ARTICLE: 'Ending the war on all drugs'

[notsmokeymcpot42088]

Excuse me on the name I get ppls wrong all the time and go from memory, should have yours locked in by now probably. (think I always read it that way? idk)

Well yes; clearly as long as you did not meet mandatory sentencing guidelines (which vary greatly by state and was kind of the heart of the Q). High powered assault rifles make it tough to claim violence was never on the table. I had an AR-15 and a glock 19 when they raided me (registered) they had to give em back. Bastards. Dont have them anymore of course, lot has happened since 17.

Correct the Feds are a whole different ballgame ]and I understand you not wanting to get too open bout it as statutes of limitations tend to go away with fed cases, lying to a federale is a crime etc. -- Yea they don't come get you untill they have all the evidence and your ass is wrapped up in a bow and ready for delivery. Only way you beatin a fed case is a technicality.

I would not have asked what state if I knew it was a fed case or involved overseas importation of precursors. I know in FL some guy is sittin like 20 years for havin 6 of his own annexias out of the container. (fell over the mandatory weight limit). I like to know what states may do me sideways like that. (I believe there are states that may have treated you similarly, that is what I was watching for)

I just remember my lawyer saying "It wouldnt'a mattered if you had a gram or a kilo it woulda been delayed/exponged the same way" and thinking well damn I wish I knew I was playin with the houses money! Pretty sure 25g's or more is a mandatory so lawyers lie too.

Good for you sitting your time and shutting your mouth. (obviously the only move but you have eyes). They hit me with a full raid at 17 and I told them everything in the place was mine before they started searching it and stuck with that. "You wanna make this easier on yourself"
Easier than 6 months probation for possession, nah I think im good --- they didn't turn up alot though and it was basically a fishing expedition. Sent a fuckin wire wearin snitch over three times (the maximum legal amnt) three times i told this c*nt I dont sell drugs or know you bounce. They ended up taking my trash to get a search warrant based on the amnt of seeds and stems (Lmao now). It is a small place, small fish very small pond? lol.

I have came to (Kinda always been at) that same conclusion; I appreciate those who do it but it is not for me. I dont have the cuthroat attitude to make it anywhere worth lookin over my shoulder.

 

[unodelacosa]

Yea they don't come get you untill they have all the evidence and your ass is wrapped up in a bow and ready for delivery. Only way you beatin a fed case is a technicality.

I don't remember the exact figures, but it's something like: 84% of federal cases end in a plea bargain – the defendant pleas guilty to a main charge and the extra charges are dropped in exchange for the plea. It saves the government time, money and hassle to avoid taking a case to trial. Of course, if everyone in the system rejected all plea bargains and forced a trial on every case, it would back up the system problematically. They'd have to rethink their drug prosecution strategy and it might force decriminalization of minor possession at least.

But yeah 84% take the plea bargain and of the 16% who fight their case I think roughly half of them are acquitted which gives the feds something like a 92% conviction rate overall. Brutal. So if you're indicted in federal court, all other things equal, there's a 8% chance you'll beat the case and be exonerated.

I like to know what states may do me sideways like that. (I believe there are states that may have treated you similarly, that is what I was watching for)

Check this out; it might help.

I just remember my lawyer saying "It wouldnt'a mattered if you had a gram or a kilo it woulda been delayed/exponged the same way" … They hit me with a full raid at 17 and I told them everything in the place was mine before they started searching it and stuck with that. "You wanna make this easier on yourself"

Well it is different if you're a minor and you catch a case, depending on the crime.

I have came to (Kinda always been at) that same conclusion; I appreciate those who do it but it is not for me. I dont have the cuthroat attitude to make it anywhere worth lookin over my shoulder.

There are too many legal ways to make money without fearing incarceration.

 

[notsmokeymcpot42088]

84% on the federal level -- shit. Wish there were stats on what % kicked out information -- my shit was state and I took a plea as it was basically "Don't do it again" --- When I got raided I was 17 when I got arrested I was 18. They did not arrest me the day they raided me -- in fact it was months later. Idk if they were trying to make it look like I snitched -- as around here I know several others that the same thing happened too. Felt strange though they kept asking me where the money was "What money" -- "Theres not even 5 bucks in this house how you plan to eat dinner" --- "I figure you guys will be feeding me tonight". Nope (not complaining but it was weird). My assertion is they wanted to continue to attempt to gain evidence hoping id be stupid and they wanted to wait until I was 18 to try me.

8% that is brutal -- so not taking the plea leaves you around 50 50 chances which frankly doesn't sound so horrible till youve seen that coin land the wrong way.

Grazi for the link.

Agreed that shit never works out. Can't trust people anymore.

 

[unodelacosa]

so not taking the plea leaves you around 50 50 chances which frankly doesn't sound so horrible till youve seen that coin land the wrong way.

No, that's not exactly the conclusion you should draw. There are only about 16% of federal cases in which there would even be a chance at beating the case. So you first would have to have the kind of case that some federal criminal defense attorney sees a shot at winning potentially. I wouldn't count on a public defender or a court-appointed attorney being much help here as they almost always try to lead their clients into the plea bargain. Most cases are not fought on conviction – that's usually going to happen – the case is fought on the sentencing details. That's where enhancements and departures and shit can come in, on top of the attributed weight for drug crime convictions. There's a safety valve, there's the Residential Drug Abuse (treatment) Program (RDAP), an "aberrant behavior" departure, and of course §5K1.1 / Rule 35(b) departures for substantial assistance. Your best bet is to stay off the radar of law enforcement altogether.

The other risk of fighting your case is that, if you lose, you're gonna take all of the charges over the head and you're likely going away for a long time.

Grazi for the link.

Prego.

 

[notsmokeymcpot42088]

I absolutely understand the risk of going to trial -- than all the shit that they basically tacked on for the purpose of plea bargaining (almost exclusively) lands straight on you. Oh god I would never; well I am fortunate enough not to have to do the public attorney thing. Last time I was harassed I payed my lawyer 11k for like 6 days of work LITERALLY -- the lawyer I hired in the town I got busted in; I email him a week before trial and the mofo gets my name wrong in the response and basically says nah i wont take the JUDGES OFFER OF DEFERRED SENTENCE and I'd have to sit a few days. (Prolly shoulda just keistered and dealt but I was scared) so I hired the most expensive dude I could find and payed for his travel. (M shamylan twist; HE IS RELATED TO THE B*tch that wore a wire) -- but he still "accepted" the judges deal. ---- Did I even need a lawyer lol could I not have just 'accepted' the proposed plea? (Keeps me up at night lol)... Which was Deferred sentence for CONSTRUCTIVE poss of MJ paraphenalia. By the time I was driving there for pisstests I was passing dispensary's. HILARIOUS lol

Oh thank you for the real statistis 16% and 50 is quite different. Yea ill stick to being an end user and stay the f*ck outta cars. "Of the 16% that don't take the plea roughly half are acquitted?" Sounds like 50% if you don't take the plea (and have good reason not to?) Sorry I am sure you are right -- ahh got it so basically out of the 16% that a lawyer sees a lane half land. Sorry I am slow and had to work that out.

 

[unodelacosa]

well I am fortunate enough not to have to do the public attorney thing. Last time I was harassed I payed my lawyer 11k for like 6 days of work LITERALLY -- the lawyer I hired in the town I got busted in; I email him a week before trial and the mofo gets my name wrong in the response and basically says nah i wont take the JUDGES OFFER OF DEFERRED SENTENCE and I'd have to sit a few days. (Prolly shoulda just keistered and dealt but I was scared) so I hired the most expensive dude I could find and payed for his travel. (M shamylan twist; HE IS RELATED TO THE B*tch that wore a wire) -- but he still "accepted" the judges deal. ---- Did I even need a lawyer lol could I not have just 'accepted' the proposed plea? (Keeps me up at night lol)...

So the thing about taking a public defender is this – many judges see it as you "burdening" the system by using tax payer dollars to pay for your attorney when you take a public defender or a court-appointed attorney. Yes, you have the right to do this, and no, the judge shouldn't be biased against ppl who do this, ostensibly. But of course in practice, it is a strike against you in the eyes of many a judge in the U.S. Hiring an attorney shows the court that you take their laws very seriously, and this has an impact, like it or not.

To your point though, the law shouldn't be so complicated and shrouded in cryptic verbiage from a dead language such that the layman can't easily or usually adequately defend themselves from the prosecuting attorney's office. How weird and vaguely Kafka-esque this is, when you really think about it.

 

[notsmokeymcpot42088]

Right and very good point. Of course they are all bias and golf with eachother afterwards. I got jury a selection notice (Great story i know) and under languages I wrote "Dont speak latin or know legalese" bastards still picked me but of course it didn't go to court. In my particular case before a lawyer had even been hired the recommended sentence was deferred; would I have been able to just accept what they proposed for my fool of a client --- is it speculative even?

Only time I have heard of someone accepting a plea than getting prosecuted (without further crimes/infractions) is hunter biden and that is an outlier case imo.

Brings me to a thread I am about to make but I am not sure where to put it --- Is the US Gov in fact a crime syndicate? I have been saying so along time - someone went right at the heart of it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptfv-6EJAYw

I would appreciate if you watched it (any of ya) and left your thoughts and opinions?

(IT IS NOT ABOUT "THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS A MAFIA" Or "THE BIDEN CRIME FAMILY") Straight the gov meets the def of organized crime? Spoiler alert in my "peggy hill" opinion yes.

Threw a thread up in "other drugs" as I didnt really know where it fits but same subject same video.

 

[MobiusDick]

Thanks for this article.

I think one of the reasons why psychedelic exceptionalism happens is stigma. There's less stigma associated with psychedelics and cannabis. And for some people who use those substances, they still hold strong to stigma against people who use so-called harder drugs (heroin, crack, methamphetamine, or injecting ROA). To deflect the stigma from themselves, they may reinforce the boundaries between their drugs of choice, and these other drugs. They may not be doing this consciously or deliberately. It may be more of a self defence, just to shield themselves from the stigma that revolves around drug use in the community.

I see this a bit in cannabis centric groups where they reject the term drug, instead using terms like plant, medicine, or plant medicine!

In fact there's an organisation called Thank You Plant Medicine (they have an annual day, February 20, where people are encouraged to host events and 'find their tribe'). While I don't believe this organisation is specifically thinking - we should exclude synthetic drugs and recreational or dependence use from our remit because they are not worthy - the focus only on plant based and only on medicinal use, may still have this effect on enacting psychedelic exceptionalism.

So yeah it's an interesting issue given that some people would argue that we should be practical/pragmatic, and if most of the population is on board with 'plant medicine' but not with other drug use types and kinds, we should at least get that done. But yeah, at what cost to those who use different kinds of drugs or in different ways?

In relation to this, Australia (where I'm from) just released their household survey (which we do every three years) and there is a VAST difference in opinion about what to do about drugs depending on the drug type in question. Much support for cannabis reforms, but very little support for legal access to heroin or methamphetamine for example. Drug type stigma is alive and well in the general population from what the data tell us.

I’m a CNS Pharmacologist and ALL drugs must be legalized. There can be no exceptions because from a harm reduction point of view, black market drugs kill people. All of these fentanyl deaths are blood on the hands of the government & DEA. Very few people would overdose if fentanyl and other drugs were sold in the drug equivalent of a liquor store. The problem is that people are buying an unknown amount of an unknown substance that has been adulterated with god knows what. Drugs are readily available on the street and the DEA is nothing more than a jobs program. Does anyone on this forum not know where to obtain drugs?

Since the beginnings of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in 1970, the US has spent around $1 trillion dollars directly and indirectly, with long prison sentences and loss of productivity by incarcerated individuals, far more.

The Official Policy of the DEA is that they can’t stop drugs as the cartels just replace anyone they arrest with someone else. In addition, they don’t really want to stop drugs completely as they would no longer have a job. Imagine if other government agencies had this creed. Their real goal is to preserve the status quo, which is a disaster. From a purely economic perspective the function of the DEA is to protect the cartel.

The US is supposed to be the land of the free, yet we have more people in prison than any other country in the world. both per capita and in absolute number (more than China, Russia and India.) and we have 25X more children in prison than #2 South Africa.

We have a private prison industry that is part of the Drug War-Law Enforcement-Prison Industrial Complex. And 45% of Federal Prisoners & 44% of all State Prisoners are in prison for drug offenses, not counting those that are incarcerated for offenses like theft & gun charges that were related to drugs. We cannot keep locking people up for possession of plant, pill or powder.

The idea that making drugs available to drug users is going to make more people into addicts is not true. Several countries that have decriminalized or legalized drugs have actually seen a decrease in drug use, which suggests there’s a part of humans nature that is like, “Don’t tell me what to do or I’m going to do the opposite.” Anyone who wants to use drugs is already doing them & in my experience, drug addiction is always secondary to major depression. Nobody wants to change their state all the time if they feel good already.

The idea that there is a difference between hard drugs & soft drugs is also nonsense as I have known many people who have become dependent on cannabinoids and it has negatively impacted their life. Marijuana is actually self detoxing because of its long half-life & its lipid solubility as it is stored in the fatty tissues like the brain, liver and subcutaneous fat cells, making its metabolism and elimination a multi compartment model because of its large Volume of Distribution. When rats maintained on Δ-9 THC are given the cannabinoid receptor (CB1) antagonist rimonabant, they have withdrawals so severe that it makes opioid withdrawal seem trivial. Some actually die. We see many of these symptoms in people using short acting cannabinoid analogues.

Alcohol is readily available in stores and not everyone drinks or abuses it, but as far as the number of deaths and cases of cancer, alcohol has everything beat.

We have a responsibility to change the status quo to reduce rhe harm that black market drugs cause. Freedom is supposed to be sacrosanct in America and not being able to put what you want in your body is a violation of that most fundamental right. In addition, we have lost our 4th Amendment rights against search & seizure because police often follow someone until they cross the yellow line for the purpose of making a traffic stop and searching your vehicle There is no real justification for continuing to keep drugs illegal. The government’s hands are quite bloody from all the deaths illegal drugs have caused, where the person wouldn’t have died if they got the drug they wanted in a known quantity the wanted in an unadulterated form and in a known amount. Let’s stop the nonsense and legalize all drugs in the US. Overdose deaths will surely decrease. It’s time in 2025 that the stigma of drug use becomes no different than alcohol use. You don’t drive impaired or show up to work impaired, but what you do on your own time is up to you.