So Texas, in an attempt to combat overcrowding in its jails, passed a law allowing police officers to write a ticket as opposed to arresting people who are found with marijuana in their possession. Now you cant walk around with a lit joint in your mouth and a pound of that sticky in your hand but if you get pulled over and you are found in possession of under 4 oz. of marijuana you can get a misdemeanor ticket as opposed to being hauled in.
Several prosecuters across the sate think that by turning this action into a ticketable offence as opposed to an offence where you would be taken in an proccessed will make people less fearful of being causght. They feel this law likens this offence to that of double parking. Not to be a smart ass (ok maybe a little) but couldnt double parking (if in the right situation) be life threatening? That is actually a serious offence. I mean if we are going to go through all the possible outcomes for an action and base our punishment on that then every action we take could place us in line for the death penalty. A double parked car could:
1)Block in a surgeon who is needed to perform emergency surgery
2)Make it harder for a emergency vehicle to maneuver around and possibly make them
late for the emergency in which they are rushing to
3)It could lower the visablity of other drivers around it thus causing an accident
4)A person who gets away with double parking could feel like they could get away with
other crimes just as easily and withouth reprocutions.
People Double Parking is a gateway crime and we need to focus more attention on it and the effects of it on our community!!!!
Yeah that sounds ridiculous doesn't it? When was the last time you heard about a guy getting high and then going out on a rampage? Or someone who gets high then robs a bank? Majority of the time pot heads get high and get stuck to the couch. The anti drug advocates make sure to point that out in their ads. One in perticular is where there are 3 guys sitting on the couch and talking about what they are missing out on and finally one gets up and leaves. However we are supposed to be afraid of stoners like they are responsible for some sort of heinous crime. Like they are going to snap one day and just go ape shit. No stoners are lazy people, they just want to get high and chill out.
I am not saying that Marijuana is a safe drug. There is no such thing as a safe drug. Its all about proportions. Car accidents could be caused by a stoner whose attention was caught by a shiny object. A child could get hurt when the irresponsible mother/babysiter/care taker gets high and loses track of them or pays less attention to them. Yeah shit like that happens. There are tons of bad things that could happen, but there are tons of bad possibilities for each and ever action we take. Wheather its as mundane as not checking in our shoes before we put them on, or its something else. There is always the possiblity for catastrophe.
When you talk to someone who is anti-marijuana they will have a list of reasons why it is bad and 9 times out of 10 the list could be used to describe a legal intoxicant: alcohol. Alcohol has been proven to kill us, people kill other people, people kill other living things, peolple drive and crash. Alcohol tears families apart, it takes people from us who we need. It changes the best people to monsters and it is availible at ever corner store. When you try to make that point people rebute it with the fact that a person has to know their own limit. That is the exact same thing for marijuana, just know your limit and dont do anything stupid.
I am not calling for prohibition to be reinstated, far from it. I just would like people to actually pay attention. To take a look at this from another view point. When we have a jail full of potheads will we turn the nurderers loose? Where will we send the rapist when the cell he should be in is currently occupied by a 18 year old who decided to smoke pot? What do we do then? Are we headed to giving people the death penalty just to make sure the turnover rate for our cells matches the rate in which we are sending people to jail?
So Texas felt similarly to how i feel, and they passed the law allowing police officers to ticket people for misdemenor marijuana charges. They hoped it would help out people all around.
1)It saves gas for the police forces with the officers having to go back and forth from the
station to the streets
2)Allow officers to focus their attention on violent crimes (wow what a notion!!!)
3)More street time for officers and less paperwork
4)Less nonviolent offenders taking up room in our overcrowded jails
These all sound like awesome ideas and for these ideas to come from a republican state like Texas is just awe inspiring. I believe i am going to vote to reelect my state reps, if this is the type of thinking that we are going to be getting from them. Our local officials though, they might have to go.
When speaking to the Dallas Morning News, Collin County prosecutor Greg Davis said Tuesday "It may...lead some people to believe that drug use is no more serious than double parking" (hence my double parking freak out above)
Dallas county officals cite the fact that with tickets there are a few problems that arise. One being that the dont have any way to make sure for certain that these people are going to show up in court. That is so fucked up. We trust that the man who was involved in a traffic accident will show up for court. We dont second guess if the jaywalker is going to show. We just give people tickets and tell them where and when. We even have a system set up for people who dont show up. See a judge will issue a little thing called a warrant (maybe you have heard of it). We cant treat nonviolent offenders as if they are violent dangers to society. That will only breed violent criminals.
One county in Texas is taking advantage of this new law and their city is still standing! I know its shocking but this county is actually seeing the results of this law and they arent running into any large problems.
Travis County Sheriffs Spokesperson Roger Wade had this to say: "We are still hard on crime, we believe if we can save resources and have the same effect on crime, then we should take advantage of this"
I think you can tell how i feel about this law by this post. Now for the million dollar question: Do I partake of the herb? That is apart of the problem though we shouldnt see people as pot heads and not pot heads or see them by their religion, or skin tone. We should rate each person by their ideas and actions not by their hobbies. If a person was feeding hungry children or homeless people and when reaching in their pocket for some change to pass on a joint falls out, will we jail them?
articles worth note:
Original Story Posted On KVIA
Interesting article i found on why marijuana was actually made illegal
Marijuana stats for Hennepin County, Minn
MARIJUANA.com
National Institute On Drug Abuse page about marijuana
No comments:
Post a Comment