Yesterday afternoon, two releases came across the fax machine (yes, amazingly, there are organizations that still us that old dinosaur the facsimile machine) that caught my eye. Both came from U.S. Attorney William Hochul's office and both involved the conviction of local individuals for drug offenses.

The first release outlined four individuals from a group of 26 people arrested last summer as part of an investigation into the sale of prescription drugs, most notably, OxyContin. Two of the defendants were convicted of obtaining prescriptions for the drug from a doctor, then selling the pills to a street dealer. Their sentence? Probation.

Multiple studies have shown that abuse of prescription drugs is reaching epidemic proportions among American teenagers. The drugs are readily available, often in the medicine cabinets of their homes. Add to that the number of teens stealing pills from the bathrooms of friend's houses and throw in a hot new trend — attending an open house and stealing from the medicine cabinets of the home seller— and

and you have plenty of kids being hooked to a potentially temporary supply. Once that supply runs out, they can turn to those individuals selling their pills on the street.

The second release involved a conviction for distribution of cocaine. When the defendant is sentenced in that case, she will face a mandatory minimum of five years in prison but can be sentenced to as much as 40 years and fined $2 million.

While a distributor of cocaine deserves, and certainly will receive a harsh prison sentence, what kind of message does it send when people who are funneling drugs into the streets to be sold to teenagers, receive probation? We don't know the details of the case. With 26 defendants, did they flip on their co-defendants? Did they offer up other individuals, unknown to the authorities? Probably, but the end result is that they were given a virtual pass for being a critical link in the drug supply chain. If they don't obtain and then sell the drugs to a dealer, they aren't available on the street, or at least they aren't as readily available.

Given the slap on the wrist the defendants received, how many other individuals, struggling to make ends meet, unemployed, or underemployed, might be tempted to follow the same path. In researching the topic, I found the street value for an 80mg OxyContin pill as high as $100. A hundred bucks for a single pill.

If you are out of work due to a severe back injury, subsiding on disability and your doctor hands you a bottle of 20 pills with a street value of $2,000, would you be tempted to sell them. You may not be, but a heck of a lot of people might, especially if they believe getting caught is unlikely, and if they do, they are only going to get probation anyway.

Unfortunately, like most things illegal, there will always be a black market for prescription drugs. But does that mean we shouldn't make every effort to punish the people taking the drugs to the street. Sometimes, the legal system is about sending a message to future offenders, and unfortunately, the message here, is crime (at least this crime) can certainly pay.