally get this legislation passed. There’s a promising chance that we can win this. But we can’t do it without your help.

Our mandatory minimum sentencing laws have done much more harm than good. The human, moral and fiscal costs are too great. You can help us fix our broken criminal justice system -- take action today!

Sincerely,

Bill Piper
Director, Office of National Affairs
Drug Policy Alliance