http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nat ... story.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/holder-seeks-to-avert-mandatory-minimum-sentences-for-some-low-level-drug-offenders/2013/08/11/343850c2-012c-11e3-96a8-d3b921c0924a_story.html)
QuoteThe new Justice Department policy is part of a comprehensive prison reform package that Holder will reveal in a speech to the American Bar Association in San Francisco, according to senior department officials. He is also expected to introduce a policy to reduce sentences for elderly, nonviolent inmates and find alternatives to prison for nonviolent criminals.
Justice Department lawyers have worked for months on the proposals, which Holder wants to make the cornerstone of the rest of his tenure.
"A vicious cycle of poverty, criminality and incarceration traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities," Holder plans to say Monday, according to excerpts of his remarks that were provided to The Washington Post. "However, many aspects of our criminal justice system may actually exacerbate this problem rather than alleviate it."
Holder is calling for a change in Justice Department policies to reserve the most severe penalties for drug offenses for serious, high-level or violent drug traffickers. He has directed his 94 U.S. attorneys across the country to develop specific, locally tailored guidelines for determining when federal charges should be filed and when they should not.
"Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no good law enforcement reason," Holder plans to say. "We cannot simply prosecute or incarcerate our way to becoming a safer nation."
The attorney general can make some of these changes to drug policy on his own. He is giving new instructions to federal prosecutors on how they should write their criminal complaints when charging low-level drug offenders, to avoid triggering the mandatory minimum sentences. Under certain statutes, inflexible sentences for drug crimes are mandated regardless of the facts or conduct in the case, reducing the discretion of prosecutors, judges and juries.
Some of Holder's other initiatives will require legislative change. Holder is urging passage of legislation with bipartisan support that is aimed at giving federal judges more discretion in applying mandatory minimum sentences to certain drug offenses.
"Such legislation will ultimately save our country billions of dollars," Holder said of legislation supported by Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.). "Although incarceration has a role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the federal, state and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable."
The cost of incarceration in the United States was $80 billion in 2010, according to the Justice Department. While the U.S. population has increased by about a third since 1980, the federal prison population has grown by about 800 percent. Justice Department officials said federal prisons are operating at nearly 40 percent over capacity.
About fucking time. Evidence compiled shows that low THC Marijuana with high CBD- a Cannabinol that makes up 40% of the Cannabinoids- has seizure reducing properties. Medical Marijuana can reduce or solve a litany of health issues, and should have been looked at seriously decades ago. Thank you, Ronald Reagan. Permit me to spit on your grave, you lying piss ant.
.....
I am all for medical marijuana. I don't like the drug culture at all though. Pot is a gateway drug and no ammount of justification will change that fact.
I hate the "slaker" attitude of potheads. Granted all potheads are not slakers, but a great many of them are and become so because of the addiction to pot. And don't tell me you can't get addicted to pot. I have first hand knowledge that you can and do. No I am not and never was a pot user, but in my life I have been exposed on a daily basis to the drug and pot culture. When people only care about getting high, where their next high is going to come from and nothing else, they are most certainly addicts.
I spent 22+ years in the USMC and most of those years were with people that were pot addicts. Sure they could function, just like a functioning alcoholic. From COs to privates a good many of them were and probably still are pot addicts. Some got caught, maybe half, but at least half maintained their careers.
I had a motorcycle when I was a L/cpl. I went overseas and had to leave it with a person in my unit while I was gone. When I came back he had totaled it. He wasn't even suppose to drive it. BUT he decided to use it to get some pot. While picking up the drugs he got high with his supplier. On the way back he wrecked and totalled my bike. His attitude..." Dude, I was really fucked up. Your bike bit the dust, but IT'S COOL, I DIDN'T GET A SCRATCH." He never paid me back and my insurance went way up.
That alone isn't what I am against. It's the slacker mentality, the drug culture. It's illresponsible. They just don't fucking care about anything but the dope!
I know loads of pot smokers. The vast majority have jobs, families, hobbies and manage to live a full life just like everyone else. Yes, I know a few wasters, but they were wasters way before they got stoned. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but in my experience most smokers aren't that different to anyone else.
QuoteI am all for medical marijuana. I don't like the drug culture at all though. Pot is a gateway drug and no ammount of justification will change that fact.
Interesting how more people in the US use drugs than in the Netherlands, where it's legal, and how we have less of a hard-drug problem, then. Pot is, and always will be, far less potent of a drug than alcohol and tobacco, and anyone who condones the latter but bitches about the former is either ignorant or a hypocrite.
Quote from: "mykcob4"I am all for medical marijuana. I don't like the drug culture at all though. Pot is a gateway drug and no ammount of justification will change that fact.
I hate the "slaker" attitude of potheads. Granted all potheads are not slakers, but a great many of them are and become so because of the addiction to pot. And don't tell me you can't get addicted to pot. I have first hand knowledge that you can and do. No I am not and never was a pot user, but in my life I have been exposed on a daily basis to the drug and pot culture. When people only care about getting high, where their next high is going to come from and nothing else, they are most certainly addicts.
I spent 22+ years in the USMC and most of those years were with people that were pot addicts. Sure they could function, just like a functioning alcoholic. From COs to privates a good many of them were and probably still are pot addicts. Some got caught, maybe half, but at least half maintained their careers.
I had a motorcycle when I was a L/cpl. I went overseas and had to leave it with a person in my unit while I was gone. When I came back he had totaled it. He wasn't even suppose to drive it. BUT he decided to use it to get some pot. While picking up the drugs he got high with his supplier. On the way back he wrecked and totalled my bike. His attitude..." Dude, I was really fucked up. Your bike bit the dust, but IT'S COOL, I DIDN'T GET A SCRATCH." He never paid me back and my insurance went way up.
That alone isn't what I am against. It's the slacker mentality, the drug culture. It's illresponsible. They just don't fucking care about anything but the dope!
I smoked a considerable amount of Marijuana in the late 60's and 70's. I held down, at one point, 2 jobs and went to college. I was on the Dean's list during that period. I raised a family, was a responsible citizen and am an honorably discharged vet. Many people I knew were in a similar situation. A good friend during that period was a Vietnam vet with sever medical issues that had kept him bedridden. Marijuana gave him the ability to get out of bed and get a job, which he was able to perform at successfully.
Granted, people you are familiar with exist. These people are going to be slackers and deadbeats with or without Marijuana. I have met people like this myself, but they are people who are likely to under perform as employees and be deadbeats on their own. And Marijuana is not a "gateway" drug.
http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/29/m ... l-not-die/ (http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/29/marijuna-as-a-gateway-drug-the-myth-that-will-not-die/)
QuoteThe idea that marijuana may be the first step in a longer career of drug use seems plausible at first: when addicts tell their histories, many begin with a story about marijuana. And there's a strong correlation between marijuana use and other drug use: a person who smokes marijuana is more than 104 times more likely to use cocaine than a person who never tries pot, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. (More on Time.com: 7 Tips for California: How to Make Legalizing Marijuana Smart)
The problem here is that correlation isn't cause. Hell's Angels motorcycle gang members are probably more 104 times more likely to have ridden a bicycle as a kid than those who don't become Hell's Angels, but that doesn't mean that riding a two-wheeler is a "gateway" to joining a motorcycle gang. It simply means that most people ride bikes and the kind of people who don't are highly unlikely to ever ride a motorcycle.
Scientists long ago abandoned the idea that marijuana causes users to try other drugs: as far back as 1999, in a report commissioned by Congress to look at the possible dangers of medical marijuana, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences wrote:
Patterns in progression of drug use from adolescence to adulthood are strikingly regular. Because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people encounter. Not surprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs have used marijuana first. In fact, most drug users begin with alcohol and nicotine before marijuana — usually before they are of legal age.
In the sense that marijuana use typically precedes rather than follows initiation of other illicit drug use, it is indeed a "gateway" drug. But because underage smoking and alcohol use typically precede marijuana use, marijuana is not the most common, and is rarely the first, "gateway" to illicit drug use. There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.
And Pot is not addictive.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... -about-pot (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-truth-about-pot)
QuoteA number of investigators have addressed this issue and found that only a relatively small percentage of those who try marijuana will become addicted. For example, in a large-scale survey published in 1994 epidemiologist James Anthony, then at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and his colleagues asked more than 8,000 people between the ages of 15 and 64 about their use of marijuana and other drugs. The researchers found that of those who had tried marijuana at least once, about 9 percent eventually fit a diagnosis of cannabis dependence. The corresponding figure for alcohol was 15 percent; for cocaine, 17 percent; for heroin, 23 percent; and for nicotine, 32 percent. So although marijuana may be addictive for some, 91 percent of those who try it do not get hooked. Further, marijuana is less addictive than many other legal and illegal drugs.
I've been addicted to nicotine and to Diet Coke. I quit smoking Pot with no problems at all.
There are numerous health benefits to opium, but most people are oblivious to them. It's not the health benefits of marijuana we need to worry about, but the high cost to society, communities and families from mass incarceration. Being a slacker is NOT a crime any more than being ugly or stupid.
There are those for whom pot may be considered a gateway drug, but they are people who were predisposed to be drug abusers in the first place and also started on tobacco before they even got to pot. One can make a stronger argument that cigarettes are a gateway drug.
St Josephs asprin is a gateway drug then and reinforces pointless religion..
I'll seriously believe something good is happening when Obama pardons all the people in prison who are there on ridiculous sentences just for possession. The simple act of not incarcerating low level, no violent users will save the US millions yearly. It is a complete time waster to bust somebody for possession when limited resources should be used to deal with real crime, like Youssuf's cartoon shows.
My daughter is a forensic accountant. She goes through accounts and spreadsheets looking for anomalies and has verified the illegalities of several white collar criminals, which led to the prosecution of real thieves. This is the shit that effectively solves crimes, not busting kids with a bag of weed in their car.
This is the shit I'm talking about
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/0 ... ostpopular (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/09/charlotte-figi-6-year-old-marijuana-medical_n_3734283.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular)
QuoteWhen you think of the stereotypical medical marijuana user, Charlotte Figi may be the last person that comes to mind.
That's because Charlotte is 6 years old.
She also suffers from debilitating seizures as a result of a rare form of epilepsy, a condition that's driven the family through just about every possible treatment, searching for some form of normalcy.
Desperate for options, Charlotte's dad, Matt, told CNN they took her to a specialist who recommended a highly specialized diet. That helped slightly, for awhile until "at one point she was outside eating pine cones and stuff, all kinds of different things," Matt said. "As a parent you have to say, let's take a step back and look at this. Is this truly beneficial treatment because of these other things?"
With no other choices, the family explored cannabis oil -- an unconventional treatment, to say the least -- but they told KDVR it worked immediately.
According to a blog by Charlotte's mom, Paige, her daughter's seizures fell from 300 a week to around 3 over an 8 month period. She does note the program was first approved by a team of neurologists and pediatricians. Other benefits:
[Charlotte] is consistently eating and drinking on her own for the first time in years. She sleeps soundly through the night. Her severe autism-like behaviors of self-injury, stimming, crying, violence, no eye contact, zero sleep, lack of social contact ... are a thing of the past. She is clear-headed, focused, has no attention deficit. Charlotte rides horses, skis, paints, dances, hikes. She even has friends for the first time. Her brain is healing. She is healthy. She is happy.
Charlotte is highlighted in a CNN documentary set to air this weekend, in which Sanjay Gupta, the news network's chief medical expert, engages in a national conversation about marijuana.
On Wednesday, Gupta apologized for having "misled" Americans regarding the effects of the drug. He's also penned an article titled, "Why I changed my mind on weed."
This matters to me because my Wife has MS and could see real relief from her symptoms with medical pot.
Police are generally lazy fucks and love the low hanging fruit and toss in corruption and there you have it stromboli. To much work with little reward going after people of means..
So Rethugs want to reduce federal spending. And one way to drop a huge expense is to pardon everyone who's in a federal pen for non-violent pot possession. Would the Rethugs go along with this? I'm betting not.
Quote from: "Colanth"So Rethugs want to reduce federal spending. And one way to drop a huge expense is to pardon everyone who's in a federal pen for non-violent pot possession. Would the Rethugs go along with this? I'm betting not.
Exactly what I was thinking.
That people who smoke pot are unmotivated is a complete lie. When you're high on marijuana you can do everything you normally do equally well, you just realize it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference. Sure, you could wake up a 6am, go to a job you hate that does not inspire you creatively whatsoever, for the rest of your life, or you could wake up at noon, and learn to play the sitar. Pot just makes it easier to choose. And if the price you have to pay to enjoy your life is people calling you a lazy, worthless stoner, than so be it.
Quote from: "Farroc"That people who smoke pot are unmotivated is a complete lie. When you're high on marijuana you can do everything you normally do equally well, you just realize it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference. Sure, you could wake up a 6am, go to a job you hate that does not inspire you creatively whatsoever, for the rest of your life, or you could wake up at noon, and learn to play the sitar. Pot just makes it easier to choose. And if the price you have to pay to enjoy your life is people calling you a lazy, worthless stoner, than so be it.
Yes and yes. I majored in English Lit and did serious writing while in that period. Problem is you don't write well stoned out of your mind, but as Carlin observed, a hit, no more, just to stir the ashes in your mind is very useful. Stoners I have known were people who would have been layabouts simply because of their nature. I got high with people who today are probably still layabouts, and high with people who went on to college degrees and success in business. I do not tend to equate drug use with success or vice versa- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of my favorite poets from the romantic period, was an Opium (Laudanum) user most of his life. Can't say my life has been ultra successful, but using Marijuana, in retrospect, never got in the way.
Increased heart rate and lowering of the intra-occular eye pressure are really the only 2 guaranteed results of smoking pot. Lazyness seems to happen while doing nothing.
About fucking time. Oops stomboli said that.
The War on Drugs was started by Nixon to get the attention off of his failure in Vietnam. And because old people vote, every politician got behind it and stayed behind it to keep those votes. The CIA also was fond of it, as it increased their profits. I don't know what the costs are now, but in the nineties, we were spending 8 billion a year on what was a 5 billion dollar a year problem. Of course those numbers are fungible on exactly how you calculated them, still it shows the cost was more than it was worth.
I hope this is a step in allowing toward legalization of hemp. Hemp was once a valuable crop in the U.S. It is a valuable crop in Canada. With increasing population and decreasing arable land, legalizing hemp just makes sense.
Of course, all the other things you other guys have pointed out make sense too. =D>
Quote from: "stromboli"Yes and yes. I majored in English Lit and did serious writing while in that period. Problem is you don't write well stoned out of your mind, but as Carlin observed, a hit, no more, just to stir the ashes in your mind is very useful.
Alcohol, caffeine and most other mind influencing drugs work about the same way, I guess. I also enjoy a glass of mead before doing something creative, just to break away from the regular mindset a little bit and fire up the creative system. It works really well in moderation.
Quote from: "Youssuf Ramadan"I know loads of pot smokers. The vast majority have jobs, families, hobbies and manage to live a full life just like everyone else. Yes, I know a few wasters, but they were wasters way before they got stoned. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but in my experience most smokers aren't that different to anyone else.
This ^
Sending someone to jail for smoking pot is an incomprehensible reaction from society, I think.
It's great for writing music too.... 8-)
Quote from: "Youssuf Ramadan"It's great for writing music too.... 8-)
A $10 fine for pot smoking would be excessive as far as I'm concerned.
Quote from: "stromboli"Quote from: "Colanth"So Rethugs want to reduce federal spending. And one way to drop a huge expense is to pardon everyone who's in a federal pen for non-violent pot possession. Would the Rethugs go along with this? I'm betting not.
Exactly what I was thinking.
That's how libertarians know Republicans aren't serious about reducing spending.
Quote from: "SGOS"Quote from: "Youssuf Ramadan"It's great for writing music too.... 8-)
A $10 fine for pot smoking would be excessive as far as I'm concerned.
Here in Britain, you'd have to be very unlucky to get more than a caution for possession of a bit of blow. A mate of mine had a loft full of plants and managed to get away with it by saying it was for personal use. It so happened that he was bullshitting, but there ya go....
Quote from: "mykcob4"I am all for medical marijuana. I don't like the drug culture at all though. Pot is a gateway drug and no ammount of justification will change that fact.
You know it wouldn't be a 'gateway drug' if people didn't have to buy it from drug dealers, right?
Quote from: "Youssuf Ramadan"I know loads of pot smokers. The vast majority have jobs, families, hobbies and manage to live a full life just like everyone else. Yes, I know a few wasters, but they were wasters way before they got stoned. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but in my experience most smokers aren't that different to anyone else.
The stoners I used to hang out with 15-20 years ago all have something in common: They're now married with kids and make more money than me.
Quote from: "Jason_Harvestdancer"Quote from: "stromboli"Quote from: "Colanth"So Rethugs want to reduce federal spending. And one way to drop a huge expense is to pardon everyone who's in a federal pen for non-violent pot possession. Would the Rethugs go along with this? I'm betting not.
Exactly what I was thinking.
That's how libertarians know Republicans aren't serious about reducing spending.
That's how Democrats know it too.
Gupta's report on CNN also had an interesting point that the driving reflexes of an occasional user are impaired after smoking pot, but surprisingly, the reflexes of a regular daily user were not affected by smoking it.
I had a friend (recently passed away) who used to spend about $100 a week on the stuff, and he ALWAYS had a job. I can't help but wonder how much better off our economy would be if people like him were allowed to grow their own, and put that $100 a week back into the system buying goods and services they can't afford now if they want to continue enjoying pot.
Quote from: "Solomon Zorn"Gupta's report on CNN also had an interesting point that the driving reflexes of an occasional user are impaired after smoking pot, but surprisingly, the reflexes of a regular daily user were not affected by smoking it.
I had a friend (recently passed away) who used to spend about $100 a week on the stuff, and he ALWAYS had a job. I can't help but wonder how much better off our economy would be if people like him were allowed to grow their own, and put that $100 a week back into the system buying goods and services they can't afford now if they want to continue enjoying pot.
Being an old man, I've never seen how me having a plant or two around the house and occasionally sitting on my deck and enjoying a toke and a buzz is going to cause the end of the world. And the whole paraphernalia thing- if pot were legal, Walmart would have a complete line of paraphernalia.
Quote from: "Solomon Zorn"I can't help but wonder how much better off our economy would be if people like him were allowed to grow their own, and put that $100 a week back into the system buying goods and services they can't afford now if they want to continue enjoying pot.
$100 spent on pot and $100 spent on a new set of cooking pots is still $100 being put into the economy. (Unless the guy selling pot puts the bills in his pipe and smokes them.)
Quote from: "Colanth"Quote from: "Solomon Zorn"I can't help but wonder how much better off our economy would be if people like him were allowed to grow their own, and put that $100 a week back into the system buying goods and services they can't afford now if they want to continue enjoying pot.
$100 spent on pot and $100 spent on a new set of cooking pots is still $100 being put into the economy. (Unless the guy selling pot puts the bills in his pipe and smokes them.)
But cooking pots is the segment of our society I would rather support, I think. I may have to give it more thought. Also aren't we supporting the cartels by keeping pot illegal? To a large extent, I think so. Also if pot, and even coke as well, were made legal, the prison conditions would see a lot of relief from the overcrowding. Not to mention the money it would save us prosecuting and confining people whose basic crime is having too much fun. I have a lot more to say about it, but I am stoned at the moment, and I don't want to get all "steam-of-consciousness" about it. 8-)
John Wayne opposed pot and especially Jack Webb opposed it. Look at our values if we legalize pot! Everyone knows Jack Webb represented everything good in apple pie, motherhood and America. :-$
W h a t a r e w e t a l k I n g a b o u t ? :-$ :popcorn: 8-) :rolleyes: :P :rollin: :shock: 8-[ :-D Solitary