3 Strike RAVE Offenders Face Life Without Parole

Civil liberties campaigners from the Drugs Policy Alliance (DPA) warned this week that US authorities plan to escalate the drug war to a new level of harshness under new laws which could see clubbers being jailed forever.

"They want to expand the federal "three strikes and you're out' law to include new offences, including mandating life imprisonment (with no possibility of parole) for anyone convicted a third time under the RAVE Act," said DPA director Bill Piper this week.

"They want a mandatory 2-year prison term for anyone who knows someone is selling marijuana on a college campus and fails to report it to the police within 24 hours. They want a mandatory 5-year prison term for someone at a party who passes a marijuana joint to someone who has been enrolled in drug treatment at some point in their life," he added.

The new laws are to be introduced in Congressman Sensenbrenner's bill H.R. 1528, entitled "Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005' which first appeared last year and could soon become law.

"We need to keep the heat on members of Congress to kill this bill", Mr Piper stressed. "We're up against the most powerful forces in the federal government. We hope you will continue to stand with us in this massive showdown."
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