Reilly says send all pot smokers to jail, babies next.

[JonJ]

Tell you what. I have an ALP/LTC..nuff said.

There's a difference between a Guilty and Continued Without a Finding (CWF). Most first timers get a CWF and that is not a disqualifier.

 

[DR]

OUI prior to around July 1994 had a max sentence short enough to not be a disqualifier. So there can be folks convicted of OUI with a valid LTC.

 

[Lynne]

The DWI/OUI/whatever has a "prior" date, doesn't it? Isn't it after May of '94 that is a disqualifier?

 

[Lynne]

DR and I posted at the same time...I thought it was May of '94. Counselors??

 

[edin508]

Tell you what. I have an ALP/LTC..nuff said.

There's a difference between a Guilty and Continued Without a Finding (CWF). Most first timers get a CWF and that is not a disqualifier.

Guess it wasnt enough said. But you are persistant.
I know the difference between Guilty and Continued. And it was after the 94 cut off date. There is red tape involved but you can get it.

 

[Skald]

here is the way I see it. Who would you rather have locked up behind bars, now you can only choose one.

Some kid that got busted for a single joint

or

Some thug who just mugged and rapped some woman.


We have only finite space to jail people in and we should use our heads. The user should get penalized, but not at the cost of using up litle jail space. Whack him with a high fine and community service. If they refuse to pay just garnish his wages and a floating scale based on income. The more money you have the more it 'costs' to buy your way out. And the fee would be set to make community service the obviously cheaper of the two.

 

[senorFrog]

here is the way I see it. Who would you rather have locked up behind bars, now you can only choose one.

Some kid that got busted for a single joint

or

Some thug who just mugged and rapped some woman.

How bout a third case?

Some thug mugged and rapes a woman. They know he did it, but don't have enough evidence yet. As a known drug abuser to the police, they pick him up on drug possession. He's confined on the drug charge while they conduct their investigation. Therefore, not able to mug & rape someone else.

 

[Rob Boudrie]

Tell you what. I have an ALP/LTC..nuff said.

There's a difference between a Guilty and Continued Without a Finding (CWF). Most first timers get a CWF and that is not a disqualifier.

I do not know the law on this issue, but I do know that many police departments believe that a CWOF with an ASF (admissiont to sufficient facts) is to be treated the same as a conviction for the offense for the purpose of firearms licensing.

 

[RKG]

The "kid who got busted for a single joint" is actually the sine qua non for a massive criminal and political apparatus that, if not checked somehow (and, at the moment, we're not doing an effective job checking it), will bring down our entire society: the Pablo Escobars of this world could not exist without a bunch of Johnny Potheads from suburbia buying their stuff (and over time graduating to even more destructive addictions). Failing to recognize this is the logic bomb that lies behind all of these "personal use" decriminalization notions.

 

[Len-2A Training]

Tell you what. I have an ALP/LTC..nuff said.

There's a difference between a Guilty and Continued Without a Finding (CWF). Most first timers get a CWF and that is not a disqualifier.

I do not know the law on this issue, but I do know that many police departments believe that a CWOF with an ASF (admissiont to sufficient facts) is to be treated the same as a conviction for the offense for the purpose of firearms licensing.

Rob is right. I'd say that most chiefs will look at this and lean on "non suitable person" due to admission of sufficient facts (guilty) of a drug offense and deny the LTC.

 

[reinbeau]

The "kid who got busted for a single joint" is actually the sine qua non for a massive criminal and political apparatus that, if not checked somehow (and, at the moment, we're not doing an effective job checking it), will bring down our entire society: the Pablo Escobars of this world could not exist without a bunch of Johnny Potheads from suburbia buying their stuff (and over time graduating to even more destructive addictions). Failing to recognize this is the logic bomb that lies behind all of these "personal use" decriminalization notions.

Oh, please, I don't smoke anything, and I don't drink, but pot smoking isn't going to end civilization as we know it. Booze will do it first, that's the worst cause of destructive addictions in this alcohol-loving society. Arresting people for a joint is a complete waste of every single public resource used to do it. Decriminalize it and Pablo Escobar is out of business. Simple as that.

You aren't going to remove the desire to alter reality by putting people in jail. It's as effective as gun control.

 

[Emoto]

I believe in personal responsibility, not a nanny state. This puts me at odds with most of the drug laws. I don't care what someone wants to put in their body; it is their life and their body, not mine. End of story.

I put pot in the same class as alcohol. Legalise it and tax and sell it just like booze and let that be the end of it.

 

[dwarven1]

I put pot in the same class as alcohol. Legalise it and tax and sell it just like booze and let that be the end of it.

Hear, hear!

I wish I could find the reference, but I read recently that the percentage of people who are addicted to drugs is the same as it was before all the laws went into effect against the drugs. If true, nothing has changed except to make drug cartels rich and make us spend lots of money trying to interdict the flow of drugs.

 

[Skald]

For pot, when was the last time you met a violent kid stoned out on PCP? I know a ton of people who get down right violent when they get drunk, none when they are stoned.

 

[RKG]

If you've never met a violent PCP abuser you've never spent any time in law enforcement. PCP, a/k/a "angel dust," a/k/a "dust," is characteristic for triggering not only violent reactions but also uncharacteristic physical strength and endurance in the process.

Well over half (some guestimate 90%, but that is high in my experience) of the crimes for which people are complained of or indicted grow out of their drug use. Most of these people (though concededly not all) would never engage in criminal conduct if they were not addicted to drugs. At the same time, drugs are central to more than half of the situations where families are on welfare, and, again, in a large fraction of these cases the people would be gainfully employed and self-sufficient but for their addiction.

I'm no defender of alcohol, either in moderation or abused, but statistics will not back up any contention that booze causes as much crime or economic dependency as drugs.

 

[ArmedMainer]

For pot, when was the last time you met a violent kid stoned out on PCP? I know a ton of people who get down right violent when they get drunk, none when they are stoned.

Don't you mean THC ?? PCP aka Angel Dust will sometimes make people violent. THC, the active ingredient in pot makes people hungry and/or sleepy.

 

[Emoto]

If you've never met a violent PCP abuser you've never spent any time in law enforcement. PCP, a/k/a "angel dust," a/k/a "dust," is characteristic for triggering not only violent reactions but also uncharacteristic physical strength and endurance in the process.

Yeah, PCP is a far cry from pot.

Well over half (some guestimate 90%, but that is high in my experience) of the crimes for which people are complained of or indicted grow out of their drug use. Most of these people (though concededly not all) would never engage in criminal conduct if they were not addicted to drugs. At the same time, drugs are central to more than half of the situations where families are on welfare, and, again, in a large fraction of these cases the people would be gainfully employed and self-sufficient but for their addiction.

I'm no defender of alcohol, either in moderation or abused, but statistics will not back up any contention that booze causes as much crime or economic dependency as drugs.

I don't believe that drugs "cause" much of anything, anymore than I believe that guns cause shootings, or that spoons cause obesity. There is a certain % of people who manage to specialize in self-destructive behavior. They will use whatever they can get their hands on to make their run to oblivion. These are, for the most part, people with deep seated problems, and drug abuse (note the "a") is but a symptom. I don't have a lot of sympathy for them because these are their choices. The thought that taking drugs out of the equation (as if that were even remotely possible) would turn all of the addicts into productive members of society is, I think, foolish, although a lovely thought.

I still think that the government has no business telling anyone what they can or cannot put in their body. Of course people must be held responsible for their actions - "I was on drugs" is not an excuse for anything. Do something bad to someone, and you must pay the price. In my perfect world, anyway...

 

[RKG]

I don't think it is correct (or wise) to equate the "guns don't cause crime, people do" claim with a claim that "drug don't cause people to do harmful things that they wouldn't otherwise do." A firearm is an inanimate hunk of steel. Drugs are chemicals that, ingested into the human system, directly affect the behavior of the ingestor.

 

[Skald]

My bad, ya THC.

And as you can tell, I don't do that crap.

 

[Emoto]

I don't think it is correct (or wise) to equate the "guns don't cause crime, people do" claim with a claim that "drug don't cause people to do harmful things that they wouldn't otherwise do." A firearm is an inanimate hunk of steel. Drugs are chemicals that, ingested into the human system, directly affect the behavior of the ingestor.

I take your meaning, but I think that those people make the choice of taking those drugs and then they make the choice to behave badly. To my way of thinking, they are (and should be held) responsible for their behavior either way. I don't care if someone tries to hold me up because they want more drugs that they cannot afford, or because their mother was abusive to them as a child, or they didn't get the GI-Joe with the kung-fu grip for christmas , or whatever. Behaving badly is what matters to me. I think those drug abusers who behave badly use the drugs as a cop out, in an effort to be held less responsible for their actions. That's what I thnk, anyway.

 

[KMaurer]

Keep in mind that, aside from the grossly exagerated cases of people doing lethally stupid things while on drugs, most of the crimes associated with drug use have little if anything to do with drug use. They're the result of trying to obtain the obscenely high prices for drugs (almost 100% due to their illegality), avoid capture and incarceration by police for drug use, or trying to protect one's obscenely high drug deal profits (again, almost 100% due to their illegality). There was a very high "alcohol related" crime rate during the 20's that simply vanished as soon as alcohol was legalized again in the 30's. There is absolutely no evidence or rational theory why things should be much different if drugs were legalized. I seriously doubt that anybody has ever done anything under the influence of pot or LSD, PCP or heroin that hasn't already done a hundred times by some hard corps drunk.

Ken

 

[RKG]

While it is certainly true that a large fraction of economically-motivated crime (e.g., handbag snaps, B&Es, street muggings) is accomplished to acquire funds for drug purchase, it is also true that a lot of non-economic crime, including a high percentage of homicides, is committed by people under the influence of the mind-altering effect of these substances at the time of the crime, by people who wouldn't think of doing the same things otherwise, and for reasons having nothing to do with economic acquisition.

Drugs destroy societies. People addicted to them become completely divorced from any inclination or capacity for self-subsistence and, as often as not, any desire, ability or even comprehension of conforming behavior to societal norms. While a large part of the drug supply mentality is profit motivated, a significant fraction of the motivation to supply drugs to the United States population is political: drugs do more damage to the United States than the cold war did or terrorists can.

 

[Emoto]

Having known someone who ran a drug rehab center for a large city and having also known ex-addicts, what you don't seem to realize is that there are millions of regular drug users who hold down jobs, pay taxes, raise families, etc. There are many thousands of actual addicts who still remain productive members of society for their whole lives. Not all of them are the type you see on the Cops TV show, or the type who end up in the local lock-up. The extreme abusers are the ones you are zeroing in on, and they are a problem, but they are far from the whole story out there.

 

[RKG]

It is true that we are all products of our own experiences, which may or may not be entirely representative of the whole, and it is equally true that, in one capacity or another, I've spent 30 years involved with the criminal justice system. My sense, though, is that if we could push the magic button and eliminate all drug use overnight, the criminal courts would only have to be open one day a week.

 

[Emoto]

That would be swell and all, but I think a huge percentage of those same losers who you see in the lockup would just find another way to get there. And you though you were cynical...

[lol]