Marijuana possession shouldn't carry a 20-year prison term: Editorial-- TP
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After 14+ years as a cop, observing what takes place on the street, in jails, and in courts, I've come to believe that a shift to stronger first-time sentences might be the way to go. I'm not talking about years in jail, but if your first shoplift or drug possession when you're young results in some jail time (couple of weeks to couple of months) and the accompanying problems of lost job, missed school, social stigma, etc., it may be a better deterrent to recidivism than just paying a monthly probation fee and going about your life. If you have to do the work to rebuild what you break, the message might be better driven home. As it is, nearly every first offense results in some money out of pocket but no jail beyond the initial booking. Many offenders stack up numerous offenses, while on probation for prior offenses, and continue to just get more probation and no time. It's like shaking the shame finger at a toddler but never slapping the wrist to associate that as an unpleasant consequence. Just my opinion.
Problem with that approach is that with harsher sentences it's more difficult for people to rebuild into a healthy life and find a good means to make a living. Having a felony or even some misdemeanors on your record can devastate your ability to find a good job, which is all the more difficult in today's economy. When these people can't make a good living they are much more prone to get back into crime.
Our criminal justice system needs to stop saying "We need to teach this person a lesson and make and example out of him" and start saying "How much of a threat is this person to others and what can we do to correct it?". We need to separate those who have made poor choices and can be rehabilitated from those who show a true sociopathic nature and can't be changed. One of the major reasons I believe the Scandinavian countries have such a low crime rate is because their justice system is focused more on reforming criminals rather than simply punishing them. American prisons on the other hand harbor an extremely violent and psychologically traumatizing environment that has a tendency to only make most people more aggressive than when they went in.
Exactly correct IMO.
I understand that drugs are a tough issue. Heart-wrenching to see ones child/relative get hooked on hard drugs. Heart-wrenching to watch first hand... especially someone close to you throw their future away.
Yet at the same time...just like he said....even a simple 6 month suspended sentence will put one on a Black list. Forget about student loans. Forget about any decent employer hiring you once you have a conviction. You are black listed.
I've met quite a few contractors and business owners who said just this...."I HAD to go to work for myself...I was arrested...pled guilty...then got fired because of the conviction. NO ONE WOULD HIRE ME."
"So I had to go it alone."
So...knowing that this is the way it is with Corporate America...Why make it harder when a kid gets caught with weed. Just weed. Nothing else. Is it really helping put that kid on the straight and narrow by giving him a felony conviction. Forget about whether it is a suspended sentence. Its still the kiss of death as far as ones future goes.
Sure...some guy are able to go it alone...open up a business. But they are the exception. Most people just get disgusted. Many of them "learn their lesson" and stop doing ALL ILLEGAL DRUGS.....But become flat out alcoholics.
Just go to any AA meeting and start listening closely. It is not that rare to hear about stories similar to what I describe above.
And like I said earlier. By making weed illegal....It tends to introduce young kids to that underground at an early age. They already know the dealer network so to speak....so when/if they ever want to try something else....they know exactly how to get it. Just ask the guy who sells weed...."Do you know where I can get some coke...dope...pills...etc? "
Legalization and regulation of weed just like alcohol make perfect sense to me. And FWIW...I don't smoke weed. I did when I was younger. Everybody did. I remember going to listen to Professor Long Hair....Nevilles...etc.. at Tipitinas in the early 80s.
The entire crowd would go sit on the neutral ground between sets and light up. And trust me...they were not all DOPE HEADS. MANY MANY Professional white men in their 40s. Tons of young Tulane students.
But...Getting off track here. I totally agree that ANY ARREST...ANY CONVICTION.....and one is Black listed. You are F*ckd. Forget about the American dream. No student loan. Guess what....even after a thing like Katrina. If you had a conviction...and your business was wiped out. THE SBA sent you a letter telling you that because of your BAD CHARACTER...You Loan app was denied !!!
SO...Yes...a 6 month conviction....even if suspended....IS A BIG FRICKING DEAL. And I think that for weed....Its just wrong and outrageous.
Its ridiculous that the person breaking the law and causing problems doesn't have to change, just the other majority who have made good choices and have done the right thing in life. If you make bad decisions at a young age then it should be hard to make amends and get the good job like the person who did the right thing in life.
Sent from my XT1058 using Tapatalk
Yea...That kind of logic reminds me of the Old British way of Debtors Prison.
HE can't pay his bill.
Lock him up in prison until he can pay his bills. Forget the fact that he can't go to work in order to earn money to pay his bill....HE MUST BE PUNISHED !!
________
By the way...I still don't see the problem caused by the silly stoner smoking a joint. In fact...from what I have witnessed...Silly stoners don't compare to angry alcoholics. I've never witnessed a stoner kick his dog or beat his wife. Can't say I can say the same about an angry alcoholic.
And lets not even go into the really angry combative alcoholic who gets in fights....then blacks out...and denies he did what he did the night before.
Silly stoners tend to go to the Mickey D drive through....then go home and go to sleep. I'm not sure about that offense warranting 6 month in Angola.
And I'm amazed that we even have a law which feels the stoner who is caught with weed for the 2nd time deserves 5 years in Angola. I don't care if there is only one guy in the State of Louisiana who is serving 5 years....Its just fricking crazy.
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^This.
A better case can be made of the potential dangers of alcohol over the potential dangers of pot. Yet we've already seen just how well alcohol prohibition worked out in the 1920s with creating criminals out of common citizens and empowering organized crime, so I don't understand why some people still can't see that marijuana prohibition has brought the exact same effects over the past few decades.
Penn and Teller break it down nicely. Everyone here against legalizing marijuana should watch this.
It's pretty simple really, at the end of the day, WEED IS ILLEGAL IN LOUISIANA! Alcohol is not. Silly stoners KNOW IT IS ILLEGAL IN LOUISIANA. They are willfully BREAKING THE LAW. They know it before they buy their first joint. If you don't like that WEED IS ILLEGAL IN LOUISIANA, then change the law and stop whining like a three year old who got put in time out and can't play with his toys.
I'd love to shoot nutria in my back yard. But I live in a residential area and firing a gun WOULD BE ILLEGAL, so guess what? I DON'T DO IT BECAUSE IT IS ILLEGAL! It doesn't matter whether the law is good/bad, right/wrong, moral/immoral, it's still the law. And at the end of the day, if you don't ever want to see the inside of a prison, much less a lockup, DON"T WILLFULLY AND KNOWINGLY BREAK THE LAW! Again, pretty simple stuff. But I guess silly stoners are too busy being passed out covered in Dorito crumbs and Taco Bell wrappers to apply any logical thought to such a basic and simple principle.
Danny Abear
Well-Known Member
The La. Sheriffs Assoc. will not support anything to weaken the law because they feel it will ultimately lead to the legalization of mariquana
Yea...Thats a real good video. Numerous studies have proven that treatment works better and is cheaper than the "WAR ON Drugs." Portugal...a country the size of California decriminalized all drugs. Not legalization...just the baby step of ending the "WAR." Many said that the country would fall apart and drug use would skyrocket. WRONG !!!
Heroin OD's fell by 50% and drug abuse has not spiraled out of control. It all gets back to addictions.
What is an addiction ? How does one treat an addiction?
OK...this is what an addiction is.
Any behavior that is associated with craving and temporary relief, and with long-term negative consequences, that a person is not able to give up. Note that I said nothing about substances — it’s any behavior that has temporary relief and negative consequences and loss of control.
When you look at process or behavior — sex, gambling, shopping or work or substances — they engage the same brain circuitry, the same reward system, the same psychological dynamic and the same spiritual emptiness. People go from one to the other. The issue for me is not whether you’re using something or not; it’s, Are you craving, are you needing it for relief and does it have negative consequences?
FWIW...even gun collecting or watch collecting can become an addiction. Shopping too. Or for some women...shoes. And if one is spending too much money on guns....paying consequences....then its an addiction.
And lets not forget FOOD and Obesity. Yes...food can be an addiction. And eating too much has consequences. Maybe we can pass a law...making eating too much food illegal. Then lock up fat people until they loose some weight. Lets face it...we are just trying to protect fat people from hurting themselves. (yes...I'm being sarcastic )
Hey...Does this remind you of anyone else. Bloomberg and his ban on Big Gulps. Yes...******** law. And yet...he wanted to make large soft drinks illegal.
Below is an article on the subject of addictions and drug abuse. I think its a good and thought provoking read.
================
Treating Addiction: A Top Doc Explains Why Kind Love Beats Tough Love
Using punishment to try to rehabilitate people who have already suffered years of punishment doesn't work
Dr. Gabor Mate is renowned in Canada for his work in treating people with the worst addictions, most notably at Vancouver’s controversial Insite facility, which provides users with clean needles, medical support and a safe space to inject drugs.
Canada’s Conservative government has tried to shut Insite down, but the country’s Supreme Court ruled late last year that doing so would contravene human rights laws because the program has been shown to save lives.
In Mate’s book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, which was a No. 1 bestseller in Canada, he advocates for the compassionate treatment of addiction, a position that is increasingly receiving international attention. Healthland recently spoke with Mate about the causes and consequences of addiction and what to do about the problem.
How do you define addiction?
Any behavior that is associated with craving and temporary relief, and with long-term negative consequences, that a person is not able to give up. Note that I said nothing about substances — it’s any behavior that has temporary relief and negative consequences and loss of control.
When you look at process or behavior — sex, gambling, shopping or work or substances — they engage the same brain circuitry, the same reward system, the same psychological dynamic and the same spiritual emptiness. People go from one to the other. The issue for me is not whether you’re using something or not; it’s, Are you craving, are you needing it for relief and does it have negative consequences?
Do you believe all addiction results from trauma?
I think childhood trauma or emotional loss is the universal template for addiction. It also depends on how you want to define trauma: if you want to define it as something bad happening, then it’s true that not every addict [has experienced trauma], in the sense of a death of a parent or violence in the family or child abuse, or any of the usual markers of trauma.
But there’s another [way to define it]. D.W. Winnicott [the late British child psychiatrist] said that there are two things that can go wrong in childhood: things that happen that shouldn’t happen — that’s trauma — and things that should happen that don’t happen. Children are equally hurt by things that should happen and don’t as they are by things that shouldn’t happen but do. If the parents aren’t emotionally available, [for example], no one will define that as trauma, but it will be for the child. If a mother has postpartum depression, that’s not defined as trauma but it can lead to emotional neglect and that interferes with child brain development.
(MORE: How Childhood Trauma Can Cause Adult Obesity) http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1951240,00.html
It’s impossible for a parent to be emotionally available all of the time, however.
The parent doesn’t have to be perfect. In our society, it’s not [just] a question of whether parents are doing their best or love their kids or not, it’s that parents are often isolated and stressed or too economically worried to be there. What I’m saying is that early emotional loss is the universal template for all addictions. All addictions are about self-soothing. And when do children need to sooth themselves? When they are not being soothed.
You practice a harm-reduction approach to addiction, in which you provide clean needles and safe spaces for addicts to inject drugs. Americans have long tended to see this as “enabling” and typically view it as a bad thing because it doesn’t require addicts to be abstinent to receive care.
The question is, Is it better for people to inject drugs with puddle water or sterile water? Is it better to use clean needles or share so that you pass on HIV and hepatitis C? This is what harm reduction is. It doesn’t treat addiction, it just reduces harm. In medicine, we do this all the time. People smoke but we still give them inhalers to open airways, so what’s different? You’re not enabling anything they’re not already using.
Some critics claim that it prevents addicts from “hitting bottom” and getting off drugs entirely.
I worked for 12 years in the Americas’ most concentrated area of drug use, the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. People live there in the street with HIV and hepatitis and festering wounds: what more of a bottom can they hit? If hitting bottom helped people, there would be no addicts at all in the Downtown Eastside. ‘Bottom’ is very relative, so it’s a meaningless concept. For me as a doctor, rockbottom might be losing my medical license, but what is a bottom for a person who has been abused all her life and lives on the street? It’s meaningless and false. People don’t need more negative things to happen to them to give it up. They need more positive things to happen. In 12 years of work on the Downtown Eastside, I didn’t meet an [addicted] woman who was not sexually abused as a child.
[Addicts] relationship to authority figures is one of fear and suspicion. How will it help if I punish them more? They need the very opposite. We end up punishing them for self-soothing. It makes no sense at all. Harm reduction is not an end in itself. Ideally, what it is is a first step towardsa more thorough-going [recovery], but you have to begin with where people are at.
When I’ve visited harm-reduction programs, it seemed that the clean needles and other tools weren’t the most important thing they provided. Rather, it was the message that ‘I believe you are worth saving, even though you are still using drugs.’ That touches people and opens doors.
That’s the key. Quite apart from clean needles and sterile water, the most important factor is for the first time saying to someone who has been rejected all their life, ‘We’re not going to judge you based on how you present your needs at the present moment.’ Harm reduction is much more than set of practices; it’s a way of relating to people. We’re not requiring you to stop using or do anything, we’re just trying to help you get healthier. At least you’re not going to suffer an infection of the bone marrow because you’re using a clean needle: is that not worth something? We’re here to reduce suffering. They may not get better in the sense of giving up the addiction, but that’s not a limit of harm reduction — that’s a limit of the treatment system.
[There are a lot of things] we can’t do in the context of a war on drugs. When people are attacked and stressed, we can’t hope to rehabilitate them [well]. That’s not a valid criticism of harm reduction; it’s a failure of the medico-legal approach we have right now to addiction.
People describe addicts as behaving compulsively in the face of negative consequences, but the same could be said of our drug policy.
It’s almost an addiction because we keep doing something with negative consequences and don’t give it up, and it gives a kind of emotional relief because people feel a lot of hostility towards addicts. Seeing someone jailed certainly provides some satisfaction and relief, but it’s not an evidence-based [treatment for addiction]. There are also a lot of other consequences we experience as a society by avoiding the connections between trauma and illness. Trauma is the basis for not just mental illnesses and addiction specifically, but also often for cancer and all kinds of other conditions [due to the effects of early childhood stress on the brain and immune system]. Society doesn’t look at it. We look at the effects and blame people for the effects but we don’t look at causes.
Why?
Because we live in a culture that promotes addiction, left, right and center. Addiction essentially is trying to get something from the outside to fill a gap and soothe pain. The entire economy is based on people seeking soothing from outside. The addict symbolizes all of our self-loathing.
The expression “the scapegoat” is very specific. The term in the Bible means a goat on whom the community symbolically imposed all its sins and then chases it into the desert. That’s what we’re doing with addiction. All the desperation to soothe pain and fill in emptiness from the outside that characterizes our culture, the addict represents. We hate to see that so we scapegoat them and think that way we are getting rid of our own sins.
So what can we do?
First of all, I would recommend that prevention has to begin at the first prenatal visit. Stress during pregnancy — contrary to the genetic view — has a large impact. Second, in the U.S., [you need] yearlong paid maternity leave. In other words, I would provide support and emotional nourishment for the child — and that comes from support for parents.
In term of addictions, first of all recognize that these people are traumatized and what they need is not more trauma and punishment but more compassion.
(MORE: 10 Reasons to Revisit Marijuana Policy Now http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/14/10-reasons-to-revisit-marijuana-policy-now/ )
What most surprised you in working with some of the most severely addicted people?
What’s most astonishing is just how people survive, no matter what. Even amid drug dealing and mutual ripoffs, there’s still a tremendous amount of caring. The same people who rip each other off would sometimes also go to great lengths to help each other. Despite all the pressure and suffering, to see people reach out to each other like that was the most astonishing thing I saw. When someone was sick, how people gathered around and helped, how they would share food with each other and some would volunteer and go at night and look after the young sex trade workers to make sure they were not getting hurt. There is that acceptance and community, and people need community. Especially for people who have not had emotional support, that community is very powerful.
http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/...-doc-explains-why-kind-love-beats-tough-love/
I believe that it is the responsibility of the family to house and feed their kids. Housing potheads is a form of welfare. If you want to be a weed smoking bum, then why should the public pay to house and feed you?
The only pot arrests I made involved more serious offensives. The 966 was just thrown in with the 95G and the warrants in one case.
The only pot arrests I made involved more serious offensives. The 966 was just thrown in with the 95G and the warrants in one case.
I absolutely agree with you. But on a similar note...Here's a link to an article I just posted elsewhere which demonstrates part of the problem with arresting and locking up kids. It just perpetuates a problem....especially when a father is locked up. Now I agree...it's a small part of the greater picture when we look at broken families in America. Yet at the same time...locking up more and more men...leaving a broken family...almost guarantees that those man's children will be a problem in 20 years or less.
Its a fascinating article...
http://thesestonewalls.com/gordon-macrae/in-the-absence-of-fathers-a-story-of-elephants-and-men/
So do you think the American Colonists should have just shut up and paid their taxes or Rosa Parks should have just sat in the back of the bus because it was the law?
There are tons of people working very hard in this country at getting the marijuana laws changed. Problem is most representatives consider the money they get from lobbyists whose profits are threatened by legal pot to be more important than the freedom and well-being of the people they're supposed to represent.
Danny Abear
Well-Known Member
There is too much money for leo from fines and seizures to legalize it here, also probably too many count on it for their job; kinda like reducing prison sentences, too many judges, legislatures, etc. own stock in the private prisons
Part of why people are turned out so non chalant over first offenses is the crowding in the Louisiana prison system because of some of these penalties. In some parishes, so long as it isn't a violent felony, a person could get turned loose with a summons because there is precious little room. What you say is right, first offenses need to have a punishment that could stand as a better deterrent, hopefully this would help ease the burdens on the system. Personally, I'd rather see an assaulter or thief have their lives ruined by their actions more than a pothead.
Sent from iPhone. Inconsequential word may have been left to die on editing floor.
So in the spirit of Easter, you believe that Jesus deserved to be crucified for preaching the gospel?
Everyone has done something illegal at some point in their lifetime, there are so many laws on the books that it's impossible not to. Ask any LEO and they can bring up plenty of charges for the most minor offense.
The war on drug was started by the Nixon administration to target protesters; if you can't arrest them for exercising their first amendment right then find some other common trait that isn't protected. Today, those who support locking people up for possessing and consuming a flower fall into three groups: those who financially benefit, those who are self-righteous pricks and want to impose their beliefs on other's liberties, and those who know nothing of the drug and choose to remain ignorant. The first group has and continues to use the American citizens like a two dollar whore, the second group believes they somehow "better" than everyone else, and the third group is sheeple who only want their iphone and a fast-food.
Well..Looks like the Bill is dead.
I noticed WDSU is about to report a story concerning a brand new prison being built in South East Louisiana. I can't find which prison they are talking about...Guess I'll have to wait until they air the report in the next day or so.
In any case...They are saying that the State has spent 100 million dollars to build one of the largest facilities in the state. And from what I can gleam from the news commercials....Is that it may turn out to be a huge drain on the State's budget.
So...I'm guessing there is a push by the powers to be to keep the marijuana laws in place....Since they will need to fill this huge prison which is almost complete. It's obvious that the sheriffs want to keep the marijuana laws in place.
And it is also obvious that the DA's want as many tools as possible to put away the bad guys. And I get that.
Yet at the same time...anyone who claims that marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol is just way off base.
Furthermore...anyone who feels marijuana has no medical uses is way off base. Many veterans have turned to marijuana for PTSD.
It works. AND...Many people with painful neurological medical conditions get instant relief from marijuana.
THAT IS A FACT. The continued classification of marijuana as a schedule 1 drug is just fricking crazy. It does not turn people into crazed mad men who rape and pillage society.
And by the way...I'm not talking about laced weed. Not talking about synthetic weed.
Those things are horrible and are dangerous and should be illegal. And IMO...the job of government is to protect society.
The continued prohibition of weed only contributes to the problems with laced weed....Same as the prohibition of alcohol contributed to laced alcohol which caused many deaths and blindness.
I noticed WDSU is about to report a story concerning a brand new prison being built in South East Louisiana. I can't find which prison they are talking about...Guess I'll have to wait until they air the report in the next day or so.
In any case...They are saying that the State has spent 100 million dollars to build one of the largest facilities in the state. And from what I can gleam from the news commercials....Is that it may turn out to be a huge drain on the State's budget.
So...I'm guessing there is a push by the powers to be to keep the marijuana laws in place....Since they will need to fill this huge prison which is almost complete. It's obvious that the sheriffs want to keep the marijuana laws in place.
And it is also obvious that the DA's want as many tools as possible to put away the bad guys. And I get that.
Yet at the same time...anyone who claims that marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol is just way off base.
Furthermore...anyone who feels marijuana has no medical uses is way off base. Many veterans have turned to marijuana for PTSD.
It works. AND...Many people with painful neurological medical conditions get instant relief from marijuana.
THAT IS A FACT. The continued classification of marijuana as a schedule 1 drug is just fricking crazy. It does not turn people into crazed mad men who rape and pillage society.
And by the way...I'm not talking about laced weed. Not talking about synthetic weed.
Those things are horrible and are dangerous and should be illegal. And IMO...the job of government is to protect society.
The continued prohibition of weed only contributes to the problems with laced weed....Same as the prohibition of alcohol contributed to laced alcohol which caused many deaths and blindness.
That seriously infuriates me. That $100 million of our hard-earned tax money could have been used to help needy families, build better schools, or create more jobs.
The prison-industrial complex is a vile stain on an otherwise great state. All these sheriffs who want to destroy peoples' lives just so they they can turn a profit should be locked away for life in their own private prisons. They are worse than mafia bosses.
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