Cincinnati to Free Violent People to Make Room for People with Pot
Mar 31st, 2006 by Brian A. Thomas
Cincinnati passed (or was due to as of the 29th1) a law that turns possession of 100 grams or less of marijuana from a minor misdemeanor (you basically get a $100 ticket) to fourth degree misdemeanor, meaning arrest and jail time. The article isn’t clear if the officer has to arrest or has their own discretion as it is in Kentucky. Indiana, which Cincinnati is next to as well as t is to Kentucky, seems to have a mandatory minimum of a year in jail and a $5,000 fine for 30 grams or less. Councilman Cecil Thomas proposed the law, which doesn’t have the support of the Mayor or the people of Cincinnati, to bring the law in line with Kentucky and Indiana. It has a one year sunset clause, so they will review it in a year.
Where to begin?
First off, I am against mandatory minimums for most anything but violent crimes. My exceptions to that rule would be repeating DUI offenders and people who force a police chase. It stupid that the average time served for a felony violent offense is 63 months, yet simple possession of drugs will get you 60 months2. So you kill somebody, you will do just 3 months more then the guy in the next cell who is in jail for a non-violent simple possession charge. What the source doesn’t go into is that there are people serving life sentences with no chance of parole for growing marijuana. They did nothing violent, all they did was grow a harmless, non-adictive plant. For that they go to an overcrowded jail, possibly getting raped. Meanwhile, the jail is overcrowded so they have to let violent people, such as child molesters, killers and the like back on the street so this grower can spend his life in jail. Where is the logic in that? How can any reasonable person justify letting a killer or child molester go ahead of a non-violent offense like possession or even growing? Had the guy grown another plant that is many times more dangerous and highly addictive, he would have had the chance to get the a Federal subsady. It is like a voice over for a really bad movie trailer, “In a world gone mad! One man will go to jail for life with no chance of parole for a non-violent offense. Meanwhile, many kills, rapist and child molesters are let go.” Sadly it isn’t a bad movie trailer, it is real life.
More prison related statistics to show you how messed up our countries priorities are:
In 2003, there were 158,426 inmates in Federal prisons 3.
Of those 86,972 were in on drug charges, which is more then all other catagories combined. Only 16,668 were in for violent crimes (homocide, robbery and the like), 11,283 for property crimes (burgerly, fraud and the like), 42,325 for public order offenses (imigration, weapons and the like) with the final 1,158 being uncatogorized or unknown. So what our federal govenment is saying here is that drug offendrers are more dangource to society then a murderer, rapist, or child molester. They say this non-violent drug person is more dangerous to society then the gun runner, then the guy who broke into a house and stole precious family possessions and the memories that go with them. It makes no sense.
I would go on but I am too flustered…
It is time to end this war in its current form. It doesn’t work, it will never work. It is a waste of tax dollars. We can help get several people off drugs with therapy for the price of sending one person to jail.
1Klepal, David. “Crackdown on pot expected today.” The Cincinnati Enquirer 29 March 2006. 31 Mar 2006.
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2, . Federal Criminal Case Processing, 2000, With Trends 1982-2000. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, 2001. (Page 12, Table 6). Available online in a PDF file at < http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fccp00.pdf >.
3
, . Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2004 . Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, 2001. (Page 10, Table 14). Available online in a PDF file at < http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/p04.pdf >
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