Michael Douglas‘ son has reportedly been removed from solitary confinement after two years — and the actor’s impassioned Emmys speech may have had something to do with it.
Hollywood kid-turned-drug dealer Cameron Douglas has reportedly been released from solitary confinement back into his prison’s general population after over two years, and the impassioned plea of his father Michael Douglas at the 2013 Emmys may have had something to do with it.
Cameron, who is doing hard time for his role in a drug trafficking ring, was moved to solitary after an additional conviction for obtaining drugs in prison for personal use.
“It’s true,” Anthony Papa of the Drug Policy Alliance, who has been an advocate for Cameron, told RadarOnline. “That’s what I heard.
“It actually happened a little while back. I’m not sure of the exact date… I’m not sure if [Cameron’s parents] will be allowed to visit, but Cameron is out of solitary.”
After nearly two years of little contact with Cameron, his father had enough and spoke of his displeasure during his Behind the Candelabra Emmys speech. Afterward he explained to press, “Part of the punishment — if you happen to have a slip, and this is for a prisoner who is nonviolent, as about a half-million of our drug-addicted prisoners are — he’s spent almost two years in solitary confinement. Right now, I’ve been told that I can’t see him for two years. It’s been over a year now. And I’m questioning the system.
“Obviously at first, I was certainly disappointed in my son. But I’ve reached a point now where I’m very disappointed with the system. And as you can see from what Attorney General Eric Holder has been doing regarding our prison system, I think things are going to be revived, regarding nonviolent drug addicts. My last comment on that is the United States represents 5 percent of the world’s population and we have 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.”
Cameron himself spoke out about the plight of non-violent offenders being given harsh prison sentences. In an essay he penned for the Huffington Post, he wrote, “Our prisons are filled with non-violent drug offenders who are losing much of what is relevant in life. This outdated system pays little, if any, concern to the disease of addiction, and instead punishes it more harshly than many violent crimes. And even more exasperating is that many of the people responsible for this tragedy disregard documented medical research and the reality of our country’s unsustainable prison overpopulation.”
Cameron is not due to be freed until 2018.
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