baseball card collecting, or any legitimate business, they can all lead to crimes. let's dole out punishment for what ACTUALLY happens. If someone if guilty of carrying around x and weed, that is all that they are doing. They aren't raping and pillaging villages. If we find that they in fact raped and murdered people, let's charge them with Rape and Murder. The fact that one crime could lead to other crimes should have no bearing on the seriousness of the first crime. Most of those "serious" crimes that you mention carry shorter punishments than 25 years.

There is ZERO logical criminal justice reason for 10 Ecstasy pills carrying a 15 year sentence.

and I stand corrected, Hastert will serve 15 months for being a serial child molester, lying to police & prosecuters, paying off those that were molested, and filling a lawsuit against one of the molesters to keep them quiet.