Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Free Tommy Chong!
Just kidding. He's been out of jail now for about a month. But he shouldn't have been there in the first place.
I watched the Choose or Lose: Drug Wars special on MTV last night. Not bad, didn't really clear up anything. Actually gave a pretty fair view of what Bush/Kerry would do. They both support changing the HEA, Higher Education Act, that says if you have been convicted on a drug charge, any drug charge, then you are not eligible for federal aid.
Bush wants to change it to "if you're busted while in college, then you get no money". Kerry wants to change it to "if you're busted selling drugs, then you get no money". I think combining the two would be a pretty decent solution, but I of course want it gone in the first place. Rapists, murderers, arsonists and the lot get federal aid, but fuck you if you do drugs.
They (MTV) also brought up the point of mandatory minimum senteces. They showed one guy, 23, who got caught with 50 grams of crack, and the MMS is 10 years. He's got 2 kids and is engaged. I guess he didn't do crack, but he just sold it. Dude, you're selling crack. Yes it's where the money is, but it's crack. Crack is wack and highly addictive and destroys the lives of people who use it. Yes it was your first offense, and the sentence is a tad high but you definitely deserve some jail time. Or assloads of community service.
Another kid was dealing cocaine. He said that his clients were mostly wealthy white kids from the local colleges and he says he usually sold it a gram at a time. Sure, I bet you sold an 8-ball or two. But two kids he sold to got busted and ratted him out. They said they wanted to buy 70 grams of coke. He took it, got busted and the MMS for that is 15 to life. Holy shit, that's fucking extreme. But he plead down to a lesser charge and got 7-21 years. The kid was 19. Again, he deserves to be punished but filling up the jails is not the answer. Okay, I just did some research and this doesn't make sense at all, under MMS you need 500 grams of coke for 5 years and 5 kilos of it for 10. WTF? Either I wasn't paying attention or their info is wrong. Beats me, but please disregard the previous paragraph.
The next girl was a smackhead. She got busted multiple times and finally went to "drug court" where she has to attend counseling everyday and is drug tested 3 times a week, and if she fails the test, she goes to jail that day. But she's on the outside and is clean and is taking care of her kid.
Basically MTV's position is that MMS, mandatory minimum sentencing is wrong, it ties the hands of the judge so they cannot use their judgement, and drug court or some form of counseling/treatment program is the answer. And Bush wants to keep MMS and favors "faith-based" counseling programs and Kerry doesn't want to limit a judge's power and so he doesn't like MMS.
And a big sponsor of the show was Case Western University in Cleveland. I was impressed that a college would get behind such a controversial show.
MTV's MMS article and why it isn't a Campaign Issue
FAMM-Families Against Mandatory Minimums
The Anti-Drug website, They really don't want kids doing drugs, but who does?
All drugs should be used responsibly by adults, either 18 or 21. Or 19 for tobacco in Utah and Alabama. Don't know why though.
I watched the Choose or Lose: Drug Wars special on MTV last night. Not bad, didn't really clear up anything. Actually gave a pretty fair view of what Bush/Kerry would do. They both support changing the HEA, Higher Education Act, that says if you have been convicted on a drug charge, any drug charge, then you are not eligible for federal aid.
Bush wants to change it to "if you're busted while in college, then you get no money". Kerry wants to change it to "if you're busted selling drugs, then you get no money". I think combining the two would be a pretty decent solution, but I of course want it gone in the first place. Rapists, murderers, arsonists and the lot get federal aid, but fuck you if you do drugs.
They (MTV) also brought up the point of mandatory minimum senteces. They showed one guy, 23, who got caught with 50 grams of crack, and the MMS is 10 years. He's got 2 kids and is engaged. I guess he didn't do crack, but he just sold it. Dude, you're selling crack. Yes it's where the money is, but it's crack. Crack is wack and highly addictive and destroys the lives of people who use it. Yes it was your first offense, and the sentence is a tad high but you definitely deserve some jail time. Or assloads of community service.
Another kid was dealing cocaine. He said that his clients were mostly wealthy white kids from the local colleges and he says he usually sold it a gram at a time. Sure, I bet you sold an 8-ball or two. But two kids he sold to got busted and ratted him out. They said they wanted to buy 70 grams of coke. He took it, got busted and the MMS for that is 15 to life. Holy shit, that's fucking extreme. But he plead down to a lesser charge and got 7-21 years. The kid was 19. Again, he deserves to be punished but filling up the jails is not the answer. Okay, I just did some research and this doesn't make sense at all, under MMS you need 500 grams of coke for 5 years and 5 kilos of it for 10. WTF? Either I wasn't paying attention or their info is wrong. Beats me, but please disregard the previous paragraph.
The next girl was a smackhead. She got busted multiple times and finally went to "drug court" where she has to attend counseling everyday and is drug tested 3 times a week, and if she fails the test, she goes to jail that day. But she's on the outside and is clean and is taking care of her kid.
Basically MTV's position is that MMS, mandatory minimum sentencing is wrong, it ties the hands of the judge so they cannot use their judgement, and drug court or some form of counseling/treatment program is the answer. And Bush wants to keep MMS and favors "faith-based" counseling programs and Kerry doesn't want to limit a judge's power and so he doesn't like MMS.
And a big sponsor of the show was Case Western University in Cleveland. I was impressed that a college would get behind such a controversial show.
MTV's MMS article and why it isn't a Campaign Issue
FAMM-Families Against Mandatory Minimums
The Anti-Drug website, They really don't want kids doing drugs, but who does?
All drugs should be used responsibly by adults, either 18 or 21. Or 19 for tobacco in Utah and Alabama. Don't know why though.
# posted by Seth @ 8:01 AM 
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