Jeffery Holt -- #07424-029

10 Years -- Crack Cocaine Conspiracy

I am a prisoner of the drug war, serving a 10-year sentence for crack cocaine.

I was not a drug dealer. I was merely in a motel room partying when the police came in and discovered 52 grams of crack. I was charged with a conspiracy to distribute 52 grams of crack with two others in the motel room with me.

I have never been in prison before and in my entire life of 40 years, I have only been in jail for a total of 10 days.

I was introduced to crack by way of the DEA and later became addicted. The conspiracy to distribute comes from the prosecutor's claim that giving crack to one another is the same as selling it. And so, we were sentenced as crack dealers.

I've been in prison 2 years now and it's hard for me to understand why they would want to put me in prison for 10 years. The worst part of it is that we didn't even buy the crack -- we found it in a Hardee's bag as we were cutting though some bushes.

I'm happy that I'm no longer addicted to crack, but taking ten years of my life for what I did is wrong.