Federal and state judges throughout the United States have
publicly expressed frustration with the present laws prohibiting
drugs, and some senior federal judges have even refused to sit on
drug cases. In the Southern District of New York and in the
Eastern District of New York, Judges Whitman Knapp,20 Robert Sweet, and Jack Weinstein
have spoken out publicly against the present laws and their
associated draconian penalties,21and Judges Knapp and Weinstein have refused, as is their right as
senior judges, to preside over drug trials and
sentences.22 State judges in New York have also protested the
increasing time on their calendars that drug cases take and the
Second Offender sentencing rule that compels them to give lengthy
prison sentences to second-time drug offenders.23 These judges
seek a solution to the ``war on drugs;SPMquot; before the whole judicial
system breaks down under the strain.