61–70 of 109 posts
A secondary issue here is that a joints worth of pot was cause for a felony conviction. How is that punishment in any way fitting the crime.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is just bad statistics. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/25/race-and-justice-much-m... >For example, all of these “equally likely to have used drugs” claims turn out to be that blacks and whites are equally likely to have “used drugs in the past year”, but blacks are far more likely to have used drugs in the past week – that is, more whites are only occasional users. That gives blacks many more opportunities to…
> Likewise, whites are more likely to use low-penalty drugs like hallucinogens, and blacks are more likely to use high-penalty drugs like crack cocaine. Why is it, then, that crack cocaine is a high-penalty drug, and hallucinogens are low-penalty drugs? (I leave this as an exercise to the reader.)
I read the entire article. The man was duly convicted of a crime in Oklahoma. He broke the law, regardless of what anyone thinks. Fast forward to when selling dope in certain places is now legal and this guys want a piece of the action, but... he cannot legally do so because he's a convicted felon. Should we undo his conviction? No. He was tried fairly and found guilty based on the laws of the time and place. His fau…
Laws are made by humans, and there is no guarantee that they are fair or ethical. The man in the article was caught with a couple cigarettes filled with a shredded plant (the illegal one, not that legal yet much more harmful plant). He served a felony for it because we instituted a draconian and racist class war under the guise of "saving the children from reefer madness". This country is finally instituting some sensible drug legislation, but the people that were most disproportionately affected by the War on Drugs are now disproportionately locked out of this new market. That is neither fair nor ethical.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is just bad statistics. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/25/race-and-justice-much-m... >For example, all of these “equally likely to have used drugs” claims turn out to be that blacks and whites are equally likely to have “used drugs in the past year”, but blacks are far more likely to have used drugs in the past week – that is, more whites are only occasional users. That gives blacks many more opportunities to…
> Likewise, whites are more likely to use low-penalty drugs like hallucinogens, and blacks are more likely to use high-penalty drugs like crack cocaine. Why is it, then, that crack cocaine is a high-penalty drug, and hallucinogens are low-penalty drugs? (I leave this as an exercise to the reader.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you say is likely very true, but has no bearing on this one man's case. This one man was found guilty and is now paying the price. Some will call foul. Some won't. I don't argue the fact that race relations in the US haven't been pretty and that many people were unfairly treated or even falsely convicted, but this particular man was found guilty of a crime he did commit and is now paying for his crimes. It doesn…
If your only baromrter for morality is "caught and convicted o a crime", your pronouncements on how to build a society (including how crimes are defined, investigated, and prosecuted) aren't very interesting.
Morality is absolute. People deep down know right from wrong. America now plays relativism with morality and truth with garbage like, "well, if it's true for you...". It's crap.
A felony conviction means you cannot be trusted. This man sold dope to people. He was convicted. What's not to like? The law did it's job. Now, if only we had Singapore's drug laws, this country would be largely free of immoral dopeheads and their ilk. Selling dope is immoral whether legal or not. It attracts bad people and gets children involved in things that are not healthy and righteous.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point here is that there are more consequences when you're Black in the US. Statistically speaking people of color, and in particular Black Americans, are arrested and convicted of marijuana related crimes at a much higher rate than any other group [1]. That translates into Black Americans being kept out of the newly legal business because of racist policing policies. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/…
I appreciate your remarks. But -- what I'm saying is that no one should feel sorry for this guy. It pains me to see the vast numbers of Americans who but a few years ago were for tough legislation and tough policies and who now desire to see criminals released from prison because the sentence may be too harsh. Really? If you do the crime, you do the time. We should not undo sentencing. It was all done legally at the…
Yea, the 1950's were really America's heyday (/s), while the rest of the world was blown up. I wonder if people in the 1920's were sipping on illegal booze at Gadsby's party thinking "man, the morality in america sure has taken a dive since the gilded age". Is your view so skewed by the media portrayal of the Jones' and white picket fences that you think America was some bastion of morality then? The morals established then were that woman couldn't own credit cards unless their husbands deemed it so, gays should be sent to sanitoriums to prevent the spread of their disease by showing nude pictures to other boys (Lavender Scare anyone?); it took 10+ years for some states to comply with Brown v The Board of Education. So how about you get your kids a history book and let them read that so they don't have to see the world through rose colored bigoted glasses.
edit. The more I think about this the more upset I am. HUAC, being able to LEGALLY beat your wife, this isn't even touching on African-American trials of the time. America was a fucking mess in the 1950's.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Likewise, whites are more likely to use low-penalty drugs like hallucinogens, and blacks are more likely to use high-penalty drugs like crack cocaine. Why is it, then, that crack cocaine is a high-penalty drug, and hallucinogens are low-penalty drugs? (I leave this as an exercise to the reader.)
Because of the damage addiction does to communities. When these laws were passed it was people in those affected communities demanding them. People forget there were huge community marches in the 80s/90s crack epidemics with locals demanding police rid their towns of crack dealers.
People also forget why those dealers were in the business in the first place.
(Hint: the US government played a large role in explicitly financing the drug trade that resulted in a stead inflow of crack, predominantly to black communities[0]. Crack cocaine would not have been anywhere nearly as lucrative a business otherwise[1].)
[0] https://oig.justice.gov/special/9712/
[1] Which isn't to say that it's particularly lucrative either way, as has been demonstrated numerous times by economists - it just happens to be one of the few options available for many people who are trying to scrape together a living under those circumstances.
Some 10-odd years ago, I had a (white) colleague who really enjoyed smoking mary-j. He lived on the 48th floor of a deluxe high-rise in Manhattan. He, like his wealthy neighbors, didn't have to get their fix off the street. Instead, they called 1-800-greenhouse and ordered two "theatre tickets". Within 30 mins, a bike messenger (African-American) came over to deliver 2 ounces of stuff to his front door. He never left the house. Last I heard, he got a job with the government…
He still has the right to vote too.
I read the entire article. The man was duly convicted of a crime in Oklahoma. He broke the law, regardless of what anyone thinks. Fast forward to when selling dope in certain places is now legal and this guys want a piece of the action, but... he cannot legally do so because he's a convicted felon. Should we undo his conviction? No. He was tried fairly and found guilty based on the laws of the time and place. His fau…
I read the entire article. The man was duly convicted of a crime in Oklahoma. He broke the law, regardless of what anyone thinks. Fast forward to when black people owning property in certain places is now legal and this guy wants a piece of the action, but...he cannot legally do so because he fled from his master. Should we undo his conviction? No. He was tried fairly and found guilty based on the laws of the time an…
You say "market" like selling dope could be a good thing. If it's a harmless plant, as you say, why have any regulations concerning it. Tea is a "harmless" plant, and as such, I can send my children into Walmart and purchase it without so much as a by-your-leave from the cashier. Harmless plants don't need sensible regulations because harmless things don't need regulating. Morality again, gone astray. I miss my old-school America where Americans were conservatives.
Here activists called legalization the new prohibition because of all the regulations like no dispensaries within a X distance from each other, a school, church ect so drove them out or cemented monopolies for the existing dispensaries which can raise prices. Then they created high barriers to entry with massive licensing fees and other regulations. This of course spawned online purchasing and delivery business model…
Because that would dilute the click-baity narrative that Buzzfeed is trying to drive home. We wouldn't want their efforts in conflating cause and effect to go to waste now, would we?