Tim Scott: “although I support the children's health part of the Children's Health Act, I rise to oppose the bill for several…”

“although I support the children's health part of the Children's Health Act, I rise to oppose the bill for several reasons. First, I must object to the process by which we merge an anti-drug bill and attacks on religious liberty into legislation dealing with children's health. Mr. Speaker, the anti-drug part of the bill provides for more mandatory minimum sentences, making penalties for amphetamine abuses comparable to those for abusing methamphetamine and crack cocaine, which is 5 years for 5 grams of possession. It is interesting to note that the majority has taken out the mandatory minimums for penalties for Ecstasy, a methamphetamine-based drug which is prevalent in the middle-class white community. This is curious, because crack cocaine, prevalent in the African-American community, Draconian mandatory minimums. Methamphetamine, prevalent in the Hispanic community, mandatory minimums. And for Ecstasy and powder cocaine, prevalent in the white community, no mandatory minimums. Now, I oppose mandatory minimums for the same reason the Judicial Conference of the United States recently wrote to Chairman Hyde. They said that mandatory minimums are a bad idea because they treat dissimilar offenders in a similar manner, offenders who can be quite different with respect to the seriousness of their conduct or a danger to society.”