News How can we improve the efficiency of our penal system?

[turbo]

Is the proposed legislation targeting drug users instead of drug dealers? I'm not sure how you might "suppress the distribution and sale of such" without prosecuting dealers?

Possession = felony if the GOP plan passes. If you are private contractor and like to build jails, you might make some good bucks in Maine as long as the Tea-Partyers are in power. It's one thing to catch a dealer or a distributor with a large amount of drugs. IMO, it's quite another thing to make everybody who possesses a usable amount of any drug a felon.

 

[WhoWee]

Possession = felony if the GOP plan passes. If you are private contractor and like to build jails, you might make some good bucks in Maine as long as the Tea-Partyers are in power. It's one thing to catch a dealer or a distributor with a large amount of drugs. IMO, it's quite another thing to make everybody who possesses a usable amount of any drug a felon.

What in the world does this have to do with the TEA Party?

What did the Democrat plan propose?

 

[SamRoss]

Very apt video. It's nice to see that other countries understand that people using drugs recreationally is not going to bring down their civilization. I don't even do drugs. Nor do I drink all that often. I'm just so sickened to think that my tax dollars are being used to round up non-violent drug users and throw them in cages (not to mention subsidize apartheid in the holy land, but that's for another post). To paraphrase Bill Maher, there is a progressive element in this country but it's being strangled by a bunch of right wing lunatics. Anyway, thanks for the video and the insight.

 

[Proton Soup]

it's interesting to see what happens in a country like Portugal that simply is too poor to support our drug enforcement model. they decriminalize drug use, channel money that would be spent on keeping people in prison to treatment, and see drug use go down.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080

Drug Decriminalization in Portugal:
Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies

by Glenn Greenwald

On July 1, 2001, a nationwide law in Portugal took effect that decriminalized all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. Under the new legal framework, all drugs were "decriminalized," not "legalized." Thus, drug possession for personal use and drug usage itself are still legally prohibited, but violations of those prohibitions are deemed to be exclusively administrative violations and are removed completely from the criminal realm. Drug trafficking continues to be prosecuted as a criminal offense.

...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjuvXdqKM0M