Osler's Razor

Over the years, I have made a lot of suggestions about drug laws, but I think the best one of them is laid out in this new article: Why Not Treat Drug Crimes as Business Crimes?, which was written with Stanford's Thea Johnson.

The idea is simple: combine the federal guideline for financial crimes (2B1.1) with the guideline for drug crimes (2D1.1), and make the primary determinant of the sentence the amount of profit the person took. This would accomplish several things:

-- It would recognize that drug crimes are crimes of commerce, and that the direct and indirect harms of both are similar.

-- It would probably simultaneously increase sentences for the most culpable white-collar offenders and decrease sentences for the least culpable drug defendants (while maintaining long sentences for the most culpable drug defendants).

-- It would correct racial disparities among federal prison populations, as fewer black low-level defendants would be incarcerated.

-- It would also yoke together the interests of two different types of offenders, across racial and economic lines.

It is the last of these that strikes me as strong and true-- and I love the idea of the drug kingpin and the corporate kingpin sharing the same fate….