Butterfly Rewards - earn free credits and redeem for good causes - learn more!
my care2
make a difference

community & fun

shares

share your passions, stories, inspirations, and more

Is Selling drugs the Way Out?
Jul 19, 2009

Focus:Human Rights
Action Request:Read
Location:United States
 I recently read an article in "The Nation" magazine by journalist Sasha Abramsky titled ‘The War Against the War on Drugs’.  This article details how state budget deficits across the country are pushing politicians, state prison and law enforcement officials to reconsider the premise that we can incarcerate our way out of America's deep-rooted social and economic problems.  This idea came to prominence in 1980 when Ronald Reagan and the law and order 'tough on crime' crowd supplanted LBJ's 'Great Society' with a new 'Mean Society' based on their knee- jerk reaction to the upheaval of the 1960's: riots, the drop- outs and hippie groups, civil rights protests, Black Power movement, etc.  Attempting to accomplish and maintain this mass incarceration has greatly contributed to the current economic crisis which is bankrupting state budgets.
 
     The article gives examples of different ways states are trying to deal with budget crisis. One example is California.  California is currently under Federal Court order to release 55,000 prisoners and improve medical and mental health care. Yet California has a 10 Billion dollar prison budget and the state budget is in a 24 Billion dollar hole! One of California's answers for alleviating the short fall, I find almost amusing, if it wasn't so tragic in it's probable outcomes.  California's answer is a bill in the state legislature to legalize the sale of Marijuana in California.  The bill has been discussed on NPR radio and other national media. Ca1ifornia's state House is seriously considering this bill.  Even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is not dismissing the idea. His office has been careful to stress they don’t advocate the bill, but the Governor did concede he thinks the time is ripe to debate the issue. Here is what I find amusing about this. 

     I have talked in detail with numerous inmates preparing to make parole and how they will try to make a living and remain out of prison. Many of these men are ex-drug dealers and think they have the perfect plan.  They believe they cannot obtain a well enough paying job to live the lifestyle they desire.  For one reason or another, that job is very illusive.  Uh, maybe no qualifications and no initiative to get any.  Ah, you think?  Eureka!  I know, sell Marijuana.  They reason that, firstly, it is very lucrative and a less dangerous or seedy business than pushing harder drugs, i.e., Cocaine or Heroin.  Secondly, Law Enforcement agencies don't pursue marijuana sales as aggressively.  I have always argued against this stating the ills it does to communities and individual lives, usually to no avail.  Well, I guess our government leaders and drug dealers think a lot a like.
 
     Seriously, I want to stress to you there is a movement to change this mass incarceration in our country.  That movement needs well thought out solutions not just money gimmicks.  The economic crisis has created the perfect storm to make the hard liners rethink their mantra of 'tough on crime' and consider 'smart on crime'.  I want to encourage you to take part in this discussion.  A solution of mine that would help the State of Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania has 4,847 prisoners serving life sentences, 581 of them have over thirty years in prison.  I am one of those 581.  Pennsylvania spends on average over $50,000 a year on each one of these men and the amount goes up each year as they age and contract the illnesses of old age.  To have thirty years in prison, except in very rare cases, you are over the age of 50.  Numerous studies have invariably shown that men over 50 with more than twenty five years in prison, for any crime, have recidivism rates that dip below zero percent to a decimal percentage. Comparatively, other prisoners recidivism rates have remained steadily in the high 70's and above for decades.  Basically we, lifers and long timers, don’t come back to prison.  The government does these studies and knows these truths.  But the politicians have repeated the 'tough on crime' mantra for so long they have become frozen in their inability to act on the truth.  They have convinced themselves and their constituents of a fallacy that leaves no room for dialogue.  So nowhere in the discussion about the current budget crisis in Pennsylvania do we hear talk of reducing the prison population by releasing some of these harmless old men.  There are proven inexpensive and safe ways to accomplish this and save the state approximately $30 million dollars a year.  Where is the dialogue?  

     On the National level, Virginia Senator Jim Webb has legislated a blue- ribbon Commission on Criminal Justice Reform, with a mandate to put all questions on the table during its eighteen month tenure.  Please write, email or call Senator Webb's office as well as the Commission and take part in this discussion.  Senator Webb, in a recent floor speech stated, ‘We have 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's known prison population.  Either we have the most evil people on the earth living in the United States or we are doing something dramatically wrong‘.  

     Well Pennsylvania has the country's largest number of lifers per prisoner of any state in the Union.  What does that say about Pennsylvanians?  Jesus admonished us all that we should look after the least of us and the prisoner.  Well, selling marijuana is no moral solution.  I ask you where will these sales of marijuana have the greatest negative affect?  What communities suffer from these sales?  The same communities that will suffer from budgets cuts?  Communities that already have an over abundance of alcohol and cigarette abuse?  Where?  There is an old political adage that says 'as California goes , so goes the nation‘.  Is that where we are heading?  Can't we find a better solution than selling weed.  That solution has failed again and again for the under-educated, desperate, morally corrupted, drug dealer trying to find a new softer way to get rich and stay out of prison, while exploiting the misery of others with immunity?

     Is that the best we can come up with in a moment of fiscal crisis?  I believe we can do better.  Please participate.
 



Robert Wideman, AP3468
P.O. Box 99991
Pittsburgh, PA 15233
Visibility: Everyone
Posted: Sunday July 19, 2009, 7:52 am
Tags: [add/edit tags]

Group Discussions start a discussion
Comments
Or, log in with your
Facebook account:
Compose your comment and submit:

Author

Robert Wideman
Author Tools:
Compose New Share
male, age 58, single, 1 child
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
ROBERT'S SHARES
Jul
21
(2 comments  |  discussions )
     I recently read an article in "The Nation" magazine by journalist Sasha Abramsky titled ‘The War Against the War on Drugs’.  This article details how state budget deficits across the country are pushing polit...
Jul
19
(1 comments  |  discussions )
 I recently read an article in "The Nation" magazine by journalist Sasha Abramsky titled ‘The War Against the War on Drugs’.  This article details how state budget deficits across the country are pushing politicians, state prison...
(0 comments  |  discussions )
 I recently read an article in "The Nation" magazine by journalist Sasha Abramsky titled ‘The War Against the War on Drugs’.  This article details how state budget deficits across the country are pushing politicians, state prison...


ads keep care2 free
SHARES FROM ROBERT'S NETWORK
Nov
25
(0 comments  |  discussions )
Sean Goldman is still in Brazil! Please make sure that you have signed the petition demanding the return of this child to his father. Currently, the petition has over 55,000 signatures but needs as much support as possible. click here Also, please v...
(0 comments  |  discussions )
TIME is reporting a fascinating story today. Turns out, the Obama Administration just got a kick to the behind over the Defense of Marriage Act. How? Well, it took the form of a letter sent by a California Chief Judge in which he ordered an executive...
(0 comments  |  discussions )
The author is Professor Robert Watson of Lynn University who was once a writer for the New York Times. Professor Watson writes: Hi friends, I am always being asked to grade Obama's presidency. In place of offering him a grade, I put togethe...
(0 comments  |  discussions )
African dust bringing toxic chemicals to U.S., Caribbean; is it killing corals? Hurting people? :: I Source: invw.org It’s one of those increasingly frequent stories demonstrating that ecologically, the whole globe is connected &a...
(0 comments  |  discussions )
Salinity and the Murray River, from my own experience: I visited my inlaws in Mildura every year while my children were growing up. When my daughter was 2 we took the paddleboat cruise on the "Mighty Murray". I was shocked to learn then that the Murra...


ads keep care2 free
MORE ALERT
Nov 25
Alert: Return abducted minor Sean Goldman to his father by Kristi K.
(0 comments  |  discussions ) — Sean Goldman is still in Brazil! Please make sure that you have signed the petition demanding the return of this child to his father. Currently, the petition has over 55,000 signatures but needs as much support as possible. click here Also, please v... more
Alert: Petitions, letters and various November 25th November 2009 by Chantal B.
(0 comments  |  discussions ) — PETITIONShttp://www.thepe titionsite.com/1/to-end-b ullfighting-in-europehttp ://www.thepetitionsite.co m/1/ban-deer-dog-hunting- in-mississippihttp://www. thepetitionsite.com/130/p lease-help-grafton-pound- dogs-and-catshttp://www.t hepetitionsite.com/1/ban- ... more
Nov 24
Alert: iPhone/iPod Touch app for Care2? by Larry B.
(0 comments  |  discussions ) — Please sign my petition in hopes of getting a Care2 app for for the iPhone/iPod Touch created.   http://www.thepetitionsit e.com/1/create-a-care2-ap p-for-the-iphone-and-ipod -touch   Thank You more
Alert: Argos Animal Sanctuary Cyprus by Charli D.
(0 comments  |  discussions ) — Hi Everyone First of all a big thank you to everyone who has so far signed my petition to save our Cyprus Animal Sanctuary. For those of you who havent yet signed its at http://www.thepetitionsit e.com/28/please-stop-the- closure-of-our-cyprus-ani mal-s... more
Alert: EU Animal Experiment Directive - Action Needed!! by Joanna D.
(0 comments  |  0 discussions ) — http://www.care2.com/news /member/457397809/1312003 BUAV Shows Inadequacies of Proposals for EU Animal Experiment Directive - Action Needed!! BUAV Shows Inadequacies of Proposals for EU Animal Experiment Directive - Action Needed!! Animals&nbs... more
 
Content and comments expressed here are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates.
Copyright © 2009 Care2.com, inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved