Pardon My Cynicism But…
haven’t we been down this road before? In response to recent drug-related in violence in Rutland, Sen. Kevin Mullin (R-Rutland) has come up with a novel solution: increased penalties for possession of heroin and cocaine. It’s difficult to imagine where Sen. Mullin might have been for the last 20 years. The federal war on drugs began in earnest in 1987 with the implementation of the Sentencing Guidelines, followed by ever-increasing penalties, and anyone the local authorities really wanted to make an example of was turned over to the feds, although the state penalties had been increased as well. Which brings us to where we are now: Rutland is in the grip of an unprecedented heroin epidemic (which, fortunately, seems to be tailing off) and the state corrections budget is more than that for higher education and growing.
Most of Rutland’s violence problems have been attributed to criminals from New York and Massachusetts, and former mayor Jeff Wennberg already discovered a successful formula to run them out of town. There are already tough penalties for shooting someone. So what will Sen. Mullin’s bill, already approved 5-0 by the Senate Judiciary Committee, accomplish? Absolutely nothing, unless one counts pandering to his constituents.