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The Lawless Society issue 013
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The Lawless Society
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Welcome To The Lawless Society. Issue #13.
Greetings and salutations to all. The following file is an article ripped
from the pages of Penthouse, June 1993 issue. It deals with some pretty
astounding facts concerning the drug laws in this not-so-great land of ours,
laws concerning Marijuana in particular. I discussed a few of the thing I
read in this article with a few of the users in my local area and most of them
seemed quite interested and surprised by what I told them. Hopefully this
article will enlighten you a bit as to where the priorities in our country
lie. I'm also hoping it will bring TLS out of the slump it's been in lately
and get these files back to the informational texts that they were originally
intended to be.
Well here it is...If this article pisses you off the way it pisses me off,
I would most definitely encourage you to write to your congressman, governor,
or even slick Willie himself up there in the white house.
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Justice Goes To Pot
By
B.J. Oppenheimer
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As you read this, I'll probably be behind bars, serving a possible 5 to 40
years in federal prison with no hope of parole. My house will have been
confiscated by the government, and a fine of $340,000 will have been levied
against me.
I'm a nonviolent offender with no prior record. Married for 20 years with
2 small children, I'm a college graduate and published writer. I have a good
reputation in the community and have been involved in many charitable
organizations.
My only crime was planting a handful of marijuana seeds....
When I was first arrested for growing pot last August, I freely admitted
my guilt, fully expecting to receive the relatively minor sentence usually
meted out in marijuana cases. Until recently, marijuana use and cultivation
was decriminalized in many places, and even now it's only a misdemeanor in
most states (including my own). It usually warrants nothing more than a
suspended sentence and a small fine when prosecuted at the state level. Last
year a man in New York was convicted of growing 154 plants -- Many more than I
am charged with -- and his only punishment was a $100 fine -- Less than $1 per
plant.
My penalty probably would have been similar if I'd been tried in state
court. But more and more these cases are being turned over to the federal
government for prosecution, where penalties are much stiffer. What would've
earned me, at most, a fine and probation in state court carries a mandatory
minimum sentence of five years (and a maximum of 40) when prosecuted on the
federal level.
It's all because of recently enacted mandatory minimum-sentencing laws.
They impose statutory minimums for all drug crimes and prohibit the judge from
and exercise of judicial discretion in arriving at a sentence. The judge is
enjoined against taking into account things like my reputation in the
community, charitable works, or lack of prior record. Since there's no such
thing as parole in federal prison anymore, if I'm sentenced to five years
(assuming I lose my case), that's how many I'll serve.
Chalk it up to the government's "get tough on crime" policy: So what if a
few undeserving people serve inflated sentences? It's worth it to keep the
streets free from crime. The problem is, rather than being tough on crime,
the net effect of mandatory minimums is to be soft on crime, violent crime.
Since there are no mandatory minimum sentences for offenses like rape, child
molestation, murder, aggravated assault, et cetera, violent criminals are
often released early to make room for nonviolent first offenders like me. The
average murderer now serves only six and a half years in jail (versus the five
year MINIMUM I'll serve).
But if our jail terms are similar, there's one important difference
between the murderer and me: He doesn't lose his house.
Even though my house was bought with legitimate earnings, and there was no
marijuana grown on my property, it was confiscated by the police shortly after
I was arrested. The primary reason given was that fertilizer was found in my
basement. My house was thus considered a "facilitator" of the crime, which
justified it's forfeiture. When I learned that the government had seized my
property on such flimsy pretenses, it infuriated me, but what bothered me even
more was that they did it without even trying me first.
Since the passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, property
can be seized if one is merely SUSPECTED of using it in a crime. It's not
even necessary to be charged, much less convicted. It's up to the individual
to prove that he didn't use it illegally. And since this is a civil
forfeiture, and public defenders are only provided in criminal cases, he's
forced to foot the bill for a lawyer. Often he must put up a bond, sometimes
as much as $10,000, which usually makes fighting the forfeiture
cost-prohibitive.
In the majority of cases, the government simply steps in and take the
property without even bothering to charge anyone with a crime, and there's not
a thing to be done about it. Since 1984 almost two and a half billion dollars
in property has been seized this way.
There's another difference between the murderer and me. He isn't subject
to penalties for tax-stamp violation. Even though marijuana is illegal, in
many states you're required by law to buy tax stamps for its cultivation, at a
cost of $1000 per plant, something that's virtually impossible to do without
incriminating yourself. Yet even if you are somehow able to purchase the
stamps without getting arrested but don't actually affix the stamps to the
plants, in the wind and rain, you're still liable for a heavy fine. And they
don't just count the living, growing plants. They count the dead ones and
even the cutoff stems from plants that were thinned from the garden and thrown
away earlier. Even though the total weight of marijuana in my case was under
five pounds, with all these other factors added in, the fine was $340,000.
When I asked my lawyer how the government expected me to pay such an
astronomical fine, he said, "They don't. They want to wipe out your assets.
Then when, and if, you get out of jail, they intend to garnish your wages for
the rest. Of course, by that time there'll be all that interest..."
But the fine is just part of my penalty for tax stamp violation. It also
carries criminal (versus civil) penalties of up to five years in state prison.
That's on top of the 5 to 40 years I'll already be serving in federal prison.
All for the crime of putting a handful of marijuana seeds in the ground.
If this seems like a violation of the 8th Amendment ("Let the punishment
fit the crime"), it's not the only time the constitution's been ignored when
it comes to drug law. Confiscation of property without due process is a
violation of the 5th amendment, as is the imprisonment of drug offenders twice
(at the state and federal levels) for the same crime. The self-incriminatory
tax-stamp requirement is also a violation of the 5th amendment. Police can
now obtain search warrants based on anonymous tips, which is a violation of
the 4th amendment. And a defense attorney's legal fees can be seized in drug
cases, a violation of the 6th amendment.
But if drug laws are chipping away at the constitution, they're wreaking
havoc on our prison system. Federal prisons are currently at 146 percent of
capacity, and drug offenders serving mandatory minimum sentences make up 57
percent of the population (more than half had no prior arrests). At the
current rate of incarceration, nearly 70 percent of all federal inmates will
be drug offenders serving mandatory minimums by 1995.
The United States now imprisons more of its citizens per capita than any
other country in the world (455 per 100,000 people). That's compared to the
No. 2 country, South Africa, with 311 per 100,000.
As stated earlier, violent offenders must often be granted early release
to make room for this influx. In a recent four year period in Florida, more
than 130,000 inmates (including muggers, armed robbers, et cetera) were
released, and one out of three went on to commit new crimes. The FBI reports
that the rate of violent crimes in America increased by 24 percent from 1987
to 1991, and many people feel that mandatory minimums have a lot to do with
it.
But apart from the hypothetical increase in violent crime due to mandatory
minimums, there's the undeniable increase in tax payer costs. The National
Institute of Corrections estimates that in 1992 the United States built
facilities for 2,000 cells (at a cost of $100 million) PER WEEK to accommodate
the exploding prison population -- and construction costs were only part of
the total. It's been estimated that in five years the financial obligations
incurred by U.S. corrections could be double the current national deficit. On
top of that it costs and average of $20,000 a year to house, clothe, feed and
guard each of the 81,426 federal prisoners. And this is say nothing of the
increased cost of social services for inmates' families, which were previously
being provided for by the inmates themselves.
Over 30 million Americans regularly smoke marijuana, so it's not
surprising that a lot of people in this country feel that it should be
decriminalized. I'm sure that many people would disagree, but I doubt they'd
dispute the fact that the penalties for marijuana use are not only unjust and
illogical, an unconscionable waste of tax payer dollars. With violent crime
making us ALL live like prisoners, it's time to stop freeing murderers to make
room for marijuana users.
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Well there ya go...Whether you are for or against the use of drugs like
marijuana, I think it is quite obvious that the government has got it's
priorities way the hell out of whack. Even if you think all drug
users/dealers should be put away, I hope you at least take a good hard look at
just how many constitutional rights are being infringed upon by some of these
laws.
The mere fact that the government makes pot illegal, yet expects you to
pay taxes on it if you're going to use it should tell you something. What
kind of government preaches to it's people about the evils of something like
drugs, but then wants to take a piece of profits made from their use?
Again...I strongly urge you to do something, anything, even if it's just
in you town about laws like these. Being for or against drugs is not the
issue, the issue is the way our government treats it's people! This
government is supposed to be BY the people FOR the people, and I can guarantee
you that not one vote was held outside of congress before these laws were
passed.
I myself was the victim of a mandatory minimum sentence. In the state of
New Jersey where I live was I was sentenced to a $350 fine, 1 year drivers
license suspension, and 60 hours of community service, all for not having
insurance on my car simply because I was out of work and couldn't afford the
$1000+ dollars per year (on a 1966 car!) On top of that I am forced to pay a
$250 surcharge each year for then next 3 years on my insurance or my license
will be suspended indefinitely. This sentence is DOUBLE what I would have
gotten if I had been driving drunk. Now you tell me who's more dangerous, me
or the drunk driver? I actually worked with a man who was convicted of drunk
driving on his THIRD offense and received lower penalties than I did for my
first offense on the insurance.
Do something about the way our country is being run! Things like this
will effect us all eventually!
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The Lawless Society
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