About
Community
Bad Ideas
Drugs
Booze - The Legal Drug
Legal Issues of Drug Use
Marijuana
Miscellaneous Drug Information
Nitrous
OTC Drugs and Household Items
Psychedelics
Rare and Exotic Drugs
Speedy Drugs
Ego
Erotica
Fringe
Society
Technology
register | bbs | search | rss | faq | about
meet up | add to del.icio.us | digg it

Justice Goes to Pot. A horrifying true story


NOTICE: TO ALL CONCERNED Certain text files and messages contained on this site deal with activities and devices which would be in violation of various Federal, State, and local laws if actually carried out or constructed. The webmasters of this site do not advocate the breaking of any law. Our text files and message bases are for informational purposes only. We recommend that you contact your local law enforcement officials before undertaking any project based upon any information obtained from this or any other web site. We do not guarantee that any of the information contained on this system is correct, workable, or factual. We are not responsible for, nor do we assume any liability for, damages resulting from the use of any information on this site.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
| JUSTICE GOES TO POT |
| A horrifying true story of lives destroyed in the war on drugs |
| A NIRVANAnet(tm) Infodose written by B.J. Oppenheimer |
| Distributed via the NIRVANAnet(tm) text file distribution network |
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

As you read this, I'll probably be behind bars, serving a possible five to 40
years in federal prison with no hope of parole. My house will have been
confiscated by the government, and a fine of $340,000 will have been levied
against me.

I'm a nonviolent offender with no prior record. Married for 20 years with two
small children, I'm a college graduate and published writer. I have a good
reputation in the community and have been involved in many charitable
organizations. My only crime was planting a handful of marijuana seeds...

When I was first arrested for growing pot last August, I freely admitted my
guilt, fully expecting to receive the relatively minor sentence usually meted
out in marijuana cases. Until recently, marijuana use and cultivation was
decriminalized in many places, and even now it's only a misdemeanor in most
states (including my own). It usually warrants nothing more than a suspended
sentence and a small fine when prosecuted at the state level. Last year a man
in Upstate New York was convicted of growing 154 plants - many more than I am
charged with - and his only punishment was a $100 fine - less than a dollar a
plant.

My penalty probably would have been similar - if I'd been tried in state
court. But more and more, these cases are being turned over to the federal
government for prosecution, where penalties are much stiffer. What would've
earned me, at most, a fine and probation in state court carries a mandatory
minimum sentence of five years (and a maximum of 40) when prosecuted at the
federal level.

It's all because of recently enacted mandatory minimum-sentencing laws.
They impose statutory minimums for all drug crimes and prohibit the judge
from any exercise of judicial discretion in arriving at a sentence. The judge
is enjoined against taking into account things like my reputation in the
community, charitable works, or lack of prior record. Since there's no such
thing as parole in federal prison anymore, if I'm sentenced to five years
(assuming I lose my case), that's how many I'll serve.

Chalk it up to the government's "get tough on crime" policy: So what if a few
undeserving people serve inflated sentences? It's worth it to keep the
streets free from crime. The problem is, rather on being tough on crime, the
net effect of mandatory minimums is to be soft on crime - violent crime.
Since the are no mandatory minimum sentences for offenses like rape, child
molestation, murder, aggravated assault, et cetera, violent criminals are
often released early to make room for nonviolent first offenders like me. The
average murderer now serves only six and a half years in jail (versus the
five years minimum I'll serve). But if our jail terms are similar, there's
one important difference between the murderer and me: He doesn't lose his
house.

Even though my house was bought with legitimate earnings, and there was no
marijuana grown on my property, it was confiscated by the police shortly
after I was arrested. The primary reason given was that fertilizer was found
in my basement. My house was thus considered a "facilitator" of the crime,
which justifies its forfeiture. When I learned that the government had seized
my property on such flimsy pretenses, it infuriated me, but what bothered me
even more was that they did it without even trying me first.

Since passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, property can be
seized if one is merely suspected of using it in a crime. It's not even
necessary to be charged, much less convicted. It's up to the individual to
prove that he didn't use it illegally. And since this is a civil forfeiture,
and public defenders are only provided in criminal cases, he's forced to foot
the bill for a lawyer. Often he also must put up a bond, sometimes as much as
$10,000, which usually makes fighting the forfeiture cost-prohibitive.

In the majority of cases, the government simply steps in and takes the
property without even bothering to charge anyone with a crime, and there's
not a thing to be done about it. Since 1984 almost two and a half billion
dollars in property has been seized this way. There's another difference
between the murderer and me. He isn't subject to penalties for tax-stamp
violation. Even though marijuana is illegal, in many states you're required
by law to buy tax stamps for its cultivation - at a cost of $1,000 per plant
- something that's virtually impossible to do without incriminating yourself.
Yet even if you are somehow able to purchase the stamps without getting
arrested but don't actually affix the stamps to the plants - in the wind and
rain - you're still liable for a heavy fine. And they don't just count the
living, growing plants. They count the dead ones and even the cutoff stems
from plants that were thinned from the garden and thrown away earlier.

Even though the total weight of marijuana in my case was under five pounds,
with all these other factors added in, the fine was $340,000. When I asked my
lawyer how the government expected me to pay such an astronomical fine, he
said, "They don't. They want to wipe out your assets. Then when - and if -
you get out of jail, they intend to garnish your wages for the remainder. Of
course, by that time there'll be all that interest..."

But the fine is just part of my penalty for tax-stamp violation. It also
carries criminal (versus civil) penalties of up to five years in state
prison. That's on top of the five to 40 years I'll already be serving in
federal prison. All for the crime of putting a handful of marijuana seeds in
the ground. If this seems like a violation of the Eighth Amendment ("Let the
punishment fit the crime"), it's not the only time the Constitution's been
ignored when it comes to drug law. Confiscation of property without due
process is a violation of the Fifth Amendment. Police can now obtain search
warrants based on anonymous tips, which is a violation of the Fourth
Amendment. And a defense attorney's legal fees can be seized in drug cases, a
violation of the Sixth Amendment.

But if drug laws are chipping away at the Constitution, they're wreaking
havoc on our prison system. Federal prisons are currently at 146 percent of
capacity, and drug offenders serving mandatory minimum sentences make up 57
percent of the population (more than half had no prior arrests). At the
current rate of incarceration, nearly 70 percent of all federal inmates will
be drug offenders serving mandatory minimums by 1995.

The United States now imprisons more of its citizens per capita than any
other country in the world (455 per 100,000 people). That's compared to the
No. 2 country, South Africa, with 311 per 100,000. As stated earlier, violent
offenders often must be granted early release to make room for this influx.
In a recent four-year period in Florida more than 130,000 inmates (including
muggers, armed robbers, et cetera) were released, and one out of three went
on to commit new crimes. The F.B.I. reports that the rate of violent crimes
in America increased by 24 percent from 1987 to 1991, and many people feel
that mandatory minimums have a lot to do with it.

But apart from the hypothetical increase in violent crime due to mandatory
minimums, there's the undeniable increase in taxpayer costs. The National
Institute of Corrections estimates that in 1992, the United States built
facilities for 2,000 cells (at a cost of $100 million) per week to
accommodate the exploding prison population - and construction costs were
only a part of the total. It's been estimated that in five years, the
financial obligations incurred by U.S. corrections could be double the
current national deficit. On top of that, it costs on average over $20,000 a
year to house, feed, clothe, and guard each of the 81,426 federal prisoners.

And this is to say nothing of the increased cost of social services of
inmates' families, which were previously being provided for by the inmates
themselves. Over 30 million Americans regularly smoke marijuana, so it's not
surprising that a lot of people in this country feel that it should be
decriminalized. I'm sure that many people would disagree, but I doubt they'd
dispute the fact that the penalties for marijuana use are not only unjust and
illogical, but make an unconscionable waste of taxpayer dollars. With violent
crime making us all live like prisoners, it's time to stop freeing murders to
make room for marijuana users.
 
To the best of our knowledge, the text on this page may be freely reproduced and distributed.
If you have any questions about this, please check out our Copyright Policy.

 

totse.com certificate signatures
 
 
About | Advertise | Bad Ideas | Community | Contact Us | Copyright Policy | Drugs | Ego | Erotica
FAQ | Fringe | Link to totse.com | Search | Society | Submissions | Technology
Hot Topics
Ed & Elaine Brown * Shots Fired *
george galloway what do you think of him?
Hinchey Amendment
why UK accepts US subjugation and infiltration?
George galloway suspended from HP
Why Marxism IS Economically Exploitive...
Situation in Turkey
Putin not playing nicely
 
Sponsored Links
 
Ads presented by the
AdBrite Ad Network

 

TSHIRT HELL T-SHIRTS