Hammond dealer gets 13 years for $50 worth of cocaine

[klaatu]

Associated Press
May 12, 2006

A Hammond, Ind., drug dealer definitely needs a new business plan -- his sale of a $50 bag of cocaine has netted him 13 years in prison, according to the Lake County Prosecutor's office.
Jesse Vasquez, 39, pleaded guilty on Feb. 24 to a felony count of dealing cocaine, according to a release from the prosecutor's office. He was charged for selling 1.6 grams of cocaine for $50 on Dec. 5, 2005, to a confidential informant working with the Hammond police, the release said.

On Friday, Lake Superior Judge Diane Boswell sentenced Vasquez to eight years in prison for dealing and revoked five years of probation for an earlier charge, adding it consecutively to his sentence, the release said.

Selling $50 of Coke gets you eight years? Crazy.

This, along with the other thread in the Law and Order forum "Two years for one joint", along with countless other cases where the punishment is extreme and out of proportion to the crime comitted, surely proves (again) that harsh punishments do not win the "War on drugs".

Klaatu