Every year men and women are given excessive sentencing for drug related and non-violent charges. Families are broken up and forced to adapt to a lifestyle that not even those who are convicted of MURDER charges face. The main issues is those who are convicted and sentenced for non-violent drug charges are being brutally punished while those who committ hanish violent charges receive merely slaps on the wrist. The FAIR SENTENCING ACT helps those who are currently being prosecuted but those who are currently incarcerated are still serving 25 year sentencing.  So we can no longer sit back and allow our local, state, and federal governments to wrongfully and harshfully sentence our loved ones without getting a reaction. The message this is relaying to the public is that you can TAKE A LIFE and receive a three to five year sentence, but if you are convicted of drug charges you're looking at 10 or more years. Is it just me or do you see a problem with this??

Due to the DRUG TREATMENT AND CHILD PROTECTION ACT OF 2004  those who are convicted of drug charges are sentenced to sometimes a minimium of 10 YEARS. The bill is designed to increase mandatory sentences for specific drug offenses. It includes mandatory sentencing of 10 years to life in prison for any person age 21 or over who attempts or conspires to offer drugs (including marijuana) to someone younger than 18 years old. Anyone who has offered, solicited, enticed, persuaded, encouraged, induced, or coerces or possess a controlled substance, will be sentenced to a term not less than five years. This is a bit extreme for a nonviolent act. President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act on August 3, 2010,  which would reform a law that created a sentencing disparity between powder and crack cocaine.. Under current law, a person with five grams of crack cocaine – the weight of two sugar packets – receives the same five-year mandatory minimum sentence as someone with 500 grams of cocaine, which is about a pound. Under the bill, brokered by Senators Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between powder cocaine and crack cocaine would be reduced to 18-to-1.  It would also eliminate the mandatory minimum for simple possession of crack cocaine. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the new law could save $42 million in taxpayer funds over the next five years.

The FAIR SENTENCING ACT SIGNED August 3, 2010 helps those that are being sentenced currently. However, inmates that are serving 25 year sentences are still incarcerated and being forced to continue their sentences. Since this act is now in effect those currently incarcerated under the DRUG PROTECTION ACT cases should be re-opened and viewed under the FAIR SENTENCING ACT, and given time served if possible.