Life for Half an Ounce of Medical Marijuana?

[asdjrocky]

Jacob Sullum | August 12, 2010

A Texas state trooper stops a 1990 Mercedes with an expired registration sticker. The driver says he does not have his driver's license or proof of insurance. After arresting him for "failure to identify," the trooper searches him and his car, finding 14 grams (half an ounce) of marijuana and hashish. Indicted for possession with intent to deliver, he could be sent to prison for the rest of his life.

Seriously? No matter what your view of the war on drugs, the leap from citable offense to first-degree felony is hard to fathom, let alone justify. In Texas, according to Dean, half an ounce of marijuana can get you anything from a ticket to life in prison, depending on factors that have nothing to do with the moral gravity of the offense. Although Diaz's cannabis was still in the bottles used by the medical marijuana dispensary where he obtained it, Brown County prosecutors cite a cell phone "containing text messages referring to drug sales" and a notebook with "drug and law writings" as evidence of intent to deliver. They put the retail value of the cannabis at $2,400, or $171 per gram—more than 10 times the hash prices reported at 420 Magazine and Grass City. Diaz has been held in the Brown County Jail since June 27, with bail set at $40,000.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/12/life-for-half-an-ounce-of-medi?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reason%2FHitandRun+%28Reason+Online+-+Hit+%26+Run+Blog%29

Do not drive through Texas stoned.

[Systematic Chaos]

1. Do not drive through Texas

Fixed

[grasswire]

2. at $40,000 per year custodial cost...

...for 30 years or so incarceration of one offender -- how can society justify and pay for this shocking application of the law?

The choice is between parks and draconian sentencing. Schools and draconian sentencing. Programs for children and youth, and draconian sentencing. Meals on wheels for elders, or draconian sentencing. Treatment programs for addicts, or draconian sentencing.

You get the drift.

[asdjrocky]

4. Very well put.

The poor have two but choices in America, the MIC or the PIC. As always.

The best we can hope for is to take California one step further in Nov. with prop 19.

[L0oniX]

3. I really wish that Texas would secede.

[RKP5637]

5. Yeah, same here, but there are some good people there. I know I would never

make it a place to visit...

[RainDog]

6. Yet Texas is looking at ways to implement a medical marijuana law

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-special-interest-groups/interest-groups/medical-marijuana-advocates-try-again-with-bill/

In 2005 (The Texas Medical Association) adopted the position that doctors should be able to consider prescribing marijuana for their patients without fear of regulatory or criminal action and to freely study its medical effectiveness.

A University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll conducted in May showed a similar finding, with the majority of Texans favoring one or more methods of legalization: 42 percent of Texans were open to the idea of legalizing marijuana, 28 percent say possession of small amounts should be legal, and 14 percent said any amount should be legal. Twenty-seven percent said it should be legal for medical purposes only, and another 27 percent said it should be illegal under any circumstances.

It's tragic that people have to suffer under existing laws.

But the laws are and will be changing. Who will be left looking like the last fool to support prohibition?

[asdjrocky]

9. Indeed.

And the ASA has been doing some bridge building there as well.

[RagAss]

7. Once again......Fuck Texas !

[Parker CA]

8. $171.gram!?!? Must be gold plated herbs.

[maryf]

10. Institutional slavery...

between that and the poverty draft this country should have no employment problems...k&R

[havocmom]

11. wasn't there some other case where a young woman got set up and sent up in TX?

Anybody remember? Daughter of somebody with some pull, and I seem to recall nice care, out of date tag....

What was that one? And was it in the same area?

[asdjrocky]

12. I'm not awear of that case.

I do know that last year Texas gave a man, who was in his 50's, 34 years for a less than a quarter pound.

There will be nearly 800 thousand people arrested for cannabis this year, and they call us paranoid.