Newsgroups: misc.legal,alt.drugs,alt.politics.usa.constitution
From: [e--k] at [panix.com] (Mark Eckenwiler)
Subject: Sentencing Guidelines amendments
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 14:25:05 GMT

The world is clearly Coming To An End: the U.S. Sentencing Commission
has just approved certain revisions to the Sentencing Guidelines that
actually *reduce* the sentence calculations for drug offenders.

Under current section 2D1.1, the defendant must be sentenced for the
entire weight of the drugs plus any substance containing them.  Thus,
blotter paper counts toward your LSD sentence; cornstarch and the
like, toward jacking up your cocaine offense.  See Chapman v. US, 111
S. Ct. 1919 (1991).

Under the revision, blotter paper and other "uningestible" substrates/
solvents will not count.  In effect, the Commission has adopted the
reasoning of the Second Circuit in US v. Acosta, 963 F.2d 551 (2d Cir.
1992), in which the court essentially disobeyed _Chapman_ by excluding
the weight of cream liqueur in which cocaine had been dissolved.  (It
appears that "cutting agents" used in drugs like cocaine will not be
excluded, however.)

If Congress doesn't take action to invalidate the Commission's
decision, the revisions will go into effect Nov. 1, 1993.

-- 
They told me you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.

	   Mark Eckenwiler    [e--k] at [panix.com]    ...!cmcl2!panix!eck