The Legalization of Marijuana

[hardheadjarhead]

Tgace in bold:

Not an extremely different case than here. Recreational use in my state is a violation (not a crime) punished by a fine. As a Sgt. I cant even place bail on a rec. marijuana arrest. As to dealers and major "weight" arrests (read pounds:multiple) you need to be a major player to get any time, unless you get caught by the Feds or the local case gets routed to federal court.

I'd say there is a significant difference between your jurisdiction in New York and Sweden insofar as to how they treat drug abuse and treatment. Theirs is a socialized system, and their method of jurisprudence is totally different from ours. You indicated as much yourself by saying their program "works," and it seems you think that our programs do not.

Are you suggesting the program works in your area? The post above indicates you're not particularly satisfied with the system in New York. Yet if your jurisdiction's system is "not extremely different" from that of Sweden, why isn't it working? Or is it working?

Which is it, Tgace?

And if it is working, how is it that their "problematic use" rates are equal to that of the Netherlands, where the laws are not as harsh?


Most of these "recreational pot heads" doing life are "anecdotal" stories at best.

Ah, thus linking it with another thread. Touche.

I grant there is flexibility in sentencing in certain states and not all sentences will be so draconian as life in prison for ten plants. This happened in Oklahoma to a man growing it for medicinal purposes--anecdotal but undeniably true.

Regardless, the machinery is in place to ruin people's lives for what amounts to a mild intoxicant compared to alcohol. Further, minor offenders now crowd our prisons.

Now for some non-anecdotal stats:

Possession arrests nationwide amount to about 80% of marijuana busts. Nearly half of those serving time in prisons for marijuana crimes were convicted of possession only...not trafficking. They amount to over 3 percent of the prison population and cost taxpayers 1.2 billion dollars a year to keep housed and fed. This does NOT include costs of investigating, arresting, prosecuting, and providing public defense for the offenders. These offenders take up space that could be used for violent offenders, and use resources that could be directed towards fighting violent crime and property crime.

http://www.mpp.org/arrests/fas61699.html

I wonder--and please don't take this personally, as it isn't intended as such-- if as a police officer your perception of marijuana is skewed by your experience. You often have to deal with the lowest of the low of our species, and they often are in possession of dope, if not meth, Cat, or other illegal psychoactive substances.

I imagine you do not typically arrest people in the best neighborhoods of your area...maybe their children on occasion, and when you do sometimes these kids possess weed. You don't get as many domestic calls, don't walk in on a vicious and violent fight between mom and dad and happen to notice dope and a handgun on the nightstand in the bedroom. Am I right?

But those neighborhoods with their neatly manicured lawns and their BMW's in the driveway are filled with people who smoked dope in high school and college...who still maybe occasionally smoke it but likely not. If they have any addictions, it is more than likely alcohol and prescription drugs. Marijuana is probably no longer part of their life.

In order to keep their kids from being busted by you they have to face the problem as articulated by our President in my current signature below.



Regards,


Steve

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Oh, and "kid," good observation. Cigarettes ARE more addictive than marijuana. Far more so.

And then there is this one brand of Cuban cigar one can get in Denmark...but that's anecdotal. I won't include it.

But damn, it's good.



Regards,


Steve

 

[Tgace]

Possession arrests nationwide amount to about 80% of marijuana busts. Nearly half of those serving time in prisons for marijuana crimes were convicted of possession only...not trafficking. They amount to over 3 percent of the prison population and cost taxpayers 1.2 billion dollars a year to keep housed and fed. This does NOT include costs of investigating, arresting, prosecuting, and providing public defense for the offenders. These offenders take up space that could be used for violent offenders, and use resources that could be directed towards fighting violent crime and property crime.

http://www.mpp.org/arrests/fas61699.html

Yes, but possession in what ammount? A guy with a baggie in his pocket isnt doing hard time. These guys are either a doing time on a reduced charge or the "possession" was in multiple pounds.....

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/marijuana_myths_facts/myth10.pdf
http://www.preventionpathways.org/Resources/Newsletters/Insight/In01-03.2004.pdf

The Facts:

​

​

-Less than one percent of all state prison inmates in 1997 were serving time just for marijuana possession (0.7 percent), and only 0.3 percent of marijuana-possession offenders were in prison on a first offense.



-On the federal level, nearly 98 percent of the 7,991 offenders sentenced for marijuana crimes in 2001 were guilty of trafficking. Only 2.3 percent, 186 people, were sentences for simple possession of marijuana.

-In 1997, half of all federal prisoners convicted just for marijuana possession were arrested with quantities exceeding 115 pounds.​

​

As to the effectiveness of my "Drug Court"...well the powers that be say its effective. I do frequently re-arrest "graduates" but there is always a percentage that are just always going to have problems...so I cant really bash or praise it.

 

[Tgace]

People in Jail for DWI...as a comparison.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/dwiocs.pdf

 

[Tgace]

BTW..I dont believe I have ever stated that "Pot heads are the Devil!". But its illegal. I catch you with it, I do my job. If most people were smart enough to do it in thier homes and not their cars or not have it on them when they deal with me, I wouldnt catch so many....

Personally, I think alcohol and tobacco are already killing us in droves and causing massive expenses, why add another problem? Decriminalize most possession charges (which is what is starting to happen in many states) and go after the dealers. BTW people charged with "possession" of 100 lbs. of marijuana probably arent just stocking up for Saturday night.

And as to what works in Sweden/Denmark et.al....We have a much different culture,history,tradition, ideals, geographic population dispersal and less homogenus population (race and politics) than they do. While their methods are interesting and we should study them, I would hesitate to believe that what works there will absolutely work here.

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Yes, but possession in what ammount. A guy with a baggie in his pockets isnt doing hard time. These guys are either a doing time on a reduced charge or the "possession" was in multiple pounds.....

Multiple pounds? Maybe in New York, but not elsewhere. Let's see the statutes and penalties for a pound or less in a few random states, with some other penalties thrown in for flavor:

Texas:

Possession of 2 ounces or less can get you 180 days in jail.
Possession of 2 to 4 ounces can get you a year in prison.
Greater than 4 ounces to a pound can get a person up to 2 years.

Tennessee:

1/2 ounce or less is a misdemeanor and a year in prison.
Ten plants will get you 2-12 years.
Anything over a half ounce is considered trafficking and is a felony with starting out at a year to six years for over a half ounce.

South Dakota:

2 ounces or less is a misdemeanor and a year in prison.
2 to 8 ounces is a felony and a year in prison.
8 ounces to a pound is five years.
A positive urine test is considered possession and is punished as such.

South Carolina:

1 ounce, first offense, gets you 30 days and a misdemeanor conviction.
1 ounce, second offense, gets you a year.
Possession of greater than one ounce is considered evidence of intent to sell and is punished as such. Two ounces, for instance, will get you five years and a felony conviction.

Rhode Island:

Possession of less than a kilogram is a misdemeanor and a year in prison.
Possession within 300 yards of a school is a felony and earns a double penalty. And this was a "blue state." Imagine.

Puerto Rico:

Any amount, first offense, is a felony and earns three years.
Any amount, second offense, is a felony and gets a person six years.
Grow one plant and its a felony that will net you 12 years.
Paraphenalia possession is a felony that will get you three years.

Oklahoma:

Any amount, first offense, earns a year in prison.
Any amount, second offense, earns 2-10 years and is a felony.
Cultivation of a single plant can net you two years to life.

North Dakota:

Less than 1/2 ounce while operating a motor vehicle is a year in jail.
Possessing up to an ounce is a felony and a year in jail.
Anything over an ounce is five years in jail.
Paraphanalia possession is a year in jail.


I could go on and on...but why? Note that the statutes for these states, and many more, all provide for months to years of incarceration for possession of a pound or less.

And an ounce of dope does not a dealer make.

http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4516


Regards,


Steve

 

[hardheadjarhead]

BTW..I dont believe I have ever stated that "Pot heads are the Devil!". But its illegal. I catch you with it, I do my job. If most people were smart enough to do it in thier homes and not their cars or not have it on them when they deal with me, I wouldnt catch so many....

Agreed. But then you're in a state where the fines are mild in comparison to others. This lends people to easier embrace the rationalization "It'll never happen to me."


Personally, I think alcohol and tobacco are already killing us in droves and causing massive expenses, why add another problem?

I agree with you on tobacco and alcohol. As for creating another problem, we get again to the issue of whether it IS a problem or not. Eliminate it as a crime, and we're left with addiction...and its addiction rates are very, very low compared to tobacco and booze.

Decriminalize most possession charges (which is what is starting to happen in many states) and go after the dealers.

Or legalize it, tax it, criminalize operation of heavy equipment or use of it while pregnant. Use the tax money to fund rehab programs for all drugs and alcohol addictions.

In your state alone in 1997 marijuana was the number TWO cash crop. Illicit retail sales in 1995, estimated on the low end, were nearly five hundred million. Tax that, and you've got some serious revenue for giving cops raises, hunting down child molesters, building prisons, building highways, and feeding kids in school breakfast and lunch programs.

Or you can continue the drug war. That year law enforcement only eradicated an estimated 25% of the harvest. It'll be a little hard to fight a war in Iraq and a war on drugs. You have to get the money to do both...and lately change has been a little bit scarce.

Maybe we could tax the rich for the war on drugs. Now THERE'S an idea to run by congress. We'd see hand wringing from both sides of the aisles.

BTW people charged with "possession" of 100 lbs. of marijuana probably arent just stocking up for Saturday night.

Probably not. But you'll note in my subsequent post that many states hammer you for minor possession. Many states.


And as to what works in Sweden/Denmark et.al....We have a much different culture,history,tradition, ideals, geographic population dispersal and less homogenus population (race and politics) than they do. While their methods are interesting and we should study them, I would hesitate to believe that what works there will absolutely work here.

Great. Then why bring it up at all?


Regards,


Steve

 

[Tgace]

Your showing the possible punishments....how many people do think get convicted of the exact charge they were arrested for?

As a tangent it reminds me of the "3 strike law" objections people have. The 3 time felony pot possessor goes away for life stories. If you could read the criminal histories Ive seen....people with books worth of arrests, felonies of all sorts...over the span of years with 1 felony conviction....the only guy Ive personally been involved in sending to prison for a pound of marijuana was a murderer on parole that got sent back to the joint.

Things like prior arrests, criminal/drug histories and the like come into effect. (And if they play the "toss in the small fish for the bigger fish" game). Granted the guys that do go to prison for marijuana offenses arent all hardened criminals or violent people and I am open to debate about the issue of if they deserve the same treatment as those who are. However I dont buy the 1,000's of "nice, family guy, otherwise good citizens" doing hard time in the joint either.......

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/marijuana/

Adjudication

During FY 2001, some 8,000 convicted Federal drug offenders had committed an offense involving marijuana. Of these offenders, 7,758 were convicted of committing a trafficking offense, while 186 were convicted of marijuana possession. Marijuana trafficking convictions represented 33% of all drug trafficking offenses, and marijuana possession convictions accounted for 48.4% of all drug possession convictions in Federal courts during FY 2001. The median amount of marijuana involved in Federal marijuana trafficking convictions was 59,000 grams, or 2,081 ounces. The median amount of marijuana involved in Federal possession convictions was 37.5 grams, or 1.3 ounces.

A total of 924,700 persons were convicted of a felony in State courts in 2000. Marijuana trafficking convictions made up 2.7% of the total, and marijuana possession convictions represented 3.7% of the total.

Corrections

Among all Federal drug offenders receiving a prison sentence, those charged with marijuana offenses received the shortest ones. The average sentence received by Federal marijuana offenders in FY 2001 was 38 months, compared to 115 months for crack cocaine offenders, 88.5 months for methamphetamine offenders, 77 months for powder cocaine offenders, 63.4 months for heroin offenders, and 41.1 months for those who committed offenses involving other drugs.

According to a 1997 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of Federal and State prisoners, approximately 19% of Federal and 13% of State drug offenders were incarcerated for a marijuana offense.


Treatment

The number of admissions to drug and alcohol treatment in the United States increased from 1,527,930 in 1992 to 1,739,796 in 2001. The number of admissions for primary marijuana abuse (255,394 admissions) accounted for 14.7% of the total admissions in 2001. This was up from 1992 when there were 92,414 marijuana admissions, or 6% of the year's admissions.

About 40% of those treated for primary marijuana abuse during 2001 were between ages 15 and 19 at admission. For all admissions to treatment (all illicit drugs and alcohol), this age group accounted for 11% of admissions (see table 4).

More than half of the drug-related treatment admissions involving individuals under the age of 15 (55.0%) and more than half of those ages 15 to 19 (54.1%) were treated for primary marijuana abuse. Among the marijuana/hashish admissions with data available (255,394), more than 25% of those admitted began using marijuana at age 12 or younger (see table 5).

Some 56.8% of the marijuana admissions to treatment in 2001 were referred through the criminal justice system. Other sources for referral treatment included individual referred self (17.5%), substance abuse provider (5.9%), other health care provider (4.9%), school (4.2%), employer/employee assistance program (1.2%), and other community referrals (9.5%).

 

[Tgace]

We can keep going around and around on this. As I stated Im not against decriminalization of possession (to a degree), not for legalization. Just the way it is. This judge has an interesting,balanced and well worded opinion on the Marijuana problem and its many facets...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/rational/judge.html

The whole site, based on a PBS report is quite good actually.

And while public opinion that the "drug war" is failing is increasing, many Americans are not "for" legalization.

http://www.ndsn.org/marapr98/opinion.html

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Your showing the possible punishments....how many people do think get convicted of the exact charge they were arrested for?

Most don't. We both know that. However...

Look at the very data you provided. Of all those serving felony time in state prisons, those serving for marijuana possession amounted to 3.7 percent of the total. Those serving for trafficking amounted to 2.7 percent of the total. Note again that those percentages are from a total of all felonies, not just drug felonies. Thus 6.4% of all the felonies in state prisons that year were for marijuana offenses. Now, look at the split again:

Greater than half of all those serving time for marijuana that year in state prisons were serving for possession.

Now, note those Federal stats you so kindly provided: The median amount of dope in a Federal felony conviction for POSSESSION was a whopping--get this--1.3 ounces. That means that half of those incarcerated had less than 1.3 ounces in their possession. Those serving time for Federal charges on possession comprised 48.4% percent of all drug charges that year. That means, given the median, that 24.2% of those serving for possession had 1.3 ounces or less. Roughly a quarter had a mere 37.5 grams or less.

What were you saying earlier about people not serving multiple years for a baggie?

Tgace...you're supposed to provide data to undercut my arguments, not provide data that supports them.

As a tangent it reminds me of the "3 strike law" objections people have. The 3 time felony pot possessor goes away for life stories. If you could read the criminal histories Ive seen....people with books worth of arrests, felonies of all sorts...over the span of years with 1 felony conviction....the only guy Ive personally been involved in sending to prison for a pound of marijuana was a murderer on parole that got sent back to the joint.

Indeed a tangent. Bad guys smoke pot, ergo all people that smoke pot are bad guys? You answer that below yourself.

Granted the guys that do go to prison for marijuana offenses arent all hardened criminals or violent people and I am open to debate about the issue of if they deserve the same treatment as those who are.

That is one of the key points of this debate. If marijuana use is not the evil it is portrayed to be then users ought not be made to pay for it. I submit if they're violent criminals and use it, they ought to pay for their violence...not their possession. And if they're users who are losers, likewise they ought not pay in this way for their inability to get by in life with any merit. Likewise we shouldn't have to pay for their incarceration. If some of them are not hardened criminals or violent people--as you grant--then will they be hardened and violent after years in a state or federal prison?

This issue is whether marijuana use and possession ought to be a crime. If not, and if it indeed ought to be legalized, it merits no weight in additional sentencing or in "third strike laws." That is clear and not up for debate.

Another point in this debate is the heavy economic burden we face with our current marijuana laws--a burden carried by the taxpayer. That you have yet to address.



Regards,


Steve

 

[Tgace]

Marijuana is but a small part of the "Drug War"....And ill say it again, Im not a "Lock up ALL pot heads" proponent. As simple possession is a violation in my State I dont even HAVE to arrest for it. And Im fairly sure many NY Sate cops will tell stories of smashing bowls, grinding up joints and sending people home (with a call to the parents when they are kids)....

Im really liking this PBS site...balanced and some interesting facts I didnt know. Like the issue of State by State enforcement. There has been discussion of legalization and the problem of uneven State law and the Chaos it could cause.


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

Well, the illegal drug problem is one thing; illegal drug users are a different thing. If you took marijuana out of the equation, you would be left with relatively few--several million illicit drug users. You'd still be left with more than 85% of the total revenues of the illicit drug business. So the vast number of marijuana users don't account for much of the total dollars spent.


The same thing is true if you look among marijuana users. The couple of million who stay stoned all day, every day, account for the vast bulk of the total marijuana consumed, and thus the total revenues of the illicit marijuana industry. That's typical. The money in any drug, including alcohol, is in the addicts, not the casual users. There was a big fuss during the 80s about how much casual middle-class drug use there was and how respectable folks were supporting the markets. It's certainly true that most people who are illicit drug users are employed, stable respectable citizens. But it doesn't follow that if we could get the employed, stable respectable citizens to stop using illicit drugs, the problem would mostly go away.


That turns out not to be true; the problem is concentrated in a relatively small hard core. Four-fifths of the cocaine consumed in this country is consumed by about 2.5 million very heavy cocaine users. All the rest of the cocaine users, the bulk of the survey reported cocaine use, accounts for very little quantity. We use about $30 billion a year worth of cocaine in this country. If there were 10 million people, and the survey says there aren't that many anymore, but if there were 10 million people, each of them using $500 worth of cocaine a year--that's a couple of rocks a week--that would only be $5 billion worth. The other $25 billion has to go to people who use a lot of cocaine.


If we took marijuana out of the equation, the number of illicit drug users would collapse dramatically. The drug problem wouldn't change much at all, because the drug problem we really have isn't much about marijuana.


The adolescent use issue is a serious one. I think it's probably bad for 14-year-olds to get stoned. I'm sure it's bad for them to get stoned in school; they're not going to learn anything. But against that we have the violence associated with the illicit markets and the imprisonment associated with drug law enforcement. Those problems are overwhelmingly the drugs other than marijuana.


The label "drug problem" seriously confuses the issue, because it treats all the illicit drugs as if they were alike. We need to look at substance abuse problems in the plural, because each drug is its own problem, though, of course, most heavy users use more than one drug.

 

[Tgace]

Same Site

Marijuana generates more arrests than any other illicit drug. Much of that doesn't have anything to do with law enforcement specifically targeting drug infractions. Much of that is literally somebody's driving a little funny, gets pulled over and the cop smells the marijuana smoke or sees the baggie on the seat. There are relatively few police officers out there who are spending their time trying to catch people using marijuana. More in suburban and rural areas obviously than in urban areas, but marijuana enforcement isn't a very high priority, it's just that there's a lot of marijuana smoking.


And there are a lot of people that still act as if it were more or less legal. And therefore, violate Cheech and Chong's first rule of marijuana smoking, which is don't blow smoke [in a] cop's face. So there are a lot of arrests. Most of them don't lead to much of anything, except annoyance and embarrassment.


Now at the federal level, where there is a lot of effort at domestic marijuana production, you get a substantial number of people going to prison for mostly large scale cultivation. There are relatively many marijuana prisoners in the federal prison system, but that system holds only about 10% of the nation's prison population; the other 90% are in state and county institutions.



The federal prison system is heavily oriented toward drug offenses, somewhat more than half of all federal prisoners are in for drug offenses. And some noticeable fraction of that is marijuana. But still, if you look at the overall burden of drug law enforcement and drug related imprisonment, marijuana doesn't count very high. These are all guesses, no one really has good numbers. My best guess is that there are about 400,000 people in prison or jail at any one time for drug offenses: possession, not very much possession, some possession, distribution offenses. Of that something less than 10%--30,000 or 40,000 people--are in prison for marijuana offenses.


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.


Marijuana laws have become a symbolic battleground, where the real battle is over what we should do about cocaine. Some people say, "The Netherlands has legalized cannabis, and nothing terrible happened; therefore, the U.S. should legalize cocaine." There are four problems with that proposition. First, The Netherlands haven't actually legalized anything, though flagrant retail marijuana dealing is tolerated. Second, we don't really know much about what the effect has been on rates of marijuana use there. Third, something that worked for the Dutch might not work here. Fourth, cocaine isn't cannabis.



And, yet, what to do about cocaine is really the big drug policy question, unless you're courageous enough to address the problem of what to do about alcohol, which accounts for more violence, more crime, more sickness, more death and more arrests than all other drugs combined.

Like I said we can go around with dueling statistics and studies (they are so clear and accurate after all ). I dont know where we can end this....We do need to look at Marijuana, but in the long run its not really the main "front" in the "Drug War"...More like one of the smaller islands in the Pacific campaign.

 

[Tgace]

What were you saying earlier about people not serving multiple years for a baggie?

Tgace...you're supposed to provide data to undercut my arguments, not provide data that supports them.

And of that HUGE percentage, how many are facing prision time with possession and/or trafficing as the ONLY charge? You can be charged with possession, weapons, vehicle and traffic misdemeanors, resisting etc etc. all on one arrest incident and after plea bargians, deals and so on wind up with various results. Many people are incarcerated with multiple charges on them. Those numbers just show an offense by offense breakdown. I still contend that joe college student caught with a 1.5 oz bag in his dorm and nothing else, isnt sitting in the pen....and if a few are, it because they fell victim to taking "guilty as charged" pleas to manditory sentences. Bad lawyers or special DA circumstances....

BTW I believe your math is off somewhere. Heres the actual State Felony study. www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fssc00.pdf it says the total Marijuana incarceration percentage is 2.7% of the total felony count. Which i can only assume is for possession because trafficing is not stated as product specific. And those percentages are not all "prison terms" as 30%+ are probation sentences. Statistics...love em or hate em.

Again these are people who, by a large margian plead to a felony count. Report says somewhere in the 90% range took a plea to a felony.

 

[Flatlander]

I still contend that joe college student caught with a 1.5 oz bag in his dorm isnt sitting in the pen....

Fair enough, but the reality is that he could be, given the law as it is.

 

[Tgace]

Yeah. True. But you "could go to jail" your first shoplifting (some 16 yo putting a CD in his pocket isnt the crime of the century either), DWI, etc. but almost none do. Its against the law and when you choose to do it (right or wrong) thats the chance you take. Sentences are limits, thats what pleas, probation and councling are in place for. An arrest isnt a conviction, few are convicted for what they were initially arrested for.

 

[Tgace]

BTW I believe your math is off somewhere. Heres the actual State Felony study. www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fssc00.pdf it says the total Marijuana incarceration percentage is 2.7% of the total felony count. Which i can only assume is for possession because trafficing is not stated as product specific. And those percentages are not all "prison terms" as 30%+ are probation sentences. Statistics...love em or hate em.

Looking at that chart again, the 2.7% IS for trafficking. I mis-read. The possession percentage must be the 3.7% although I cant locate that breakdown in the report. Possession is listed as a total drug measurement, which is listed as 12% for all drugs. Marijuana being 3.7% of that I assume. Math was never my strong suit.

That 48% number you mentioned is the Federal percentage of drug charges, and the Feds arent targeting "Johnny dime bag or two" by and large. I believe many of those small ammount convictions are when they busted a big dealer and (unfortunately for the feds) only caught him with a small bag. At least thats an opinion based on what I have seen.

I still find the chart of "type of felony sentence imposed" interesting. Some get Prison, some jail and some probation. So out of that "relatively small %" of pot users that actually face a felony sentence nearly 1/3 get probation insted of time behind bars. The report lists the offenses as "most serious charge", but how many that do get time are the result of a "look we'll drop the weapon charge, suspended DL charge, the dealing charge and the reisiting if you take the plea to possession." type affair?

Raw stats dont give a crystal clear impression of how and why marijuana offense incarcerations are really being doled out.

 

[kid]

Let me tell you something. When i was about 17 or 18 my friends and i got pulled over for a burnt out head light. the officer said that he smelled alcohol in the can. none of us had been drinking. But not two minutes prior we had just finished smoking a big ask spliff. There was five of us in the car at the time, and each of us had our own bag of weed on us. The officer said "If i search the car and if i find anything your all going to get in trouble." Well the Driver thought that if he handed the officer his onie (one hitter) that it would be all done. He guessed wrong. We all had to get out of the car and give breathalizers and got searched. The officer called for back-up and two more squads came and helped out the first. They found about half a pound on our persons then started searching the car. They found about another half pound in the car. Well we got talked to individually by the first officer and our stories must have matched cause all we got was a slap on the wrist. They stole our pot, which was extreamly good stuff. Put it all in one bag and said all he was going to do was bring us individually to our parents and show them what we are doing. All we had to do was that and for two weeks page this cop ever other day and tell him how things were going and at at the end of two weeks pass a feild sobriety test ( which i can pass anyday). Any ways that was in the state of minnesota and it was nothing. like all he wanted to do was give us a bad high or something. It just gave us all a good story to tell. We all came to the conclusion that they stole out dope and kept it to them selves, it seems unlikly but it was never in the paper or never turned in. What happened to our stash? The cops smoked it.

 

[Melissa426]

.... They stole our pot, which was extreamly good stuff. .... at the end of two weeks pass a feild sobriety test ( which i can pass anyday)..... We all came to the conclusion that they stole out dope and kept it to them selves, it seems unlikly but it was never in the paper or never turned in. What happened to our stash? The cops smoked it.

Holy cow.
"KID" just made my argument against making pot legal. Do we really want a society of people with this many neurons in search of a synapse?

Peace,
Melissa

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Holy cow.
"KID" just made my argument against making pot legal. Do we really want a society of people with this many neurons in search of a synapse?

Peace,
Melissa

Why the personal attack against "Kid?"


Given they had a pound and didn't get hammered for it might reasonably lead to the conclusion that it was stolen. On the other hand, it might have been confiscated and used in a future sting. Kid's state has fairly light penalties, so the officers might have elected to let these minors off the hook...though I can't understand why they didn't grill them as to where they got it.

On the other hand, they may have known where they got it ahead of time (hence the "smell of alcohol" claim) or found out later...and Kid never learned this from one of his friends. That might be why they never got prosecuted. One of his friends might have turned in the guy who sold them the stuff.


Regards,


Steve

 

[Gray Phoenix]

Actually, Kid makes a point for legalizing all of it. I noticed it was illegal for them to have the pot. It was illegal for them to try to hide it from the cops and it was illegal for the cops to "smoke it themselves". The punishment for the kids would probably be minor. The punishment for the cops would be loss of jobs and jail time.

Did any of that stop the activity from taking place? No.
Consider this:
How much money is the public spending on the drug war?
How many people have died fighting it?
How much bigger and more lucrative are the drug cartels?
What is the major source of funding for street gangs?
How much bigger, more violent, and more widespread are those street gangs?
Have we seen this before in prohibition or is this different? If so why?

:idunno: No knee jerk reactions now, think about it.