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Reporter Who Quit On Air in Support of Pot Legalization Facing 54 Years in Prison

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Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
In cases where someone breaks a law that is about to change, prosecutorial and investigatorial discretion should opt not to prosecute; and if they do prosecute, judges and juries should use maximum discretion not to punish. Literally any on the books law is more important to enforce than a law that is being sunset months later.

If the state wants to make a point about being sticklers for bureaucratic procedure, an appropriate sanction would be for prosecutors to negotiate a consent degree that involves a reasonable civil asset forfeiture, rather than a criminal proceeding.
 

duckroll

Member
Anybody else feel like alcohol will be illegal in a hundred years and the fact we consume it en masse will be a quirk in the history books...?

Less than a hundred years ago, alcohol was illegal in America and the fact that people still consumed it en masse is a major point in history books that such an action cannot truly be enforced.
 

Rootbeer

Banned
Legalize, legalize, legalize. Get out and Vote this November. I know that at least here in California, where we are once again voting in attempt to legalize, a Yes vote can go a long way towards overturning marijuana-related sentencing. We can help put a stop to our own government spending all these resources on raiding small businesses such as hers and ruining their lives.
 

Erevador

Member
It is a travesty that a substance no more dangerous than alcohol or tabacco is resulting in ruined lives. This is a substance that the last three presidents have themselves gotten away with using, whilst so many of the people they govern have been jailed for it. A complete moral failure.

Time to stop ruining lives over these non-violent, victimless "crimes."
 

Erevador

Member
Anybody else feel like alcohol will be illegal in a hundred years and the fact we consume it en masse will be a quirk in the history books...?
Much more likely that social taboos against heavy drinking will become more prevalent as we learn more and more about how harmful it is. Smoking rates (especially amongst teenagers) have plummeted in the last twenty years, due to effective information campaigns.

There are plenty of ways to discourage the use of harmful substances without getting law enforcement involved.
 

entremet

Member
Thanks Obama.

No, seriously, what the fuck is with the justice department's continued persecution of a drug that's going to be legal nationwide within a decade anyway? I don't even like marijuana and I am completely dumbfounded as to the response of lawmakers, police, and the judiciary to this issue in the last few years. The steadfast refusal to accept marijuana as less dangerous than tobacco or alcohol is one of the greatest failings of leadership in my lifetime, and I've lived through some pretty stupid shit. I guess when you've got something you can use to imprison a disproportionate number of blacks and hispanics, you hold tight and never let go, logic, justice or basic human decency be damned.
Nothing to do with Obama or Justice Department as these are state charges.
 

USC-fan

Banned
Sad thing I dont see anything changing under Clinton. Her daughter just this week said weed is causing deaths in Colorado : / like wtf....


Saw an article this week saying it may cost her losing Colorado.
 

Aselith

Member
Don't quit your day job...

Oh wait.

She would have been fired the moment they found out about her association with the club anyways. Her connection with the club should have prevented her from reporting on it which means she didn't disclose before presenting the story. She was on some fucking shit with everything she did regarding that news report, she must have been high as kite when she thought up that plan lol.

Regardless though, 54 years is crazy overkill. Drug laws are something else.
 

USC-fan

Banned
She would have been fired the moment they found out about her association with the club anyways. Her connection with the club should have prevented her from reporting on it which means she didn't disclose before presenting the story. She was on some fucking shit with everything she did regarding that news report, she must have been high as kite when she thought up that plan lol.

Regardless though, 54 years is crazy overkill. Drug laws are something else.
Drugs laws for weed are insane.

In my state you get caught with anyweed at all it's a $600+ fine and you lose you driver license for a year!! This is a clear way to keep poor people down. It's sickening.

It's one of the biggest issues for me in this election and look like it just going to more of the same old.

This is coming from someone that hasn't smoked in over 10 years.
 
Curious to see how they'll make them stick, considering the records already indicate she wasn't directly involved, it just happened in her club
 

Ryzaki009

Member
I remember this woman, holy shit at the number of years they threw at her. It's like she murdered someone.

The war on drugs still finding new battles to fight I see.

Embarrassing.

Nah if she murdered someone she'd gotten half the time.

Incredible.
 

entremet

Member
White people's weed/business interests. Weed legalization is for white people.

Relevant:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/amandachic...only-weed-boom?utm_term=.kmOZ11W3B#.rakzaaNel

Although 2.5 million black people live in California — more than in all the states that have legalized recreational marijuana combined — you don’t see many of them sitting on panels at cannabis conferences or weighing in on the latest marijuana court case in the Los Angeles Times.

Over the past few years, the Distributor watched with growing anticipation as a majority of the country came to see the folly of incarcerating addicts and nonviolent drug offenders for long periods of time. He watched CNN and Fox News. He listened, breathless, to former Attorney General Eric Holder’s speech to the American Bar Association in August 2013, when he announced a plan to shift the focus of the criminal justice system away from nonviolent drug crimes.

Colorado and Washington had just legalized recreational weed, and the Distributor took Holder’s speech to mean that marijuana would soon be an acceptable business. “That’s the top lawman!” he said. “I was like, OK, he is not going after the dispensary like that. I want to be a part of that, then.“

Instead, as the Department of Justice reaffirmed in a memo released later that month, cannabis business owners in states that lacked a well-regulated system — language aimed rather pointedly at California — would still be considered criminals, subject to prosecution and seizure of their property and cash. Even after Congress passed a spending bill in 2014 that said no federal money could be used to target medical marijuana operators, the raids in California continued.
 

Air

Banned
I can't really come up with a snarky comment that hasn't already been said. This is like the definition of insanity, especially when you compare to that rapist who got 3 months or really anything else. What exactly is this supposed to do?
 

Gurrry

Member
Better lock up all those pot smokers. Everyone knows that they are basically murderers.

Give me a fucking break. This country is such a joke.
 

Da-Kid

Member
This is just America. Justice here is solely dependant on your race, if you're a minority just expect to get the maximum or absolutely ridiculous. Even despite evidence of innocence without a shadow of a doubt.

That's what I've learned, seen, and that's what I'm facing.
 
She broke the laws. Yes cannabis is now legal here in Alaska, but she wasn't following the rules setup to govern the process. Hell, no legal product has been sold to date.

She has very little good will in the state because she's the one breaking laws while others are trying to prove we can follow laws like adults.

Doesn't deserve any jail time but she should be fined and excluded from opening a site for a year.
We all know she broke the law but the sentence is what is getting people angry. Alaska sucks, even more that it's people can't see what's wrong with giving 54 years to someone for these charges.
 

Risible

Member
The sentence is ludicrous.

That being said, she was definitely in the wrong. She was reporting on a business that she was secretly the head of? She was running a "club" that was basically an illegal drug selling operation, one that was popular enough that she had four siblings working on it with her?

No matter your opinion on pot, she was way way wrong, and I don't buy the whole "I'm doing it to help medical marijuana users" schtick. I suspect she was making bank big time.
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
I agree the potential sentence is harsh...but I kind of think of as "stupid tax." Like, what she did was real fucking stupid. Really, really stupid.
 

Beartruck

Member
Whew, thank goodness, they were just barely able to sneak past the deadline long enough to ruin a person's life. I was worried for a moment that the police would do the right thing.
 

Da-Kid

Member
I don't smoke at all and never will but I'll never understand how weed is illegal but alcohol isn't when alcohol is the cause of thousands of deaths each year and is abused by millions, it's also objectively a worse drug.
 
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