Tom Cotton calls to end disparity between crack and powder cocaine

[Ferguson97]

https://twitter.com/tomcottonar/status/1407348069520318473

Scumbag lol

[Diabolical Materialism]

I thought this was going to be about the price/quality disparity. Damn it.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

What a fascist.

[NewYorkExpress]

He's right that the penalties should be the same, but I'm not sure increasing the penalty for powder is the right way to go.

If anything, I'd slightly increase the penalty for powder and slightly decrease the penalty for crack, and set the penalty for both somewhere in the middle of what the penalties are now.

[SWE]

You have to respect the brazen evilness in his ability to look at a bad situation and find a way to make it even worse

[DaleCooper]

I don't want people getting tough sentences for mere possession, which is probably what this would lead to, but I'm fine with harsher penalties for the dealers.

[Mr. Smith]

Broken clock moment.

[If my soul was made of stone]

This is about what I'd expect to hear from the man who said that there's an "under-incarceration problem" in this country, but still shockingly depraved. I find it hard to believe that there could be any warm blood in that being's body.

[It’s so Joever]

Based

[DaleCooper]

I'm wondering how many people in this thread have seen local communities destroyed by hard drugs. As someone who has seen some of Nebraska's small towns ruined by meth, I'd be fine with every single meth dealer getting thrown behind bars for long sentences. So long as they haven't turned to a life of violent crime, the addicts need to be sent to treatment facilities, but the dealers I have no sympathy for and I want them off the streets.

[Person Man]

I'm wondering how many people in this thread have seen local communities destroyed by hard drugs. As someone who has seen some of Nebraska's small towns ruined by meth, I'd be fine with every single meth dealer getting thrown behind bars for long sentences. So long as they haven't turned to a life of violent crime, the addicts need to be sent to treatment facilities, but the dealers I have no sympathy for and I want them off the streets.

My parents taught on an Indian reservation for 15 years. I know. What we need is not use a tragedy to not create a police state. Prisons are not hospitals.

[DrScholl]

Drug dealers exist in a lot of places because of regressive and bigoted policies that created environments where illegal activity was seen as they only way to have an income. You have to address the problems that create drug dealers, not just hike penalties.

[SteveRogers]

Broken clock moment.

Came here to echo this sentiment. Then I read the actual tweet …

[DaleCooper]

I'm wondering how many people in this thread have seen local communities destroyed by hard drugs. As someone who has seen some of Nebraska's small towns ruined by meth, I'd be fine with every single meth dealer getting thrown behind bars for long sentences. So long as they haven't turned to a life of violent crime, the addicts need to be sent to treatment facilities, but the dealers I have no sympathy for and I want them off the streets.

My parents taught on an Indian reservation for 15 years. I know. What we need is not use a tragedy to not create a police state. Prisons are not hospitals.

I don't want the addicts or people in possession of crack or powder cocaine to get sent to prison, which was the primary goal of the war on drugs and is why I oppose it. I want the dealers sent to prison, and I don't see why it would require a police state to target the dealers. If anything, I think that'd be a much more restrained use of police force than what we've had for decades. I still don't trust Cotton to make that distinction. 

[sting in the rafters]

While coke is very much an exception to my personal drug use, (seen it ruin too many people, don't wanna derail the thread giving example. S--- f---s with your mind the way other drugs don't, easy gateway to thinking you're on top of the world and power tripping), Cotton's proposal would only exacerbate the problem. The Drug War is one of if not the largest public policy failures of the last 50 years, and it's time we set a new course.

I'm wondering how many people in this thread have seen local communities destroyed by hard drugs. As someone who has seen some of Nebraska's small towns ruined by meth, I'd be fine with every single meth dealer getting thrown behind bars for long sentences. So long as they haven't turned to a life of violent crime, the addicts need to be sent to treatment facilities, but the dealers I have no sympathy for and I want them off the streets.

I live in North Philly. Ground zero for the opiate epidemic and home to the largest drug market on the East Coast. As much as I would love to yeet every last drug dealer and junkie off the Walt Whitman bridge, another will replace them because it controls the local economy. Harsher sentences don't deter someone who's cornered. If you think trapping's the only way to feed yourself or your family then you're gonna do it by any means necessary.

You want people to stop slinging? Ask why they start in the first place. Think about the type of environment that often leads to dealing. You can even watch the very show my display name is based on.  If you don't know anyone who's getting money legally, your family's broken due to either the very same incarceration policies Cotton's pushing or the cutting of government funding at all levels for social services, and the only people who you know are getting money are those flipping, why wouldn't you start dealing?

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Matt Gaetz better be careful.

[HisGrace]

I was going to make a joke and say he tried both of them and realized there's not that big a difference but that doesn't make sense with what he said.

[Person Man]

I was going to make a joke and say he tried both of them and realized there's not that big a difference but that doesn't make sense with what he said.

We will get back with that one.

[Cassandra]

The best part is I could totally see Dems going along with this out of fear of being called "racist."

[free my dawg]

Truly the worst person in office.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Your 2024 GOP nominee everybody

[GP270watch]

This is disingenuous and racist because prosecutions and law enforcement operations are at the discretion of people who will not target powder cocaine users from affluent backgrounds. So Tom Cotton is just talking a bunch of nonsense and doesn't understand that the War on Drugs is not just the statuary laws on the books but the entire way the system uses those laws on the books to disproportionately target African Americans.

[Starmerite2024]

This is disingenuous and racist because prosecutions and law enforcement operations are at the discretion of people who will not target powder cocaine users from affluent backgrounds. So Tom Cotton is just talking a bunch of nonsense and doesn't understand that the War on Drugs is not just the statuary laws on the books but the entire way the system uses those laws on the books to disproportionately target African Americans.

Oh he understands, he just doesn't care

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I observed back when the First Steps was being done that his analysis basically amounted to a desperate fear of a reverse Willie Horton as if this was the 80s and a resulting crime wave would cause people to prefer the Democrats.

[Damocles]

There’s a reason Tom Cotton has his surname. He just wants someone else to pick it.