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Grateful Dead Fan Timothy Tyler Has Been Granted Clemency

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Re: Grateful Dead Fan Timothy Tyler Has Been Granted Clemency

#51

Post by fennecfoxen »

wildmusings wrote: post #39
toomanybeersies wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From one of the clemencies > use of a communication facility to facilitate the commission of a felony How exactly is this an additional crime to said felony? How does using a telephone make the crime more heinous? This seems like one of those laws that's designed to be guaranteed to add more charges, similar to such gems as "non-violently resisting arrest".

Non-violently resisting arrest is a real thing and should most certainly be a crime. E.g. you put your hands firmly across your chest and force the police to overpower you and force you into handcuffs. You're not attacking anyone, but you're resisting arrest in a way that threatens the safety of the arresting officers and obstructs the lawful execution of an arrest warrant. Also, when the charges are all for the same…

> Non-violently resisting arrest is a real thing and should most certainly be a crime.

Sure. How bad of a crime? Thirty days in jail? A week? A year? Is that in line with practice?

Re: Grateful Dead Fan Timothy Tyler Has Been Granted Clemency

#52

Post by _bdog »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #11

Those infamous 'carrier weight' LSD laws where the weight of what the single drop of LSD is on counts as part of the drug in calculating the sentencing. And it's not even the dumbest 'war on drugs' law in our arsenal of dumb 'war on drugs' laws.

About the dumbness in the "war on drugs":

There is a nice scene in the documentary "Le route de l'opium", where they interview, I believe the guy responsible for europol drugwar coordination. They ask why the laws and system are like this if they are so incredibly stupid and not working.

His answer: Because this is the way many individuals earn the most money with it. Change anything and manufacturers, dealers, corrupt politicians etc. would lose money.

Re: Grateful Dead Fan Timothy Tyler Has Been Granted Clemency

#53

Post by ellisdewalt »

brbsix wrote: post #44
ellisdewalt wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's dumb because even if they wanted to have that severe of a punishment for LSD specifically, they could do math and just make the sentence greater for smaller amounts of actual drug. Be as cynical as you like, but we'd see equivalent exaggerations for every other drug if your line of thinking made sense.

There's no math to determine the quantity of active ingredient in illicit substances. That requires analysis. Including the carrier keeps it simple. It's also self-aggrandizing, as it's much more impressive for the DEA to announce they've seized 10g of "LSD" than 10mg. Again, this is coming from an agency that is known to weight the root ball when calculating the yield of seized marijuana grows.

Both you and eropple are spot on. I would have admitted both of your points but I'm not as knowledgeable.

The issue is, might_atomic says he is cynical that the reason the law is the case isn't dumb, it's intentional. If we're being cynical, I can think of many ways to be extra punitive against any particular drug you like for any reason. Even if we assume self-aggrandizement, my assumption was we could all be fall more cynically creative as to how a drug enforcement agency could get than arguing about the weight of paper.

For example, why not just call all the precursor chemicals drug as well, we could say they produced 50lbs of lsd because of the running water used in the process.

I'm just advocating for a level of cynicism that looks at a bigger picture to where once in awhile we could say something is dumber than it is insidious. Without doing so, I think it contributes to the persistence of laws that are in fact dumber than even their creators intended.

Re: Grateful Dead Fan Timothy Tyler Has Been Granted Clemency

#54

Post by [deleted] »

steve-howard wrote: post #50
billh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VICE did a documentary on Krystle Cole, a friend of Mr. Skinner's prior to his arrest. It includes a tour of the missile silo that Skinner had been using as a lab. (NSFW - Drugs, Sex, etc.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7qliVpGEk0

It's kind of creepy to watch that in light of the link on Mr Skinner's history, which included allegations that Ms. Cole was an enthusiastic participant in the brutal torture of Brandon Green. The details are fairly disturbing. The narrator's awestruck tone sounds pretty nauseating in that light.

[deleted]

Re: Grateful Dead Fan Timothy Tyler Has Been Granted Clemency

#55

Post by ellisdewalt »

eropple wrote: post #42
ellisdewalt wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's dumb because even if they wanted to have that severe of a punishment for LSD specifically, they could do math and just make the sentence greater for smaller amounts of actual drug. Be as cynical as you like, but we'd see equivalent exaggerations for every other drug if your line of thinking made sense.

It depends on the audience for those drugs and their relationship to the people making laws. Take, for example, crack versus cocaine. Crack and cocaine are nearly identical drugs. Crack has the same sentence for one gram as cocaine does for eighteen. (The disparity used to be five times greater before 2010.) But crack users are more likely to be black, low-income, and less educated. I can't imagine why they'd be a pr…

Essentially agree 100%. My minor nitpic is that while I'm willing to be cynical almost whole hog including your examples, we even have similar examples that are more dumb and less insidious than yours. E.g, truffles vs mushrooms in the netherlands (one is banned, the other isn't, I'm not aware of one being the uppity fungi vs the hood shroom)

Even in the LSD example, someone using a fancier stationary could be way more guilty than a cheapo two ply. The whole thing is ridiculous in ways the crack vs cocaine thing is relatively less so. If anything, this law encourages lsd to be made on the most portable medium possible. If you claim this too was intentional, then we enter the realm of the ridiculous.

This might sound like splitting hairs, but I'm just advocating to a caveat to cynicism for things once in awhile being just flat out dumb.

Re: Grateful Dead Fan Timothy Tyler Has Been Granted Clemency

#56

Post by wastedhours »

hasbroslasher wrote: post #40

Always amazes me that LSD is illegal while alcohol is legal, the latter causing all host of metal and physical ailments, the former causing mostly hilarious navel-gazing

I'm intrigued by this line of argument - have always assumed it's mainly because alcohol can be enjoyed on its own merits, whereas most drugs are taken solely for the impact on the mind (e.g. wine for taste etc...).

Re: Grateful Dead Fan Timothy Tyler Has Been Granted Clemency

#57

Post by wastedhours »

hyperliner wrote: post #34
pcurve wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People's view evolve. It wasn't that long when vast majority of Americans were against gay marriage.

They evolve when it becomes politically convenient.

Overly cynical viewpoint - I know my own views on a whole host of things have changed over the last decade. If we were all held to account for things we believed at other times in our lives/careers we'd never progress as individuals.

Re: Grateful Dead Fan Timothy Tyler Has Been Granted Clemency

#60

Post by smcl »

ultramancool wrote: post #47
hasbroslasher wrote: post #40

Always amazes me that LSD is illegal while alcohol is legal, the latter causing all host of metal and physical ailments, the former causing mostly hilarious navel-gazing

Alcohol is probably only legal because it's easy to make and has existed in the culture for ages, nothing to do with any ailments. History defines the laws far more than logic does.

What do you mean "nothing to do with any ailments"?
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