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4 comments

1 alinuxguru  Fri, Jun 15, 2012 5:52:50am

Incarceration is good for private prisons. That is why we criminalize Marijuana: Because private prisons are job creators.

2 Daniel Ballard  Fri, Jun 15, 2012 8:51:46am

re: #1 alinuxguru

How then do we explain the incarceration rates in public prisons?

3 alinuxguru  Fri, Jun 15, 2012 11:17:52am

re: #2 Daniel Ballard

If I gave the impression that only private prisons benefit from the US' irrational drug policies, my apologies.

Other beneficiaries and lobbyists promoting and funding drug interdiction laws include: the alcohol industry, law enforcement agenies, drug testing companies and the addiction recovery industry.

And, let's not forget that the drug industry itself benefits vastly. After all, you cannot make money selling Marinol if the real, natural thing is more freely available.

The California beer distributors group, alone, contributed over $10,000 to help fight Proposition 19.

4 Achilles Tang  Sat, Jun 16, 2012 8:54:48am

It is silly to attribute these statistics to pot, or poor pot users doing something that many, myself included, think should be legal and controlled like tobacco or booze; or to attribute it to a grand conspiracy.

Simple possession seldom results in prison sentences without additional violations. The sellers, and habitual sellers of all drugs, not just pot, are with few exceptions professional criminals and a majority have other crimes on their record.

If there is a strong reason to decriminalize pot it is not to keep hoodlums out of jail, but to make it harder for them to make a living off it. Nevertheless if that were to happen I am convinced that the same group will still be in and out of prison (yes, those in now have largely been in before) and will still be doing the same thing, but with harder drugs, or other crimes like burglary to make up for the loss of business.

Until we have a system where a large sector of the population is essentially unemployable in anything else, this will always be with us.

Needless to say, the users, from entertainers to roofers who use the stuff are also to blame.


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