Should we legalize pot and help free innocent people?

[Crackerjaxon]

Here's a couple of guys who will go to prison and say it was because of unfair marijuana laws.

L.A. girl kept in metal box on pot farm for sex, authorities say - latimes.com

A missing Los Angeles teenager was sexually assaulted, kept in a metal box and forced to process marijuana for her two captors, according to a federal criminal complaint filed this week.


Prosecutors said the girl was held by Ryan Balletto, 30, and Patrick Pearmain, 24, who are charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana, using a minor in a drug operation and possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking.

They can become part of the list of "innocent" people serving time for marijuana offenses.

Don't equate growing pot with kidnapping. It's intellectually dishonest.

 

[Katzndogz]

Legalizing pot will be a major error in policy. It will give the feds more power and put their grubby little paws even more into people's private property and lives.

Decriminalize it. People can grow it and smoke it. People who are caught selling more than an ounce should have to pick up papers with a pointy stick in the park for a weekend or two. That would keep our parks clean and provide potheads with work within their capabilities.

What do you think is done with pot violators now? They get "sentenced" to community service, diversion or alternative sentencing. They don't go to prison, in some places it's a nominal fine.

 

[Crackerjaxon]

Legalizing pot will be a major error in policy. It will give the feds more power and put their grubby little paws even more into people's private property and lives.

Decriminalize it. People can grow it and smoke it. People who are caught selling more than an ounce should have to pick up papers with a pointy stick in the park for a weekend or two. That would keep our parks clean and provide potheads with work within their capabilities.

What do you think is done with pot violators now? They get "sentenced" to community service, diversion or alternative sentencing. They don't go to prison, in some places it's a nominal fine.

Unfortunately, there are people in prison for possession. No doubt about that. Pot is one of the few ways a poor boy can amass some capital without doing people much harm.

You'd be surprised how many successful businesses were started with capital raised from selling pot.

 

[April]

Should we legalize pot and help free innocent people?

Yes.

 

[Katzndogz]

Legalizing pot will be a major error in policy. It will give the feds more power and put their grubby little paws even more into people's private property and lives.

Decriminalize it. People can grow it and smoke it. People who are caught selling more than an ounce should have to pick up papers with a pointy stick in the park for a weekend or two. That would keep our parks clean and provide potheads with work within their capabilities.

What do you think is done with pot violators now? They get "sentenced" to community service, diversion or alternative sentencing. They don't go to prison, in some places it's a nominal fine.

Unfortunately, there are people in prison for possession. No doubt about that. Pot is one of the few ways a poor boy can amass some capital without doing people much harm.

You'd be surprised how many successful businesses were started with capital raised from selling pot.

When I was carjacked, the jacker's defense was that he was stealing cars in the US and selling them in mexico so he could get the money to start a family business. Plenty of businesses were started with seed money from criminal enterprise.

There are people in prison for possession, connected with other crimes like Gerald Duval was and like these two pot farmers will be. In six months to a year, these two will make it into the annals of people going to prison because of marijuana and no one will ever mention the kidnapping.

 

[Desperado]

It should be legalized but it won't be. The government benefits more by it being illegal.

This is exactly the problem. Too many in government have built their little kingdoms on fighting the war on drugs, and none will want to relinquish their power or their budget if these drugs were made legal.

 

[Katzndogz]

Make up your mind. The government is making too much money off keeping pot illegal. The government is going to rake in tons of cash by taxing legal pot.

One or the other.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

They aren't innocent they are ciminals who happen to be charged with a drug crime in addition to their other crimes.

Proof?

 

[Pete7469]

I looked up Gerald Duval . Gee a convicted felon who got a license to grow medical marijuna in violation of the law prohibiting felons from having such a license, then violated the licensing law. He violated the distribution laws. If that's not enough this felon had firearms in his possession.

Textbook case of who should be behind bars. Which is what is found when someone says they are in prison ONLY for a small marijuana offense. If he never touched pot he'd still be in prison as a felon with a gun.

This is the first time I'll disagree with you Katz.

I have no idea who Gerald Duval is, or what he did.

In principle from my days as a vapid teenage socialist, to my current enlightened hard core rightwing "teabagger" stance it's my opinion that throwing people in prison because of pot is foolish. I also believe if a person has a non-violent felony conviction they either should not be free at all, or free to own weapons. Weapons are tools, "tools" are used as weapons all the time. Any person free to walk the streets should have the freedom to be armed, or they do not belong on the street if they can't be trusted with a hammer.

The bottom line to me is the current pot laws are bullshit. Other sorts of dope are certainly different, and I have first hand knowledge of their effects and knew people who are no longer with us thanks to their dependency. So I do not endorse any other sort of laxing on drug policy, but I'm certain that pot laws are again... BULLSHIT.

 

[Pete7469]

Make up your mind. The government is making too much money off keeping pot illegal. The government is going to rake in tons of cash by taxing legal pot.

One or the other.

I would prefer to tax the user, than tax the citizen to sustain the user in a prison.

 

[Katzndogz]

I looked up Gerald Duval . Gee a convicted felon who got a license to grow medical marijuna in violation of the law prohibiting felons from having such a license, then violated the licensing law. He violated the distribution laws. If that's not enough this felon had firearms in his possession.

Textbook case of who should be behind bars. Which is what is found when someone says they are in prison ONLY for a small marijuana offense. If he never touched pot he'd still be in prison as a felon with a gun.

This is the first time I'll disagree with you Katz.

I have no idea who Gerald Duval is, or what he did.

In principle from my days as a vapid teenage socialist, to my current enlightened hard core rightwing "teabagger" stance it's my opinion that throwing people in prison because of pot is foolish. I also believe if a person has a non-violent felony conviction they either should not be free at all, or free to own weapons. Weapons are tools, "tools" are used as weapons all the time. Any person free to walk the streets should have the freedom to be armed, or they do not belong on the street if they can't be trusted with a hammer.

The bottom line to me is the current pot laws are bullshit. Other sorts of dope are certainly different, and I have first hand knowledge of their effects and knew people who are no longer with us thanks to their dependency. So I do not endorse any other sort of laxing on drug policy, but I'm certain that pot laws are again... BULLSHIT.

Gerald Duval was the subject of post #12, as an example of a man who went to prison for a simple pot offense. He went to prison but it wasn't because of a simple pot offense. Today, with the mandatory alternative sentencing options, no one goes to prison for mere possession of small or even nominal amounts of pot. There is always some other crime and the pot is merely tangential. The other crime, the more serious crime is somehow forgotten and the conviction become another abuse of innocent people because of draconian pot laws.

 

[Pete7469]

Regulate and tax it, all of it. Pot, coke, H, crack, meth, whatever. The War on Drugs has been a horrible failure across the board and done nothing but waste money, increase corruption and bureaucracy, gut the 4th Amendment pitted police against the common citizen, and destroy countless lives. It's not government's job to protect me from myself and even if it was, that wasn't worth what it has cost so far.

The libertarian in me agrees with you, especially about the abject failure of the WOD, and the detrimental effects it has had on the relations between LEO Vs. Citizens. However it's much more nuanced that an issue of "protecting you from yourself".

Some of these poisons turn you into something you never would have been otherwise. Everyone has different reactions of course. Some people can use shit like coke recreationally a few times a year or of whatever frequency and not become addicts who turn to crime and/or get into liberal politics. Some people use it once and it not only destroys them but their families as well. They're a menace to society afterwards.

I'm not going to pretend to have the solution, but obviously what we're doing now isn't working. I seriously doubt the opposite extreme of blanket legalization is going to be better. I guess that's the "conservative" in me that's talking. Too bad both camps can't come together and unfuck the mess leftists have caused yet again.

 

[Michelle420]

Should we legalize pot and help free innocent people?

Why Is the U.S. Prison Population So Large? | LearnLiberty

From 1980 to 1990, the total U.S. prison population more than doubled. In that same time, the proportion of people in prison for nonviolent drug crimes rose from 7.5 percent to 24 percent. Prof. D’Amico says this statistic actually understates the influence of the drug war on the prison population because drug prohibition also increases violent crime by leading to the formation of gangs and cartels. By 2000, the prison population had nearly doubled again, but the proportion of prisoners due to drug-related offenses remained similar.

United States incarceration rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seriously, I'd be willing to release all the innocent people of all races that did a simple leaf. Sounds sane? I think so.

Let's place our resources into locking up the murderers, crooks, rapist and thugs. Let's say even half of that 24% is there just because they smoked some leaf??? No other crime. Imagine how much money our nation could save by releasing them.

This is the one area I could work with the black community with. As long as we could refocus some of our resources on the real criminals.

Yes end Prohibition !

A BILL
To decriminalize marijuana at the Federal level, to leave
to the States a power to regulate marijuana that is
similar to the power they have to regulate alcohol, and
for other purposes.
1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2013’’.

http://beta.congress.gov/113/bills/hr499/113hr499ih.pdf

 

[Luissa]

I don'know - should we free legalize rape and free rapists? I mean, all they did was have some non-consensual sex....

Yeah, completely the same.

 

[FA_Q2]

Should we legalize pot and help free innocent people?

No, but we should stop criminalizing consensual activity between adults.

Cannabis doesn't need "legalization" or regulation any more than the poppy seeds on your muffin this morning. We simply need to stop prosecuting adults that didn't do anything to hurt or take from another.

That is essentially what legalization is. It is usually phrased that way because there are 2 movements, one for ‘decriminalization’ that allows use but not commercialization and then legalization which is what you are referring to.

 

[FA_Q2]

Make up your mind. The government is making too much money off keeping pot illegal. The government is going to rake in tons of cash by taxing legal pot.

One or the other.

The government is not making money with illegal pot, they are expanding POWER. That is an entirely different concept. The government has garnered MASSIVE amounts of power and made huge inroads into your freedom all in the name of prosecuting a failed drug war. They will make a lot of money off the legalized product but will lose a lot of power. They call that a win-win scenario.

 

[S.J.]

If it were legal, the criminal element would be eliminated (for the most part). That would mean fewer cops needed, fewer prosecutors, judges, paralegals, court clerks, filing clerks, public defenders, jails, jail guards, fingerprint technicians, etc. I'm sure I missed a few, these jobs are all taxpayer funded.

Legalizing pot would not only save the taxpayer a ton of money, it would also take the criminal element out of marijuana, including the Mexican cartels. We don't know how much our government collects from them to "look the other way" either. I'm sure there are plenty of unscrupulous people who take bribes regularly. And there's the money that is seized in drug raids, which often is far more than what is officially reported, as well as the amount of pot reported. Somebody is lining their pockets.

Legalization would be great for us taxpayers and regular citizens, but bad for the over-funded government bureaucracy that depends on a relatively harmless substance remaining illegal.

 

[eflatminor]

I don'know - should we free legalize rape and free rapists? I mean, all they did was have some non-consensual sex....

Uh...no. A non-consensual act like rape warrants criminal punishment...of course.

What does that have to do with consensual activity like an adult ingesting cannabis?

 

[The Rabbi]

I'm in favor of rehab on a first offense and execution on a second offense. Get those scumbags off the streets.

 

[The Rabbi]

I don'know - should we free legalize rape and free rapists? I mean, all they did was have some non-consensual sex....

Uh...no. A non-consensual act like rape warrants criminal punishment...of course.

What does that have to do with consensual activity like an adult ingesting cannabis?

They're both "victimless crimes."