You can always tell the health of a democracy not just by the personal freedoms that are allowed but by those that are verboten. The US is struggling to arise from the dark ages of fundamentalist politics with a renewed embrace – at least in some states – of personal rights to engage in non-violent behaviours.
In Canada, we are going the opposite direction. It’s a sad, sad state of affairs that, if the NDP would commit to fight for it as they have indicated they would do in the past, could be reversed so that this country is one that embraces freedom and not rushes to crush it.
After more than 20 years of the war on drugs, more than a dozen U.S. states are reducing penalties for many drug offences.
The move away from mandatory minimum sentences without any chance of parole comes as states struggle to cover the costs of overcrowded prisons in the midst of tough economic times.
Republicans and Democrats alike have also recognized weaknesses in their tough-on-crime, one-size-fits-all sentences.
That’s different from Canada, where the Conservative government has started toughening sentencing and imposing mandatory minimums for a number of crimes.
As I’ve written before, the ‘tough on crime’ bullshit is just that. It’s a ‘tough on pot’ movement of a Daddy State whose fears and puritanism rule over the rights of the individual.
