Drug sentencing vs. Other Crimes

[Stiffeno]

This is a true story:

My Aunties uncle (Noel) actually beat his mother (an elderly lady) to death and dumped her body at a (i think) Mt Druitt Hospital and, he got i think 4-6 years for Manslaughter. It was on the news maybe 8-10 years ago? some of you aussies may remember it. My aunties mother went on the 7/9 and 10 i think news about the incident (this i think was when they didnt know that Noel had done it). The event shattered the hearts of everyone in my family, she was a very nice quiet old lady who never hurt a fly, and now she is dead...

Noel should have gotten life for taking a life, yet if he was caught selling drugs he woulda got 10 years...yet you can beat an elderly lady to death and get out in 4? WTF

Edit: Oh and what makes things worse is that Noel has a long history of violence against woman, his first gf got a restraining order on him coz he use to beat her. His next gf he put in the hospital (he done a short stretch for this i thknk) and next he kills his mother...and got fucking 4-6 years!!!! I think it was 6 but got out due to "good behaviour"...now he has a new gf last i heard O_O. None of our family acknowledge he exists, my Aunty actually said to us that if she ever seen him walking across the street he'd be dead!

 

[mushi mushi 88]

Noel should have gotten life for taking a life, yet if he was caught selling drugs he woulda got 10 years...yet you can beat an elderly lady to death and get out in 4? WTF

I agree that his sentence was much to light for the crime he was found guilt of, I think that people who take another life should pay with their entire life in incarceration, whether it was psychological/addiction/money issues they should still rot in a 9 foot x 9 foot cell! You can't say he would have gotten 10 years for dealing drugs though, that's a little bit ambitious, if he was importing commercial/marketable quantities of a restricted/dangerous drug or caught with say 100kg+ then he would be looking at 10+ years but could even then get out early on good behaviour and the argument his lawyer presents. Take Nathan Baggaley for example, he got charged for manufacture and dealing ecstacy and got out after 2 years...

The sentencing for trafficking/supply is quite weird I've found, it always comes down to what other paraphanila they find, how many people are involved in the sting, what type of drug it is, how much money is located, and whether they have any other recorded information on the accused... But I definitely agree that the punishments for rape/murder/assaults/crimes against minors are much to light, it seems to be that these people who commit these hideous crimes get sentenced so lightly that they are able to commit them another 2, 3, 4 or more times before they pass away....

EDIT: Sorry I went off on a little bit of a rambling tangent there, my bad...

 

[mushi mushi 88]

What about the thousands of people killed each year by drug gangs/cartels? I'd say it's pretty far fetched to not include those in the chain of drug suffering - definitely for cocaine at least.

You know what would be super awesome to see? If they did something similar to a family tree, but instead have the very beginning process of the manufacturing of drugs and following it down through every tangent it skus from up until it reaches the end user to see how it's effected society/people... I'm sure somebody in like the DEA has initiated something along these lines to judge the amount of crimes associated with these substances.

I'd do it just for my own little project if I worked in one of those department, I can already see how involved and time consuming it would be though....

 

[Mr Blonde]

Mr Blond: I totally disagree with your comment Quote 'People who buy drugs know they are taking part in a crime, but the only person whose suffering they are supporting are themselves.'

Sorry mate I respectfully disagree. When looking at the big picture there are so many people effected by drugs, not just the consumer. Do you think the poor peasant in Columbia/Bolivia enjoys picking Coca leaves for some cartel who have threatened to kill his children if he does anything else? Do you thing the poor Vietnamese farmer who needs money so badly they agree to smuggle a couple of Kg's of Heroin into Australia? Or that Australian / Vietnamese kid who got hung in Singapore for smuggling Heroin to pay off a gambling debt to drug dealers. What about the poor addict (and I say poor addict, because I genuinely believe they have a sickness) who breaks into someones home or robs some pharmacy worker who now suffers anxiety from when someone held a knife to their throat.

You left out the part of my post where I then went on to make this same point I will now; all that suffering and exploitation is a result of the same authoritarian legal and legislative system that handles drug traffickers or dealers more harshly then actual violent offenders too often. And though some are forced into the production or smuggling of drugs, many choose to grow these crops (opium poppies or coca plants) because they are a solid source of income for them. People choose to involve themselves in smuggling and trafficking because of the financial incentives; not everyone is forced into the trade and yes it is sad that there is exploitation and violence involved in the market, but the same arguments could be made about many food products you purchase at the supermarket. Look at chocolate for example; many cocoa is sourced from slave labor.

I am in no way excusing this suffering, but it is a product of government policies and we saw the exact same thing during alcohol prohibition - just the government was smart enough back then to see the error their ways.

 

[losthippy]

What many people fail to acknowledge is the cancerous nature of the penalty that comes with any drug conviction. Its the punishment that keeps on giving. Once you've paid your fines and lawyer's fees or stepped out of slam you then have to deal with the restricted opportunities your conviction(s) have left you with. No-one should be foolish enough to think that closure happens once the up-front penalty has been paid. My conviction for a victimless crime has been the monkey on my back for 15 years and sent my life off in a direction I hadn't planned. All is good now but not without a lot of soul-searching and the indignation of disclosure for employment etc. Getting busted is a big deal for minnow and shark alike.

 

[mushi mushi 88]

the same arguments could be made about many food products you purchase at the supermarket. Look at chocolate for example; many cocoa is sourced from slave labor.

Can I just add a semi-interesting comment on to this. I've been having multiple conversations with co-workers, friends and family about the labour/manufacturing involved in legitimate products. Where I work I've got budgets I need to meet so cutting the cost to produce them is always on my mind... When I first got there they never used factories in Asia, (which probably had children working there), to produce/pack components of our products. I said blatantly in my second week, 'Why don't we just use cheap labor in Asia to get things done and cut our cost dramatically making it easier to reach our budgets and hence raising the shareholder value.' There were other comments from me but to much to type here, a few of them said things along the lines of; that's not moral, or that's heartless or don't be so ruthless... Which is when I explained in depth, all other companies do it and if we don't we'll loose our position in the market and the shareholders will sell there shares and nobody else will purchase them making the company go bust and all of us out of a job.... They did not care about this so I went on about some personal items they had on them at the time, like there clothes, the coffee they were drinking, the phones, now how are all the components of al these products on you manufactured?!?!? Via slave/child/cheap labour in these same Asian companies... So in one way or another YOU are still supporting this, I've turned a couple of people over to using companies I've suggested to them but some will still not source anything from there and pay tenfold for items..... In the end I told them that it's business you have to be cut throat otherwise you'll get chewed up and spat out.

Now I find it quite interesting how a lot of attention is raised to the children/slaves used to collect the precursors or base components for the manufacture of drugs and some people are blatantly blind that the clothes on their back are literally manufactured by similar people. I know there is still a lot of issues in the media with large corporations doing this, but because they have the money they can do A LOT of PR to cover the majority of it up... Now if the cartels, crime bosses etc were able to do the same PR for their illegal activities do you think it would not be frowned upon as much???

P.S. Don't think of me as a bad person because of the views I have with trying to put a company in a stronger position on the market....

 

[mushi mushi 88]

What many people fail to acknowledge is the cancerous nature of the penalty that comes with any drug conviction. Its the punishment that keeps on giving. Once you've paid your fines and lawyer's fees or stepped out of slam you then have to deal with the restricted opportunities your conviction(s) have left you with. No-one should be foolish enough to think that closure happens once the up-front penalty has been paid. My conviction for a victimless crime has been the monkey on my back for 15 years and sent my life off in a direction I hadn't planned. All is good now but not without a lot of soul-searching and the indignation of disclosure for employment etc. Getting busted is a big deal for minnow and shark alike.

May I ask, don't have to answer if you don't like. Was your conviction for the supply of a substance or something else?

 

[Mr Blonde]

Really interesting post there mushi! :D

 

[spacejunk]

so...the financial bottom line excuses exploitation?
capitalism will be the death of us all. i can't say i'm comfortable with the way consumerism and global capitalism operates. true, there is nought i can do to stop it, but we all play our part in the little bits of the world we inhabit and have some control over.
i don't like buying street drugs for a bunch of reasons, one of them being the fact that smuggling/manufacturing is in the hands of organised crime syndicates and the like. not the sort of people i want to direct my meagre hard-earned at. i don't want to be a slave to that any more than i want to be a slave to a big credit card debt or other form of modern slavery. and in the same way i avoid putting my money into the corporate consumer economy wherever possible (buying local, shopping at independent retailers etc) it just doesn't sit well with me. we all have our priorities, i suppose.
the ethics of the modern world are complicated. you do what you've got to do i suppose, but absolving yourself of responsibility because everybody else does it? that's a slippery slope.

 

[Mr Blonde]

It doesn't excuse exploitation for me, but it happens all around us and I think it's being used as an excuse here to condemn drug dealers to harsher sentences then people who have caused actual physical harm intentionally to others.

I am no idealist though and people will always make each other suffer, so I'll admit I don't think too much about what suffering might have gone into the drugs I consume or the clothes I wear or foods I buy.

 

[losthippy]

@mushi - magistrate didn't fully believe the ** plants in my greenhouse were for research and personal consumption. They were. I thought there was compassion in the man because, as the cops couldn't cite any evidence to suggest I was selling, he smashed me with a big fine for the time and told me to straighten myself out. But hey, what's in the past stays in the past, right...?

 

[spacejunk]

mr blonde, i think being conscious of the origins of material goods is a hard connection to make, especially when the whole system we exist within - one of materialist consumption - relies on the cheap labour provided by developing nations. it is one of many power imbalances than exists in the world, and it is no single person's fault or responsibility to 'fix'.
i guess what i mean to say is that if we all had a bit more consciousness of this sort of thing, it could do some good. i don't make decisions based solely on "will this action or choice mean someone is getting exploited somewhere along the way?"
for me it is more like "this is fucked and i don't want to be part of it"
obviously i am part of it, but resisting sometimes can be sort of empowering.

the problem with modern capitalism is that you can't simply choose which bits you opt into or out of. it's hard to be selective because somewhere along the line, you'll be feeding in to that system. i'm a stubborn cunt and i choose to reject a lot of what is out there.
it's not perfect, but i think it's something.

this has probably gone way off topic, but i guess the point is that you can't decide the ethical implications of things that are bigger than you. you have as much influence as your economic power, and even then, it is only within existing frameworks.
people are exploited by drugs in similar ways to how they are exploited for countless money-making ventures.

if the hunger for consumption wasn't there, it wouldn't be as bad, but no one individual's choices are going to stop or help that.
you can only do what is within your scope, because the scale is far beyond one small person's choices or decisions. i don't want to contribute but i'm not arrogant or naive enough to think that will change anything. i just try to direct my resources into directions i feel ok about.
people are reliant on drugs, but they are also reliant on a lot of material things that cause pollution or exploitation or social problems. i mean, i sit here typing on a macbook - which is a perfect example of how, try as i might, i am a hypocrite.
but i don't own a car, don't buy brand name clothing (except maybe british or australian-made footwear) try to avoid buying from food companies that use GM ingredients etc etc.
it's all relative and we are all complicit (unless we live in some utopian anarchist commune) but it is just a matter of how far we subscribe to this system.

i totally agree that a huge amount of the harm caused by illegal drug production/trafficking/sale is because of the illegality.
we are all victims of that system - from the junkie on the street to the drug mule on death row to the non-drug-user person robbed for dope money.

 

[Mr Blonde]

this has probably gone way off topic, but i guess the point is that you can't decide the ethical implications of things that are bigger than you. you have as much influence as your economic power, and even then, it is only within existing frameworks.
people are exploited by drugs in similar ways to how they are exploited for countless money-making ventures.

What do you mean by decide the ethical implications of things that are bigger? I assume you are talking about taking an active role in changing the system and actually achieving that. Well I agree; nothing I do is going to change the way these things work unless I become super rich or get into politics and manage to greatly influence things. But while capitalism as we see it today is not perfect, it has brought us this far and we are entrenched enough in the system that it will be very hard to change how it is currently run.

but i don't own a car, don't buy brand name clothing (except maybe british or australian-made footwear) try to avoid buying from food companies that use GM ingredients etc etc.
it's all relative and we are all complicit (unless we live in some utopian anarchist commune) but it is just a matter of how far we subscribe to this system.

I don't have a problem with genetically modified foods and in fact believe that one day it could do a lot of good for developing nations. I don't care for brand names and I don't envy those who obsess over them but that is their choice to make. I know I am complicit in a system that engages in exploitation but this is how the world has always worked and probably will for a very long time. Perhaps I'm the opposite of you; whereas you find some empowerment in the small resistances you make, I find it pointless as the majority of people continue to feed the system that creates exploitation. Besides which, the area I most want to be able to have influence in is drug policy and if somehow in the future, when my career has developed, I can try and make a difference I will then and through a more powerful means then choosing 'fair trade' at the supermarket. Right now though I'm just one consumer among a planet of them, and perhaps a nihilistic one I will admit that.

mr blonde, i think being conscious of the origins of material goods is a hard connection to make, especially when the whole system we exist within

I'm not sure what you mean by this... are you saying it's hard to make a connection between consciousness of the origins of foods and other legal products we buy and the same with drugs? The connection is that yes, there is suffering involved in both but at the end of the day it is out of our hands and in both cases is the result of the policies of those in power and those who run commerce. It is sad that this is how things are run and that sometimes there is violence and death and abuse behind the products we buy but as long as I need those products and there is no alternative I'm not going to feel guilty.

ETA: We are somewhat off-topic but how we got to this discussion is people trying to argue that because the product a drug dealer sells may have been the product of exploitation, they somehow deserve bigger sentences then a man who sexually abuses children. The government has created an environment where people want to purchase a product that is illegal and so the production and distribution of the product has been forced in a direction that sometimes is bloody and exploitative. The drug dealer has chosen to take a risk by profiting in illegal substances, yes, but to consider what he is doing worse then someone who willingly destroys someone else's life or causes them serious damage makes no sense to me at all. Drugs can cause harm and destroy lives, but the user them self plays a big part in that and in the meantime the same thing happens with alcohol and tobacco and the government just reaps in the profits whilst making no serious moves to curb the harms from those products (particularly alcohol).

 

[mushi mushi 88]

I'm just going to throw in two small things cause I think this thread has really gone off the rails lol.

Firstly look into the WTO - World Trade Organisation: This puts into practice rules where certain countries can only trade with other countries for a certain amount, so it's like the black market, you go to whoever has the best priced product but they say this country can only purchase this much from them then they have to go somewhere else, and that's a drop in the ocean of how countries trade... There are however loopholes which allows countries to purchase more than allowed but this is taking me back a few years and I don't feel like looking up my text books - then you go into international relations which is another story but kind of relates to how countries trade and what they can trade ie: weapons of mass destruction, government technology etc, this is all traded between countries good and bad and is just scary when you start to really go into depth with it.

Secondly, what about the corporate pharmaceutical companies who pretty much get away making billions of dollars selling a legal drug that have the same collation of materials as illicit drug manufacturers...

 

[drug_mentor]

I just think its bullshit to blame drug dealers, smugglers or consumers for the unfortunate negatives that are associated with the illicit drug markers unless they directly contribute to them. The fact of the matter is that most people in source countries are happy as larry to produce drugs because if they didn't produce drugs they would be worse off, I almost question how many more Colombian or Afghan farmers would of starved to death if they had never implemented our ridiculous drug laws. Coercion does happen but to me it makes no sense to blame the majority of people involved in drugs who aren't using violence on others for creating some of the horrible situations that came about due to the current laws.

I don't really see how it is less moral of someone to continue operating in the drug trade, knowing to some extent they are financially supporting and/or gaining from some of the negatives created by it, than it is for someone like Mushi (I hope you don't feel singled out, I don't actually take issue with what you said I just see a double standard) to talk about exploiting cheap Asian labour for the sake of the prosperity of a legal business? To me both situations involve someone thats making a conscious decision to ignore a negative situation that they contribute to to some degree for their own financial gain. It makes NO sense to me to argue that these things somehow make drug dealers horrible people that deserve long sentences.

Regardless of knowing the consequences doesn't make it fair, if they started killing people for littering would it be fair enough because you knew that was the consequence? The fact is most people committing a drug dealing or trafficking offence are moving something (that isn't always particularly harmful I might add) from point A to point B and regardless of if thats 10 grams or ten kilograms if thats ALL they can prove you did you deserve fuck all time in gaol, in my opinion anyway.

Also festivalfun it BAFFLES me you think a fucking killer shouldn't of got more time than someone importing drugs. Somehow violently ending a life is more excusable than recieving a package? What an odd moral compass you have...

 

[spacejunk]

blondey - i don't really know the answers to what you're asking. i was thinking aloud, really.
there are things that matter to each of us - they're different for every individual, and sometimes we are able to work within the framework of what we think is right or wrong, but in the scheme of things we're pretty powerless to affect large scale change in how the world works. i was really just musing on the individual's place in this.
and i don't claim to be some pillar of virtuous ethical behaviour; far from it, but i don't like supporting things i disagree with when i can help it.

 

[Mr Blonde]

^ That's alright brother, what we were both talking about definitely is a complicated issue. I'm glad though we have people discussing things like this on here, I really appreciate that about this part of Bluelight sometimes and posters like you and everyone else who makes thoughtful posts are what make AusDD such a great place.

 

[Divine Moments]

This is a very interesting discussion, and one that I (and many others I imagine) am very conflicted about. It's very difficult to get by in our society without using anything that is likely to have been produced by suffering people because, as has been pointed out, capitalism encourages this behaviour in business. It's almost ubiquitous. Our society also grooms us to turn a blind eye towards the pain and problems of others on which our comfortable lives are built. Some may say "it's human nature" to exploit others for one's own benefit, but I believe empathy is one of our greatest traits. I don't want people to have to suffer so that I can wear nice clothes and use a fancy phone, but I also don't want to be a hermit completely removed from modern society.

If only there were a simpler answer to all of this, that didn't require completely overhauling the global financial system

Also, please refrain from judging others based on their opinions or morals. The world would be boring if everybody saw it the same way and we're all entitled to our opinion

 

[drug_mentor]

This discussion actually reminds me of a documentary I watched last week on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They have a large mining industry over there, and I can't actually remember the name of this substance they mine, but it is used in most consumer electronics like mobile phones and computer chips etc. I had never heard (despite having heard quite a bit on the massacre in Rwanda) that the Hootoos had actually pushed east to the DRC after the Rwandan massacre and were committing murder and rape on an almost daily basis over there, yet the West continues to purchase this mineral from these rebels and fund their atrocities. They had one chick who had her hands cut off, her 3 month old son slaughtered in front of her, got gang raped then her house burnt down. This is the world we live in, but who the hell knew that their TV remote might be so soaked in blood? Makes no god damned sense to pick and choose what causes of human sufering are immoral and others just good business, the fact is that legal or illict, capitalism has a LOT to answer for...

 

[Mr Blonde]

^ That would be coltan that they mine over there, and the tantalum they extract from it is used in electronic capacitors. That sounds like an interesting documentary, I've only ever read about the issues with it's mining over there.