US War on Drugs

For my law class, we have to research drug laws of different countries and write an essay. I came across an interesting bit of info. on penalties in the US:

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In the U.S., the War on Drugs is causing a prison overcrowding problem. In 1996, 59.6% of prisoners were drug-related criminals. U.S. population grew by about +25% from 1980 to 2000. In that same 20 year time period, U.S. prison population tripled. To make room in prison for incoming drug users and dealers, all inmates, including violent criminals are having their sentences shortened or are being paroled early. This is why mandatory sentencing laws are being repealed.

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Source

So because they need room for druggies and drug lords, inmates with more serious offences such as rapists, murderers, etc. get less time.

That upsets me. :mad: :(

That is enough to upset anybody and everybody.... When is the VOTING public going to put their feet down and stop this?

Here's a little trivia about drug busts.


I seem to remember that for every dollar's worth of street drugs taken off the street by the cops, they get 50 cents, paid for by the government to keep their drug section going.


I may be wrong about that fact, or the monies involved......

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There was a pot bust here in So Cal a while back.......there were some live plants that were cut down and carted away by the cops...

Street worth was about 10 million dollars.

THat made me laugh out loud....



The war on drugs is nothing but a money making scam..... :rolleyes:

I always found this kind of infuriating...a guy beats a dog and leaves it outside to starve and die. He gets a $500 fine.

Another guy gets found with a baggie of pot in his pocket-he's in jail for 1-5 years.

I really don't understand it..if you wanna mess yourself up, it should be legal to do so.

I understand that maybe heroin, acid, crack, etc should be illegal, as those are pretty bad when you get into it. But c'mon, pot and taking 'prescription drugs' and stuff..just leave those people alone. If it was legal it would probably boost the economy. :p Marijuana is less damaging and (sometimes) less intoxicating than alcohol.

Being that many dealers are in on crimes related to violence as well as dealing, I have little to no sympathy for them.

HOWEVER:

I've said it once, I'll say it again.

Put 20 guys in a room with a keg.

put 20 guys in another room with all the pot they want.

Which room is going to need the police?

Using should not end up as jail time, unless the sentence involves treatment (which most do not)

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Originally Posted by Lady's Human

Put 20 guys in a room with a keg.

put 20 guys in another room with all the pot they want.

Which room is going to need the police?

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And which room needs the Fire Dept...? :rolleyes:
LOL, just look for the burns in the rug and furniture.

In my hometown, the problem is meth. BIG problem. It's scary, truly. But, if you read the sentences given out in court every day, it reads something like this:

Joe Blow, 37, possession of marijuana, $850 fine, 90 days in jail.

John Doe, 32, public intoxication, $500 fine, 60 days in jail.

Joe Crackhead, 22, possesion of methamphetamine, cocaine, Manufacturing of methamphetamine, resisting arrest. $150 fine, 30 days in jail, suspended.

Jane Tweaker, 45, possesion of methamphetamine, public disturbance, possission of cocaine, resisting arrest. $100 fine, suspended.


Seriously. I changed the names, obviously, but I took this out of today's paper, and every day is the same. In our neck of the woods, so many people are doing/selling/making meth that it's basically a slap on the wrist and back out on the streets because there is no room in the courts or jails for the thousands of people doing it in this little county. It's a running joke with the law-abiding amoung us ... make sure you always have a crack pipe or some meth in the car with you, in case you get a speeding ticket or run a stop sign, then you KNOW you'll get off on the charges scott-free. Otherwise, it's going to be several hundred dollars.

And, here's my personal experience with this: My son got caught with marijuana in April, 2006. About enough to roll one joint. (Not much at all!) He was 14 at the time. He was searched, handcuffed on my back porch, taken to jail in handcuffs and leg shackles. He spent the night in jail, missed school, and appeared in a court room full of adult meth addicts the next morning, still in handcuffs and shackles. He was let out on $1,000 bond, until his trial date in July. He was on house arrest, with an electronic ankle monitoring device, until his court date. In July, he was sentenced to 90 in the state reform school. It is a military acadamy, basically, 300 miles away. He missed the first quarter of his sophomore year at school. He was not allowed to visit home once. He lost 40 pounds (he was a little thin when he went in, he looks like a concentration camp victim now, literally), he came home terrified, cowed, basically starved. He will be on a year's supervised probabtion, with 3 drug tests per week, three substance abuse meetings per week (two hours long each), five Narcotics Anonymouse meetings per week, three Multi Systemic counseling sessions in our home per week (two hours each), all court ordered. He was forced to transfer to a new school by the court. He was FOURTEEN years old and had enough marijuana in his pocket to roll ONE joint. Now, I don't smoke pot, I don't use any drugs, I rarely (like twice a year) even drink alcohol. But I find this to be OVERKILL in the extreme. If he would have had a meth lab in the basement, he would have gotten his entire sentence suspended, no doubt.

TD,

For one lousy joint?


Think about all the people that were needed to process the case and operate
all those programs.

What did that cost and how much money did the municipality to hold those programs.


As long as the war on drugs goes on, The "system" will flourish and the small potatoes will go to jail.


Now....

The methheads need to go to jail, If you have to make it (drug) then keep it illegal...

Like meth, LSD, PCP...and all that crap.

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You are brave to tell that story.

For one lousy joint?

Yes, more or less.

What did that cost and how much money did the municipality to hold those programs.

I can only imagine the cost to the taxpayers. Frightening. I know personally, I had to pay $600 per month. I don't know what his dad had to pay, but he makes about 3 times as much as I do. So, we probably paid about $2,000 per month out of pocket.


You are brave to tell that story.

Thank you. It's a hard story to tell. It's been a hard thing all around.

wow this is the last place in the world i would expect a topic like this to come up, lol.

i don't think the government should be able to tell me what i can put into my body, mainly because they have very poor judgment. like its fine if i go out and buy a packof cigarrettes that WILL KILL ME eventually, its fine if i drink a 12 pack of beer everyday and die of liver failure, beat my wife, lose my job and live a poor quality life.

but by god if i smoke a joint and stay home, order a pizza ( munchies, mmmm) and play video games all day, i am a criminal, and pot is evil because there is the very slim possibility that it MAY cause some health problem if i am a cronic user for a long period of time.

its all about money and popular opinion, marijuana legislation is just like pit bull/breed specific legislation, its retarded.

i don't know what a solution for the other drugs would be, but i can tell you that throwing someone in jail because they have a drug problem does nothing to help them, it only gaurantees that they will become a repeat offender.

RICHARD,

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And which room needs the Fire Dept...?
LOL, just look for the burns in the rug and furniture

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You never cease to amaze me or make me ROFLMAO before my first cup of coffee. Thank you!!!! ;)

On a more serious note...In CT as of October 1, all the cold medicines that contain the active ingredient in making Crystal Meth are now put behind the counters of pharmacies. In order to buy the stuff, the customer needs to sign a log book and show picture ID such as a driver's license. MANY people are up in arms about it, saying it's a violation of their constitutional rights to privacy. I say, what's the big deal if you have nothing to hide or aren't doing anything illegal???

As far as the marijuana situation is concerned, I have never heard of anyone robbing a bank or store to support their pot habit, have you???

Twisterdog,

I'm sure it was a nightmare for your family and your poor kid. And I'll bet your son has learned a valuable lesson. Couldn't he have signed up for Accelerated Rehabilitation, whereas if he stays clean and is a good boy for 1 year, his record is wiped clean??? To put a 14 year old kid through all of that for less than a joints worth is totally absurd. The laws in this country suck, all the while the politicians are getting richer for sitting around with their hands up their behinds. Makes me sick.

Thank you for sharing that heartwrenching story.

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Originally Posted by signorelli21

but by god if i smoke a joint and stay home, order a pizza ( munchies, mmmm) and play video games all day, i am a criminal,

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If you order that pizza with pineapple you shoiuld go to jail! :confused: ;)

I think the rules about pseudoephedrine are fine, since meth is NASTY, creates toxic waste, explosions, property damage, personal damage, etc, etc. My personal take is to go easy on the natural products, but the synthetic illegal stuff is a big problem. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think law enforcement should go after the larger scale operations as a priority. Leave the green leafy veggie growers alone. :p

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I think law enforcement should go after the larger scale operations as a priority. Leave the green leafy veggie growers alone

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AMEN to that!!! By "green leafy" you DO mean cabbage, right?? ;) BUWAHAHAHAHAHA :cool: :cool: :p

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Originally Posted by smokey the elder

Leave the green leafy veggie growers alone. :p

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Can I have anchovies on my half? :D


MM,

I know why you read the posts before you drink your coffee....

I have spit on my monitor too! :eek:

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Originally Posted by moosmom

In CT as of October 1, all the cold medicines that contain the active ingredient in making Crystal Meth are now put behind the counters of pharmacies. In order to buy the stuff, the customer needs to sign a log book and show picture ID such as a driver's license. MANY people are up in arms about it, saying it's a violation of their constitutional rights to privacy. I say, what's the big deal if you have nothing to hide or aren't doing anything illegal???

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That's an excellent idea. I wish they would implement that here. That type of control is needed not only because pseudoephedrine is used in making meth, but because kids will take HUGE doses of cough and cold medication for the high. It's called Robo-tripping here. A 12 year old girl in my son's 7th grade class went into convulsions and almost died in gym class. She had drunk a LOT of cough syrup. Nice. I swear, I didn't think I was that old, but my generation didn't seem to do nutty stuff like that as kids. Did we? I seem to recall that some beer was fine with us.

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Originally Posted by moosmom

Twisterdog,

I'm sure it was a nightmare for your family and your poor kid. And I'll bet your son has learned a valuable lesson. Couldn't he have signed up for Accelerated Rehabilitation, whereas if he stays clean and is a good boy for 1 year, his record is wiped clean??? To put a 14 year old kid through all of that for less than a joints worth is totally absurd. The laws in this country suck, all the while the politicians are getting richer for sitting around with their hands up their behinds. Makes me sick.

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I certainly hope he has learned a lesson. He is, however, very much of the opinion that I have seen in this thread and others ... It's only pot, it's harmless, it's organic, it's not anywhere near as bad as meth or alcohol. And I'm not saying I disagree with that ... in theory. But the harsh reality, that we have learned so painfully over the last six months, is that relatively mild, organic and harmless or not, marijuana is very much illegal and getting caught with it can cause you big problems. I honestly hope this experience was horrible enough on him that he simply decides it's not worth it again. I don't know if the "scared straight" theory really works, but I'm praying it does with him.

I honestly believe that if alcohol is legal, that marijuana ought to be, too. I have a huge problem with hypocricy, in any form. But what "ought to be" doesn't matter one bit, when your child is in jail for three months. :(