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.
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Marijuana is less damaging and (sometimes) less intoxicating than alcohol.
Originally Posted by Lady's Human
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