The guidance regarding drug cases that Attorney General Merrick Garland gave federal prosecutors on Friday, which aims to limit the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences, reinstates and extends a policy that one of his predecessors, Eric Holder, announced during the Obama administration. Another predecessor, Jeff Sessions, reversed Holder's policy during the Trump administration.
The history behind those three decisions shows how arbitrary and draconian federal drug sentences can be. Since President Joe Biden played a leading role in creating that system, Garland's memo is an effort to ameliorate the damage that his boss did as a senator, which Biden now says he regrets. Unreformed drug warriors, by contrast, see little or nothing wrong with Biden's handiwork. They reflexively resist efforts to reduce drug penalties, whether through prosecutorial discretion or through new legislation.
