Editorial: Clemency for traffickers undermines war on drugs

Boston Herald, Boston Herald on Dec 17, 2024

Published in Op Eds

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It’s time to stop treating the trafficking of deadly drugs as a non-violent crime.

President Joe Biden’s mass clemency spree last week included Lawrence, Massachusetts, woman Luz Perez DeMartinez, who was sentenced five years ago to 11 years in federal prison for participating in a large-scale fentanyl trafficking conspiracy. DeMartinez pleaded guilty.

The feds in court had said a drug trafficking organization, led by Sergio Martinez, sold fentanyl to customers from various New England states, including New Hampshire. DeMartinez was the wife of the organization’s leader,

“The Martinez drug trafficking organization facilitated the sale of large quantities of lethal fentanyl to residents of New Hampshire,” then-New Hampshire U.S. Attorney Scott Murray said during the sentencing in 2019. “This was a large-scale criminal enterprise that reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits and caused untold misery to its customers and their families. These sentences should serve as warning that long federal prison terms await those who choose to distribute fentanyl in New Hampshire.”

A long prison term may await a drug trafficker caught in N.H., but a Biden commutation just undermined any message the sentence sent to others in the deadly business.

Revere man Manuele Scata also made Biden’s clemency list. He was sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison for trafficking oxycodone after agents found nearly 2,000 oxy pills, a loaded gun and a machete in his vehicle.

Fentanyl. Oxycodone. Two opioids that play a starring role in the country’s drug crisis. Lives are lost to fentanyl and oxy, sometimes quickly, sometimes after years of addiction and degradation. Had Biden ever taken a drive down Mass and Cass in its heyday, he would have seen the carnage wrought by opioids. Biden can take a drive through virtually any large city and see the same. Lives are lost to opioids – and the drug traffickers are complicit in the deaths caused by the poisons they peddle.

None of that matters in Biden’s bid for legacy points.

“America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances,” Biden said in a statement last week.

“As President, I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities, and taking steps to remove sentencing disparities for non-violent offenders, especially those convicted of drug offenses.”

Some of those addicted to opioids get a second chance, through intervention and rehabilitation. But far too many never get a do-over, instead joining the throng of “zombies” lost in the paralyzing fog of powerful drugs.

They are sons, daughters, mothers and fathers. They have families who search for them in vain, hoping they can get help for their loved ones before it’s too late. They have parents who have to plan their funerals instead of graduations or weddings.

It’s safe to issue a statement and tout “second chances” for people who sell fentanyl and oxy and other opioids. It would be a hell of a lot harder for Biden to explain to the families of those lost to addiction why he’s commuting the sentences of those who trafficked the very drugs that killed their loved ones.

Some legacy.