Meth, mandatories and moral values

Recognizing that methamphetamine is the latest “drug epidemic” in the news, Families Against Mandatory Minimums has focused its latest FAMM Gram on spotlighting why it would be unwise for Congress to respond “to drug and gang hysteria with new, ill-considered mandatory sentencing laws.”  This short newsletter includes a lot of interesting items, including a portion of a June 29 letter to the Washington Post from Charles Thomas, Executive Director of the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative, which suggests an interesting faith-based perspective on sentencing policy:

Considering how often the Bush administration refers to moral values, it should consider that most major religious groups oppose mandatory sentencing, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of Churches, the United Methodist Church, Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship Ministries, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, all four major black Baptist denominations, the United Church of Christ, the Union for Reform Judaism and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

No denominations are known to favor mandatory sentencing.  The moral position on this issue is clear.