***SPOILERS*** When collage basketball star Len Bias died of a drug overdose at age 22 in 1986 a number of draconian drug laws were shoved through the US Congress making it a crime that even if a person was totally innocent of drug trafficking he or she can end up behind bars like Susan walker, Mrcedes Ruehl, did for as much as 20 years! And what was Susan's crime? She answered her phone to take a call from her boyfriend Russell's, Alex Carter, drug or marijuana supplier! Being fingered by a very reluctant Russell and his friends, all pot smokers and dealers, Susan was convicted of being a drug or pot dealer herself! And with Susan having no knowledge of what was going on between Russell and his friends and not being able to give the Feds any names, like Russell & Co. did, Susan ended up getting a 20 sentence! What was so outrageous about all this is that the judge had no choice but to give her that sentence because of the Mandatory Minimum Sentencing laws that was pushed through by the US Congress in it's "War on Drugs" legislation!
It was behind bars that Susan began to realize how destructive this "War on Drugs" really was not only to herself and her family her two kids Hannah & Max, Asia Vieira & Trevor Blumas, but scores of other women inmates who ended up behind bars for being associated with their drug dealing boyfriends and husbands! And thus ending up like herself getting the book thrown at them by the court for being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the cops,in a drug raid, broke in!
Susan ended up only doing six years of a 20 year sentence because concerned people and public advocates like Mike MacNamara, James Bulliard, of FAMM, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, on the outside went to bat for her and her fellow inmates in how unfair and even criminal the drug laws are. And in 2001 just before he left office President Clinton, an admitted pot smoker himself, pardoned her and a number of other victims of the "War on Drugs" who's lives were ruined because of it!
The movie is a damning statement in how the "War on Drugs" in fact put far more innocent people like Susan behind bars then those who ware personally, like Russell and his friends, involved in drug trafficking. In fact convicted drug dealers like Russell were given far lighter sentences in them knowing what they were involved in and being able to finger their fellow drug dealers. Which innocent persons like Susan who had no idea what they got themselves into and in being innocent felt they didn't have to make any deals with the federal courts in them getting a reduced sentence in them not willing or being able to do so!
It was behind bars that Susan began to realize how destructive this "War on Drugs" really was not only to herself and her family her two kids Hannah & Max, Asia Vieira & Trevor Blumas, but scores of other women inmates who ended up behind bars for being associated with their drug dealing boyfriends and husbands! And thus ending up like herself getting the book thrown at them by the court for being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the cops,in a drug raid, broke in!
Susan ended up only doing six years of a 20 year sentence because concerned people and public advocates like Mike MacNamara, James Bulliard, of FAMM, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, on the outside went to bat for her and her fellow inmates in how unfair and even criminal the drug laws are. And in 2001 just before he left office President Clinton, an admitted pot smoker himself, pardoned her and a number of other victims of the "War on Drugs" who's lives were ruined because of it!
The movie is a damning statement in how the "War on Drugs" in fact put far more innocent people like Susan behind bars then those who ware personally, like Russell and his friends, involved in drug trafficking. In fact convicted drug dealers like Russell were given far lighter sentences in them knowing what they were involved in and being able to finger their fellow drug dealers. Which innocent persons like Susan who had no idea what they got themselves into and in being innocent felt they didn't have to make any deals with the federal courts in them getting a reduced sentence in them not willing or being able to do so!