Whenever I hear or read the lament of some poor drug dealer, smuggler or trafficker and how unjust it is that they have been sentenced to a long prison term, I hesitate. After all according to the drug culture, they have committed a non-violent crime, selling drugs to a willing buyer. Then I remember the eloquent words of Judge Thomas Gee: "Except in rare cases the murderer's hand falls on one victim only, however grim the blow; but the foul hand of the drug dealer blights life after life and, like the vampire of fable, creates others in its owner's evil image -- others who create others still, across our land and down our generations, sparing not even the unborn."

I am reminded that the average starting age for marijuana users is eleven and for cocaine users it's in the midteens. I think of the victims of the drug dealers and users, the families involved, the prenatally damaged, ignored, abandoned and abused children of the users and a society devastated by drug use. Suddenly -- their sentences seem far too short.