The law restricts the use, possession, manufacture and distribution of drugs to very slim measures. Under the federal law, the country spells out five drug schedules. The process of putting a drug in a given schedule is due to the information about the appropriate medical use of the particular substance and its possibility of being addictive. For the most part, state laws adhere to the Federal drug schedules. Marijuana or cannabis is the only notable exception which has been known to have positive effects as well. Most of the states have tried to repeal or even legalize the use of marijuana for personal reasons in the recent past.
Punishments and the consequences of getting a conviction for drug crimes include the following; It is worth noting that crime, especially those involving the production, sale or supply of drugs attracts long jail terms. This article gives a brief information on some of the most often seen drug charges. It will also highlight some of the repercussions that are bound to be faced in connection to these crimes.
The Controlled Substances Act
CSA was enacted by the Congress in the year 1970. The CSA developed five drug schedules…
Schedule I Drugs in schedule I are the most dangerous drugs as placed under this section. The government claims that these drugs have no accepted medical use, have high potential for successfully leading to dependency and use/abuse.
Schedule II substances are closely resembling Schedule I substances but they can be used for medical purposes and they are highly addictive. Schedule II drugs are cocaine, methamphetamine and opioid drugs which include Vicodin, Oxycontin, fentanyl as well as Morphine.
Schedule III drugs most of which are used in the medical field such as ketamine and the pain reliever, Tylenol with codeine has a relatively low potential for leading to physical or psychological dependence and abuse compared to other heavily controlled drugs.
Schedule IV drugs like Xanax, Ativan and Valium have legal and genuine use and the potential for addiction is very small.
Schedule V consist of presumption-controlled substances having the least likelihood for use. It has drugs such as Lyrica and Robitussin AC cough medicine among others.
The federal and state laws contain provisions on drug offense. Thus, a particular drug case can contain the federal authorities including the DEA and FBI, or state police. While those will be cases to be prosecuted under federal law and will be prosecuted in federal court. Proceedings relating to state drugs charges will be handled in the municipal and county courts. Therefore, the two related concepts of drug dealing and drug trafficking.
Narcotics peddling and narcotics transportation laws prohibit persons from peddling, bartering, exchanging or selling scheduled drugs. The laws of some states address dealing of drugs for value separately from distribution or delivering. Drug trafficking is usually a felony offense in most of the cases. This is even so when a case is of a large quantity of drugs or when as a consequence of drug trafficking, someone dies.
A felony is not necessarily committed in cases of large-scale drug peddling but even dealing of scheduled drugs for personal use, as performed by a layman, can be considered a felony. In such circumstances the kind of drug, the offence committed and the past breaking record of the defendant may determine the sentence given.
DEA states that the penalties that may be given due to federal laws concerning drug trafficking are the potential penalties for the charges. For instance, by 21 U. S. C. Section 841 it is stated that it is unlawful to sell, and this implies that anyone selling 100 grams of heroin is to be imprisoned for five years. The same law prescripts a non-parole period of 10 years for dealing twenty-five grams of methamphetamine.