I'm against mandatory sentencing for drug possession, especially for marijuana.
I also want to add something else to this conversation: Maybe as a society we're not meting out the right kind of punishment. We're tolerant to the point of tolerating bad behavior. I
just posted in the "Crime Thread" about a guy who got beaten up by a thug who seemed to do it for the (malicious) "fun" of it. The police response (as reported in the Nexus Newspaper story I linked to in that post) was that most of Victoria's violent crime incidents involve "alcohol consumption in the club scene."
[edit/ps: Mike adds a good criticism to that crime thread post.]Alcohol consumption is legal. No one would argue "let's make it illegal (again)," but at the same time there's some weird kind of squeamishness about really cracking down on bad behavior. "Let's educate people instead" - how often have you heard that one?
Has education worked in keeping kids off drugs (or cigarettes?, ...or booze?)?
Shouldn't parents be more authoritative (not authoritarian), instead of handing that role over to schools and education?
I think G-Man really nails something when he mentions parents who are never around, who don't live in connected (and walkable) communities, who overextend themselves with debt, long commutes, etc., and who expect schools to fill the role they're too exhausted to play.