.... when the evidence is stacked heavily agaisnt the defendant. For more marginal cases, the offers tend to be much less punitive.

Look, I'm not a lawyer. You may want to go talk to one -- especially a public defense lawyer. Your eyes will be open about how fantastically reasonable the system usually (intentional hedge word -- not all DAs or judges are reasonable, but most are) is.

So every non-violent drug offender should just take their multi-year sentence to third-world-tier prisons and their felon status too and be happy with it?

Pretty much. Once you’re negotiating with a DA, you’re going to jail. They’re never gonna let you go.

I suppose my comment was intended to highlight the relative absurdity of punishing non-violent drug offenses with jail time.

It quite literally creates career criminals out of non-criminals, since, once they have a crime on their record, virtually all avenues of employment are closed off to them besides violent/property crime.

"Fantastically reasonable" is an interesting way of describing the legal system punishing the greatest number of prisoners in the world.