Congratulations November Coalition

By Eric C. Johnson, Editor for Free-Market.Net.

Congratulations! The November Coalition is this week's Freedom Home Page of the Week (for late-February 2001) on Free-Market.Net. Your site was also linked from our main home page, and the review went out, via e-mail, to subscribers of our Freedom Home Page of the Week list.

Statistics overwhelm us while considering the dimensions of the drug war. Over 60% of the 2 million American citizens currently behind bars are non-violent drug offenders. The average sentence for a first time, non-violent drug offender is longer than that for a rapist, child molester, or bank robber. This is insane and outrageous, but there's something about numbers: People don't get too worked up about 'em. But give people a human drama, and they'll go to the barricades. And no group has done more to put human faces on the statistics in our ongoing "War on Drugs" than the November Coalition.

The November Coalition's Web site is the most genuinely moving one to be featured as Freedom Page of the Week. It's a real 'tearjerker'. There is no question that the War on Drugs is fundamentally wrong in every way. Neither philosophically nor practically is there any rational justification for this ongoing travesty. But how often have you thought, really thought, about the individual victims? Their stories are told here, and they are unforgettable.

At The Wall the names, numbers, photos and stories of hundreds of prisoners are posted. You can flip through them, one by one. You will read about Cynthia Dickerson who was framed in a "reverse sting" by a pressuring "friend", and has a 9 year, 1 month, and 1 day sentence to serve. Terry Anderson, mother of 2, received a 30-year sentence which is, in her words, "just one year shy of the length of time I've been on this earth."

The Wall got me choked up, but the Children of War section is devastating. Read 10-year old Philip Gaines' letter to the judge, begging for his mother's freedom: "...my birthday is coming up in October, and I need my mom to be here on the 25th and for the rest of my life." Philip's plea apparently didn't fall on deaf ears. His mother, Dorothy, was released after six years by President Bill Clinton one day before Christmas 2000.

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