11–20 of 129 posts
> Drug offenders accounted for half of federal prisoners and 16 percent of state prisoners in 2015. The decrease in the federal prison population was largely due to shorter drug sentences authorized by Congress and the U.S. Sentencing Commission. And this( https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/jmd/legacy/2013/... ): > The FY 2015 Budget requests a total of $8.5 billion for federal prisons and detention And from…
I think in 100 years, more evolved humans will look back on the THC incarcerations the same way we now look upon the Salem Witch trials, or prohibition, etc. You know, one of those times where mankind just massively screwed up 'en mass' on sort of a societal level, and was unable to correct itself because the majority of people are brainwashed into believing whatever their parents told them about things. Sort of as a feed-back loop also, parents were unwilling to teach their children things that conflicted with societal norms. So society as a whole can fall into this kind of a 'rut' where getting out of it takes a long process of evolution of thought.
If we ever decriminalize Marijuana at the Federal level, that seems to me like it would mean millions of prisoners held for offenses involving only that drug would need to be set free. In my mind it is a horrible injustice to jail people for a relatively harmless substance like THC. I think in 100 years, more evolved humans will look back on the THC incarcerations the same way we now look upon the Salem Witch trials,…
If we ever decriminalize Marijuana at the Federal level, that seems to me like it would mean millions of prisoners held for offenses involving only that drug would need to be set free. In my mind it is a horrible injustice to jail people for a relatively harmless substance like THC. I think in 100 years, more evolved humans will look back on the THC incarcerations the same way we now look upon the Salem Witch trials,…
If we ever decriminalize Marijuana at the Federal level, that seems to me like it would mean millions of prisoners held for offenses involving only that drug would need to be set free. In my mind it is a horrible injustice to jail people for a relatively harmless substance like THC. I think in 100 years, more evolved humans will look back on the THC incarcerations the same way we now look upon the Salem Witch trials,…
I'd support life sentences for first time offenders tbh. Dopers don't contribute to communities they are a part of, they rely on the state and give it more power to screw the rest of us over even more.
If we ever decriminalize Marijuana at the Federal level, that seems to me like it would mean millions of prisoners held for offenses involving only that drug would need to be set free. In my mind it is a horrible injustice to jail people for a relatively harmless substance like THC. I think in 100 years, more evolved humans will look back on the THC incarcerations the same way we now look upon the Salem Witch trials,…
I wonder if jail time has the opposite effect of rehabilitation for many, especially considering how much harder life can be with jail time on your record, or even just the black hole in your resume that you have to explain.
Not to mention that you spent the last however many years being told and treated like criminal scum, I imagine that would have a fairly significant impact on your mental health and self image, as well as your relationships with friends and family.
If we ever decriminalize Marijuana at the Federal level, that seems to me like it would mean millions of prisoners held for offenses involving only that drug would need to be set free. In my mind it is a horrible injustice to jail people for a relatively harmless substance like THC. I think in 100 years, more evolved humans will look back on the THC incarcerations the same way we now look upon the Salem Witch trials,…
Decriminalisation isn't necessarily retroactive, that it's now legal or less illegal doesn't mean it was at the time of conviction.
For instance despite the Labouchere Amendment ("gross indencency") having been mostly repealed in 1967, Turing legally remained a criminal until his pardon in 2013.
Punishment is almost always gratuitous. Aside from the handful of people whom society needs to be protected from, prison is always counter-productive. One of the recent stories linked here talks about how the brain doesn't really finish developing until the mid-20's, and that 20-something "kids" frequently get locked up for impulsiveness... I had a passenger who got fined $1000 for letting his medical marijuana card…
> (who previously had tried the "mom will stop drinking if we ignore her" strategy)
As someone who's been the child in that situation, sometimes you really just need an extended break from dealing with a parent's addiction.
It's extremely stressful and really hard to get over the resentment stemming from a childhood destroyed by a parent's addiction.
Some people are more resilient and can be there for their addicted parents as adults, but I think it's a little unfair to fault people for needing to distance themselves from their often traumatic childhoods. It's a bit like blaming soldiers for not continuing their military service after suffering a PTSD-inducing event (which hopefully we can agree is not behavior we should encourage).
Sorry if you weren't trying to imply blame or fault on the children, but that does happen fairly regularly.
If we ever decriminalize Marijuana at the Federal level, that seems to me like it would mean millions of prisoners held for offenses involving only that drug would need to be set free. In my mind it is a horrible injustice to jail people for a relatively harmless substance like THC. I think in 100 years, more evolved humans will look back on the THC incarcerations the same way we now look upon the Salem Witch trials,…
There's about 95,000 people in federal prison with a drug offense as their most serious charge. About 11,500 of those charges involved primarily marijuana. (The overwhelming majority of that is for trafficking, not possession.)
Rolling Stone estimated about 40,000 people in prison for convictions primarily involving marijuana, with about half of those involving marijuana alone: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/lists/top-10-marijuana-m....
That is of course not to say that justice, for a few tens of thousands of people isn't an important thing! Though I hesitate a little bit to put trafficking in the same "justice" category as using. It's generally accepted that the government has much more leeway to control what is sold in the market than to control what people do with their bodies.