# There are now more prisoners in American prisons than in Stalin's Gulag Archipelago



## Makalakumu (Jun 3, 2013)

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-americans-in-jail-2012-3

Thank the War on Drugs!

80% in the clink for possession!


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## K-man (Jun 3, 2013)

Australia comes in at 168/100,000 up from 151ten years ago. We have a similar policy on drugs so why blame drugs for the disparity?  :asian:


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## ballen0351 (Jun 3, 2013)

AND?  If you don't want to go to jail don't break the law.  Pretty simple really.  Apparently the other 999,240 people per 100000 fingured it out and don't go prison


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## cdunn (Jun 3, 2013)

ballen0351 said:


> AND? If you don't want to go to jail don't break the law. Pretty simple really. Apparently the other 999,240 people per 100000 fingured it out and don't go prison



Fixing the law to be beneficial to society _is_ an option.


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## K-man (Jun 3, 2013)

cdunn said:


> Fixing the law to be beneficial to society _is_ an option.


But, in the main, don't laws reflect the wishes of the majority within any society?  :asian:


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## clfsean (Jun 3, 2013)

Makalakumu said:


> http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-americans-in-jail-2012-3
> 
> Thank the War on Drugs!
> 
> 80% in the clink for possession!



Well... don't break the law & don't go to jail. Pretty simple...


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## ballen0351 (Jun 3, 2013)

cdunn said:


> Fixing the law to be beneficial to society _is_ an option.



Most don't see the laws as broken.


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## ballen0351 (Jun 3, 2013)

Also according to the US Fed Bureau of Prisons
http://www.bop.gov/news/quick.jsp


Drug Offenses:90,346(47.2 %)Weapons, Explosives, Arson:31,003(16.2 %)Immigration:22,496(11.8 %)Robbery:7,939(4.1 %)Burglary, Larceny, Property Offenses:7,707(4.0 %)Extortion, Fraud, Bribery:11,038(5.8 %)Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses:5,688(3.0 %)Miscellaneous:1,588(0.8 %)Sex Offenses:11,479(6.0 %)Banking and Insurance, Counterfeit, Embezzlement:817(0.4 %)Courts or Corrections:629(0.3 %)Continuing Criminal Enterprise:494(0.3 %)National Security:87(0.0 %


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## ballen0351 (Jun 3, 2013)

All Drug offenses are only 47.2 % thats all not just possession and its way below 80%


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## Xue Sheng (Jun 3, 2013)

I have a bit of a problem here with the title
Something to consider when comparing Stalins Russia to the current US justice system; Stalin had  specially made apartment complexes where he placed a lot of people so he could watch them rather closely as well as control their movement and there were a lot of people there that were never in his Gulag Archipelago. And a lot of those people disappeared in the night never to be seen again.

Stalin killed an estimated 20,000,000 people 

> It is estimated that Stalin killed
> 1,000,000 by execution
> 12,000,000 in the camps
> 3,500,000  in collectives

as for the rest no one knows and there are those that estimate the 20,000,000 number as being way to low and that the number only reflects about 50% of how many he actually is responsible le for killing one way or another.

Also you need to take into account that the majority of prisoners in US prisons are not expecting to never leave prison alive, unlike a Stalin Era Gulag. Also many are in prison for crimes they actually committed, were tried for and found guilty of, again unlike a Stalin Era Gulag.

The reason for this post; As much as the numbers in US prisons are alarming I think it is rather unfair to compare it to Stalin era gulags because in my opinion it type of sensationalism makes light of what Stalin actual did and It some little way legitimizes it, since it is a US law that is putting people in prison not a perceived threat to a persons power base which brings about random killings. It also has a tendency to bring out public outrage and causes an overreaction in the response to what is going on in the US which is never been a way to fix anything, but it sure as heck is a great way to gain readers


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## Makalakumu (Jun 3, 2013)

Xue Sheng said:


> I have a bit of a problem here with the title
> Something to consider when comparing Stalins Russia to the current US justice system; Stalin had  specially made apartment complexes where he placed a lot of people so he could watch them rather closely as well as control their movement and there were a lot of people there that were never in his Gulag Archipelago. And a lot of those people disappeared in the night never to be seen again.
> 
> Stalin killed an estimated 20,000,000 people
> ...



Agreed. The title is hyperbolic, but it was just too good not to post.


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## arnisador (Jun 3, 2013)

The comparison is nonsensical, but what we're spending to stop people from toking up is also pretty senseless.


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## ballen0351 (Jun 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> The comparison is nonsensical, but what we're spending to stop people from toking up is also pretty senseless.



How much do we spend?


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## arnisador (Jun 3, 2013)

What is it--about $20k/year for an inmate?


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## ballen0351 (Jun 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> What is it--about $20k/year for an inmate?



I don't know I don't deal in the prison part.  How many tokers are in prison anyway


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## arnisador (Jun 3, 2013)

Probably too many.


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## Makalakumu (Jun 3, 2013)

Here is an excerpt from the original column that appeared in TIME magazine.  The rest is available behind the paywall.

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/22/zakaria-incarceration-nation/



> &#8220;Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today,&#8221; writes the _New Yorker&#8217;s _Adam Gopnik. &#8220;Over all, there are now more people under &#8216;correctional supervision&#8217; in America - more than 6 million - than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.&#8221;
> Is this hyperbole? Here are the facts. The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. That&#8217;s not just many more than in most other developed countries but seven to 10 times as many. Japan has 63 per 100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96, South Korea has 97, and *Britain - with a rate among the *highest - has 153....
> This wide gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world is relatively recent. In 1980 the U.S.&#8217;s prison population was about 150 per 100,000 adults. It has more than quadrupled since then. So something has happened in the past 30 years to push millions of Americans into prison.
> That something, of course, is the war on drugs. Drug convictions went from 15 inmates per 100,000 adults in 1980 to 148 in 1996, an almost tenfold increase. More than half of America&#8217;s federal inmates today are in prison on drug convictions. In 2009 alone, 1.66 million Americans were arrested on drug charges, more than were arrested on assault or larceny charges. And 4 of 5 of those arrests were simply for possession....
> Bipartisan forces have created the trend that we see. Conservatives and liberals love to sound tough on crime, and both sides agreed in the 1990s to a wide range of new federal infractions, many of them carrying mandatory sentences for time in state or federal prison. And as always in American politics, there is the money trail. Many state prisons are now run by private companies that have powerful lobbyists in state capitals. These firms can create jobs in places where steady work is rare; in many states, they have also helped create a conveyor belt of cash for prisons from treasuries to outlying counties.Partly as a result, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education in the past 20 years. In 2011, California spent $9.6 billion on prisons vs. $5.7 billion on the UC system and state colleges. Since 1980, California has built one college campus and 21 prisons. A college student costs the state $8,667 per year; a prisoner costs it $45,006 a year.The results are gruesome at every *level. We are creating a vast prisoner under*class in this country at huge expense, increasingly unable to function in normal society, all in the name of a war we have already lost....​



While the comparison with Stalin's Gulags is silly, as anyone who has read the Gulag Archipelago would know, the fact that the US has more people in prison than Stalin did at the height of the Archipelago's operation (according to the article).  Further, I think we really need to identify the political forces that benefit from the creation of a narco-prison industrial complex.  When corporations that own private prisons and law enforcement agencies can combine lobbying for stiffer drug penalties in order to give themselves more contracts and create jobs, our society has a problem.  Essentially, the government has turned prisons and police officers into parasites feeding at the taxpayer trough at the expense of minorities, the weak, and powerless.  Of course these results are exactly the same as most corrupt government programs.  Whenever "war" is declared on anything men are pushed aside by pigs.

As Ozzy explained so long ago now.


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## Makalakumu (Jun 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> What is it--about $20k/year for an inmate?



_A college student costs the state $8,667 per year; a prisoner costs it $45,006 a year_


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## Big Don (Jun 3, 2013)

Makalakumu said:


> _A college student costs the state $8,667 per year; a prisoner costs it $45,006 a year_



Sounds like actually using capital punishment would save quite a bit...


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## Makalakumu (Jun 3, 2013)

Big Don said:


> Sounds like actually using capital punishment would save quite a bit...



Considering that there are so many people in prison now, that would make Stalin proud...


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## ballen0351 (Jun 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> Probably too many.



So you have no idea?


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## arnisador (Jun 3, 2013)

ballen0351 said:


> So you have no idea?



I haven't bothered looking. What would be the point?


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## Big Don (Jun 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> I haven't bothered looking. What would be the point?


For once, you could actually back up one of your BS assertions


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## arnisador (Jun 3, 2013)

Big Don said:


> For once, you could actually back up one of your BS assertions



Can you be more specific?


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## Big Don (Jun 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> Can you be more specific?



I could. I won't. You know your behavior over the past few months.


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## ballen0351 (Jun 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> I haven't bothered looking. What would be the point?



Well if your going to comment on the number of poor tokers in prison I figured you would know how many there are.  Since I personally have NEVER seen a single person sent to prison for simple possession of marijuana in my entire life.  I hear about then all the time when this topic comes up.  But nobody ever knows them personally.  I've arrested plenty of people for possession and never seen anyone go to prison.  I've seen people take pleas from other charges and go to jail for possession but never just a possession charge.  I'd like to know who all these people are.


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## arnisador (Jun 3, 2013)

Big Don said:


> I could. I won't. You know your behavior over the past few months.



In my defense, I had to deal with you.


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## K-man (Jun 3, 2013)

ballen0351 said:


> Well if your going to comment on the number of poor tokers in prison I figured you would know how many there are.  Since I personally have NEVER seen a single person sent to prison for simple possession of marijuana in my entire life.  I hear about then all the time when this topic comes up.  But nobody ever knows them personally.  I've arrested plenty of people for possession and never seen anyone go to prison.  I've seen people take pleas from other charges and go to jail for possession but never just a possession charge.  I'd like to know who all these people are.


I think it's probably fair to say very few would go to prison for simple use.  The thing is, a lot of people reckon if they can sell some as well as keep some for their own use, it covers their costs so in effect they become dealers. Then they are likely to be jailed. :asian:


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## ballen0351 (Jun 3, 2013)

K-man said:


> I think it's probably fair to say very few would go to prison for simple use.  The thing is, a lot of people reckon if they can sell some as well as keep some for their own use, it covers their costs so in effect they become dealers. Then they are likely to be jailed. :asian:



Yes but any time this topic comes up you have people telling stories of 1st time arrests for small amounts of marijuana going to prison.  How unfair that is and how its such a waist of time money and resources.  I judt want to know who these unlucky few are since Ive never seen it happen and I spend A LOT of time in court.


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## Tgace (Jun 3, 2013)

ballen0351 said:


> Yes but any time this topic comes up you have people telling stories of 1st time arrests for small amounts of marijuana going to prison.  How unfair that is and how its such a waist of time money and resources.  I judt want to know who these unlucky few are since Ive never seen it happen and I spend A LOT of time in court.



Ive said the same thing so many times on various threads around here that I tire of repeating myself....

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## Tgace (Jun 3, 2013)

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php/19357-The-Legalization-of-Marijuana/page8 

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## Tgace (Jun 3, 2013)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/interviews/kleiman.html 



> That's a lot of prisoners, but it's not a very large fraction of the overall prison effort. When people talk about the drug problem generically, whether they're talking about drug abuse or the cost of drug law enforcement, and then immediately switch the topic to marijuana, that's a little deceptive. Nothing we do about marijuana can really put a dent in either the problem of drug abuse or the problem of drug-related law enforcement and imprisonment, because those problems are overwhelmingly about other drugs.



The jump to marijuana and the "poor stoners are filling our jails because of weed possession" meme is a load of crap.....

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## Tgace (Jun 3, 2013)

A problem I have with the legalization crowd is the question of why we will all have to pay to pick up the pieces (i.e. social programs for drug rehab, medical expenses, etc.) for those people who are "doing what they want with their bodies" and it lands them in physical trouble (addiction, overdose, criminal activity to fund consumption) ??

Perhaps the solution isnt jail, but there should be some type of penalty when your "freedom" places a burden on the rest of society who isnt taking the drug.... 

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## Steve (Jun 3, 2013)

Big Don said:


> Sounds like actually using capital punishment would save quite a bit...



Capital punishment actually ends up costing more.  Don't recall the exact figures, but iirc, each execution in California cost the state around $350 million bucks.


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## ballen0351 (Jun 3, 2013)

Steve said:


> Capital punishment actually ends up costing more.  Don't recall the exact figures, but iirc, each execution in California cost the state around $350 million bucks.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD


I always see that same super high figures and I can never figure out where it comes from.  I guess it includes Court costs from all the appeals.  I would assume life in prison is very high as well if they included court costs and appeals for them as well as other new charges that are added while in prison.


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## arnisador (Jun 3, 2013)

ballen0351 said:


> Yes but any time this topic comes up you have people telling stories of 1st time arrests for small amounts of marijuana going to prison.  How unfair that is and how its such a waist of time money and resources.  I judt want to know who these unlucky few are since Ive never seen it happen and I spend A LOT of time in court.



They're not going to jail the first offense--they're probably taking a plea bargain early on in the process.


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## arnisador (Jun 3, 2013)

Tgace said:


> A problem I have with the legalization crowd is the question of why we will all have to pay to pick up the pieces (i.e. social programs for drug rehab, medical expenses, etc.) for those people who are "doing what they want with their bodies" and it lands them in physical trouble (addiction, overdose, criminal activity to fund consumption) ??
> 
> Perhaps the solution isnt jail, but there should be some type of penalty when your "freedom" places a burden on the rest of society who isnt taking the drug....



Yeah, I support the Obamacare mandate too.


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## ballen0351 (Jun 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> They're not going to jail the first offense--they're probably taking a plea bargain early on in the process.



So how many offenses do we give someone?


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## arnisador (Jun 3, 2013)

ballen0351 said:


> So how many offenses do we give someone?



I was stating a fact, not suggesting a policy. I'm in favor of decriminalization of marijuana.


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## ballen0351 (Jun 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> I was stating a fact, not suggesting a policy. I'm in favor of decriminalization of marijuana.



And?  How many chances should we give someone?


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## Tgace (Jun 3, 2013)

Marijuana is a very very small front in the Drug War...the feds up here don't even look at weed cases under 50lbs...the real drug war is about coke, heroin, meth, pills etc. 

The redirect to weed when discussing the Drug War is ignorance of narctiocs enforcement at best or intentional obfuscation at worst.

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## arnisador (Jun 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> I was stating a fact, not suggesting a policy. I'm in favor of decriminalization of marijuana.





ballen0351 said:


> And?  How many chances should we give someone?



Eh...if it's legal, you don't have to give them any chances at all. I don't follow you.


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## Tgace (Jun 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> Eh...if it's legal, you don't have to give them any chances at all. I don't follow you.



But its not legal....

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## arnisador (Jun 3, 2013)

Tgace said:


> Marijuana is a very very small front in the Drug War...the feds up here don't even look at weed cases under 50lbs...the real drug war is about coke, heroin, meth, pills etc.
> 
> The redirect to weed when discussing the Drug War is ignorance of narctiocs enforcement at best or intentional obfuscation at worst.



No, it's in fact making the same distinction you just indicated--that weed is different.


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## arnisador (Jun 3, 2013)

Tgace said:


> But its not legal....



Agreed, yeah. I'm still not following.


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## Tgace (Jun 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> No, it's in fact making the same distinction you just indicated--that weed is different.



But incarceration and "The Drug War" has yet again been twisted to weed here. Legalization of pot wont do **** in regards to the Drug War....

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## Tgace (Jun 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> Agreed, yeah. I'm still not following.



Maybe you should re-read the posts then. I get what hes saying.

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## Makalakumu (Jun 3, 2013)

Tgace said:


> But incarceration and "The Drug War" has yet again been twisted to weed here. Legalization of pot wont do **** in regards to the Drug War....
> 
> Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2



Not neccesarily. Legal weed will be very different from illegal weed. Legal weed will allow the industry to grow around it complete with the infrastructure to deal with chemical abuse. This will provide yet another example of how the free market can handle drug issues.

Government regulation, including criinalization, only hinders the free market. It makes drug problems worse and adds a whole new spectrum of problems on top of the problem of chemical abuse.


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## Argus (Jun 3, 2013)

> _Japan has 63 per 100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96, South Korea has 97, and *Britain - with a rate among the *highest - has 153...._
> _This wide gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world is relatively recent. In 1980 the U.S.s prison population was about 150 per 100,000 adults. It has more than quadrupled since then. So something has happened in the past 30 years to push millions of Americans into prison._
> _That something, of course, is the war on drugs._



You might want to consider that Japan, with the lowest rate, also has a zero tolerance policy on drugs.

But then, drugs are not a common or accepted thing culturally there, and people are much more used to the idea of taking responsibility for their actions.


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## ballen0351 (Jun 3, 2013)

Makalakumu said:


> Not neccesarily. Legal weed will be very different from illegal weed. Legal weed will allow the industry to grow around it complete with the infrastructure to deal with chemical abuse. This will provide yet another example of how the free market can handle drug issues.
> 
> Government regulation, including criinalization, only hinders the free market. It makes drug problems worse and adds a whole new spectrum of problems on top of the problem of chemical abuse.


Only problem I see with your plan is the people that are hooked and need help cant afford it (you know because of the whole drug addiction thing)  So it will still fall to the tax payer to foot the bill.


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## arnisador (Jun 3, 2013)

Tgace said:


> Maybe you should re-read the posts then. I get what hes saying.



Thanks, that was helpful.


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## oftheherd1 (Jun 5, 2013)

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/2012/ojppr112912.pdf 

I only did a quick search, but came of with this set of statistics up to 2011 from the USDOJ.  First, the amount has been declining, and is now about 2.9% of the population.  The 6.98 million are those under correction supervision.  That includes probation and parole.  Only about 2,239,800 were actually incarcerated.

It can't have gone up significantly in one year.  I don't know where the individual quoted by Makalakuma got his figures, but they don't agree with DOJ, and in fact, are radically different.  It causes me to doubt all he says.


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## Makalakumu (Jun 5, 2013)

oftheherd1 said:


> http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/2012/ojppr112912.pdf
> 
> I only did a quick search, but came of with this set of statistics up to 2011 from the USDOJ.  First, the amount has been declining, and is now about 2.9% of the population.  The 6.98 million are those under correction supervision.  That includes probation and parole.  Only about 2,239,800 were actually incarcerated.
> 
> It can't have gone up significantly in one year.  I don't know where the individual quoted by Makalakuma got his figures, but they don't agree with DOJ, and in fact, are radically different.  It causes me to doubt all he says.



It is from TIME magazine, but I guess that doesn't mean the numbers are correct.  I suppose it will all be determined by who you count...on both sides.


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## Makalakumu (Jun 5, 2013)

ballen0351 said:


> Only problem I see with your plan is the people that are hooked and need help cant afford it (you know because of the whole drug addiction thing)  So it will still fall to the tax payer to foot the bill.



The people who are hooked now don't really get any help now...and the taxpayers pay far more to imprison them.  The worst case scenario is what we have now.


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## ballen0351 (Jun 5, 2013)

Makalakumu said:


> The people who are hooked now don't really get any help now...and the taxpayers pay far more to imprison them.  The worst case scenario is what we have now.



Sure they do When I arrest someone on drug charges if they are just a user with a record free from violent crimes they go to a drug diversion program.  What they choose to do with that help is on them.  Without the drug arrest part we get no court ordered treatment.  So the worst case scenario is no way to even get someone help since we have no court system to order the help to begin with.


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## K-man (Jun 5, 2013)

There has been a study released here, that has been discussed on radio over the past few days, showing that the rate of criminals reoffending is significantly greater if they have served time in prison. Criminals given suspended sentences, fines or Community Orders are much less likely to reoffend. Watch ts space!  :asian:


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## K-man (Jun 5, 2013)

Makalakumu said:


> The people who are hooked now don't really get any help now...and the taxpayers pay far more to imprison them.  The worst case scenario is what we have now.


You haven't seen the worst. Legalise pot and your worst nightmare will become reality.    :asian:


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## Makalakumu (Jun 5, 2013)

ballen0351 said:


> Sure they do When I arrest someone on drug charges if they are just a user with a record free from violent crimes they go to a drug diversion program.  What they choose to do with that help is on them.  Without the drug arrest part we get no court ordered treatment.  So the worst case scenario is no way to even get someone help since we have no court system to order the help to begin with.



There will always be ways to get help because that is what people need.  The government makes it harder for people to get help because users get thrown in prison or they are forced to use underground.  If drugs were legalized, the situation would only improve.


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## ballen0351 (Jun 5, 2013)

Makalakumu said:


> There will always be ways to get help because that is what people need.  The government makes it harder for people to get help because users get thrown in prison or they are forced to use underground.  If drugs were legalized, the situation would only improve.


So how many users are in prison?  

And in this world of legal drugs who pays for treatment?


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## ballen0351 (Jun 5, 2013)

K-man said:


> There has been a study released here, that has been discussed on radio over the past few days, showing that the rate of criminals reoffending is significantly greater if they have served time in prison. Criminals given suspended sentences, fines or Community Orders are much less likely to reoffend. Watch ts space!  :asian:



Doesn't surprise me since by the time anyone goes to prison they  usually have already been arrested many times.  Unless someone dies is seriously hurt or you stole something extreamy valuable your not going to prison on a first offense or second or third normally


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## Tgace (Jun 5, 2013)

Makalakumu said:


> There will always be ways to get help because that is what people need.  The government makes it harder for people to get help because users get thrown in prison or they are forced to use underground.  If drugs were legalized, the situation would only improve.



Simple users are not the people in prison....what people are sentenced with and what they actually did to wind up in prison are two different subjects.


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## Tgace (Jun 5, 2013)

Let me give you a "hypothetical"...

Lets say that I know a guy is dealing heroin...say I cant get him to sell to an undercover, therefore I cant charge him with criminal sale. What I do get is a search warrant for his house. I find the dope he's slinging and I charge him with "possession". 

Y'all have to get this "charged with possession always means a simple User/stoner" thing out of your headspace.

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