Oops. Wrong link. Try this one. Actually, Bush says the plan applies to first and second time offenders, “irrespective of what their crime was, be given treatment.” Of course, this is a pathetic lie, as every reference to the bill I have come across says the treatment is for non-violent offenders only. Nobody other than Bush has claimed otherwise.
LOok - I"ve worked w/offenders since 1977, and have personally watched how the shifting sands of sentiment has affected the situtation WRT drug offenders.
I have no sympathies or illusions that Jeb has been a pioneer calling for treatment for drug abusers.
All I am saying is that I see zero evidence that Noelle’s case is being handled in any substantively different way than any other similar case in FL.
She was caught w/one phony script. I know about how the laws work WRT sales/personal use. It’s not always the amount of drugs, you know (in many of the cases I personally knew about, the amount of drugs was under $50, which is easily a ‘personal use’ issue, however, being involved in any way w/the transaction itself bought you a delivery charge, including merely pointing out the dope house). But in this case the facts that have been shown (she attempted to obtain one phony script) absolutely support treatment option vs. incarceration.
Where I believe the slashes in funding are being made are for those cases (like Robert Downey Jr in another jurisidiction) who’ve failed treatment several times. this might do it for Noelle (this is apparently her second ‘slip’ since going into treatment). Lawmakers and politicians have (lately from what I"ve seen) had little sympathy for ‘slips’. This (IIRC, or at least in my state of MI) started back in the mid/late 80’s. Sequence went like this: 1977 - if an offender had a verifiable drug history, they were designated “Theraputic Community ONly” - ie drug treatment required. By 1979, it was no longer required, but encouraged for those. By the early 80’s, some one could get lots of substance abuse tickets, and they were treated as any other violation, treatment consisted of monthly group sessions. However, by the late 80’s they started a ‘get tough’ program, 3 ‘dirties’ and the person was sent back to prison. Within a couple of years, it was “3 dirties and the person was sent to a treatment program”. And that’s sorta where it is today.
But the charge in teh OP is that Jeb’s daughters case is being handled in a substantively different manner, and therefore he should pardon everyone else. And I see no evidence for that position.
I am ever hopeful (that the cock-eyed optimist in me) that this personal view of how often substance abusers will likely slip while in treatment will bring home the absolute wisdom of having treatment options available, and be the primary response to drug addiction.
Well, the pertinent question would be “was the treatment option even available to normal people at the time?” According to this editorial by Florida TV station WPLG General Manager John Garwood, “Last month, the Florida Department of Corrections was forced to suspend new admissions into their treatment programs.”
The editorial was written in February. Noelle Bush was indeed arrested in January, the month before that.
I don’t practice law in Florida (or anywhere for that matter), however, in Michigan:
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The ‘Department of Corrections’, is a state department which oversees the prisons, parole and certain probationary settings.
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Individual counties are in charge of other probationers.
So, a statement about what the State D O C is doing does not necessarily mean that the individual county judges do not have treatment options available through diversionary programs etc.
I recall this whole damn thing getting a lotta publicity back in January. What your editorial does not do is say “and Noelle being in treatment is an exception”.
again, I would hope that this personal situation should bring it home to Mr. Bush what the actual ramifications of his political policies are (much like I suspect his brother was horrified that his own darlin’ daughters could potentially face those harsh laws enacted under his watch).
That’s why I’ve got that table in the liberal section ya know, I’m just an optimist.
Well, the article doesn’t actually say anything about Noelle, unless you count the vauge : “Even the family of Governor Jeb Bush isn’t immune to the drug crisis.”
I did not know that. Thank you.
Bricker, apparently I wasn’t clear enough, or you skimmed too fast. Yes, there are specific jurisdictions which have laws popularly described as “three strikes, you’re out”. I may not know the details as well as you, but that’s not the point. There is also a much broader, political, world in which it’s a facile statement to summarize a broader feeling that all law-breakers should be locked away. More specifically, it has been the rallying cry, notably in California but elsewhere too, for broader and more punitive (not to mention exceptionless) legislation than that which already exists. Surely you’ve encountered that context before outside your law office, and it is that shallow facileness as well as its hypocrisy that I was condemning - perhaps preemptively, but not wrongly, I’m sure you’ll admit.
A separate thread may be more appropriate for that subject, of course - but the case at hand would be a good illustration for it, so I reject the charge brought by the puzzlingly-reflexive wring of hijacking this one.
FTR, I’m with the camp that says locking druggies up just for being druggies is counterproductive in every way. Noelle Bush needs help wherever she can get it, obviously, but so do a lot of other people serving time for nothing more than what she did. Her uncle got help instead of jail for his own substance-abuse problem(s), remember, and look where he ended up.
what the hell is puzzeling? I’m in favor of treatment options, but see no evidence in this case that the govs’’ daughter’s case is being handled differently than any other similar case.
Yes, lots of folks love that trendy, catchy phrase ‘three strikes and you’re out’, but in no jurisdiction that I"m aware of, does it involve one felony and 2 probation violations (often referred to as status offenses). there’s simply not sufficient prison space anywhere (despite the build up) to accomodate that sort of thing. And your continued insistence that it has some relevance to this thread is the thing that’s puzzling.
I HAVE to ask for a site for this. ANd PLEASE tell me this was overturned on appeal. That’s insane.
According to the scroller at the bottom of this page, he was paroled in April 2001 after an intense letter-writing campaign to Governor Keating of Oklahoma. But that page is confusing and out of date…
Here is a letter from Will Foster written in 1997, from the PBS Frontline site. And here is an article about Mr. Foster in Reason magazine:
Ah, I didn’t know Foster had been paroled. Cool.
If you’re looking for even more stuff to make your blood boil, try this page which provides many examples of non-violent drug offenders receiving harsher sentences than murderers and rapists. It’s from the highly respected Shaffer Library of Drug Policy. The site’s owner, Cliff Shaffer, is a registered Doper. He participated in several of the drug-related GD threads in 2000.
Foster! What a scourge on decent, God fearing society. I am personally glad that our representatives have the moxy and the intelligence to remove this worthless piece of human refuge from our society. It is terribly distressing that through cheap legal wrangling that he was able to unlock his shackles and rejoin society as a functioning productive member. Who the hell does he think he is? How dare he be able to pay taxes again! I’ll just bet he can walk down the street and talk to us “regular people” and not even be recognized as the vermin that he is. My God, what about the children!
The drug laws are just the tool that the organized crimminal has put in place to make his commodity more valuable to him, more proffits. In the case of cocaine, the legal price in 1980 was 2 cents (pharmacy’s price), that’s two american pennies for one gram of cocaine. That same cocaine on the street went for U.S.$120.00, that is what, a 5000% increase? Good proffit margin there folks.
Read YOUR Constitution, Bill of RIGHTS, Amendment #9 “The enumeration of certain rights in the Constitution is not to be conscrewed to deny or disparage others, RETAINED by the People.” Now please refer to the 18th and then the 21st Amendments and ask yourself how the government can keep the prohibition of other intoxicants from the people of this nation.
I can make a very intoxicating liquid from the stems and leaves of the hemp plant. Why would an intoxicating smoke be banned? Could it have something to do with jesus making some wine? Another law respecting some establishment of a religion?
Now I am asking you to wake up to the real threat. The changing of the deffinition of common words for the goals of organized crimminals. The word I am refering to is contained in the U.S. Constitution, where else! The fourth Amendment to the Bill of RIGHTS, I’m paraphrasing 'cause I don’t have it handy(the 9th amendment is memorized real good), #4, “The people to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures of their person, papers, property, and effects,”. I did a stupid thing, I grabbed a Black’s Law dictionary and looked up each and every word. I had no problem with any deffinition except when I read what they said “EFFECTS” meant. You will never guess it so here it is, simply one word describes “effects”, and it is “property”. If I made up a list of four objects to become immortalized in the Constitution, I think I would have listed four DIFFERENT things rather than,“persons, papers, property, and property”.
GET IT? Are you going to let the organized crimminal run your nation into the gutter for that extra proffit he makes from YOU? The organization has jails, jailers, judges, police, lawyers, and all the people that make the tools for them. It turns out to be a great economy, to halt a right and make it a crime. The only true problem any street drug has caused people to suffer, other than the rare death from an overdose, is the economic hardship the extra 5000% increase in it’s cost will cause.
Good night
and all of this relates to the OP… how?
Perhaps he intended to establish a tie between politicians in organized crime and those in government.
Obviously, as a libertarian myself, I advocate the decriminalization of drugs. My only concern about giving all drug offenders rehab treatment is the cost. I don’t think it’s the place of government to be funding that sort of thing, and most people who would be sent to rehab under a decriminalized system of enforcement would be impoverished people who could not support the cost themselves.
I would have to advocate a decriminalization, but without public funding of rehab, and hope that charitable organizations can fill the void over time (such as the Shriners, if they were to expand to that area, they might be able to get the professionals necessary to implement such a system.) If not, at least we would no longer be sending people to jail for a victimless crime.
wring, I’ll try to state it even more simply for you (and try nto to go into automatic-flame mode this time, will ya? That’s what I meant by “reflexive”, and you’ve been doing a lot of it lately, m’kay?). There is a strong strain of “lock-'em-all-up” sentiment in the US. Simple-minded, thoughtless, heedless of consequences, dismissive of any possibility of nuance, but strong nevertheless.
Agreed? Good. Now, that sentiment finds its most cogent expression in a legislative agenda, which has been put in place in various forms in various jurisdictions, as the old baseball expression that you’re having trouble with. What should actually constitute a “strike” when the legislation is actually passed is not subject to universal agreement among the “lock-'em-all-up” crowd - what matters to them is the satisfaction of locking 'em all up, whoever “they” may be and whatever “they” may have done. Drug users are a very common category of “they”, though.
Still agreeing with that assessment? Good.
Now, if Noelle Bush had been a poor, obscure black, after three drug arrests, what would the “lock-'em-all-up” crowd have said, if asked? I think you know as well as any of us - and excusing different treatment by the legal system for her is, of course, hypocritical.
Still agreed? Good. Peace.
Mr2001 and Neutron Star, thanks for the Will Foster story and related links. I had no idea the problem was that widespread?
It is amazing how many of you Americans with the freedom to think, and yet you have bought the entire notion of “drug are bad” and they have no place in the world.
They have a word for the information you have considered to be “gospel”, propaganda.
The drug dealer is the best of the best when you look at the field of Capitalism. In a Capitalist world, the commodity to market is the only goal, and the drug dealer has obtained the willing and determined services of the United states Navy, Airforce, Army and Marines, along with the CIA and FBI, to smuggle to commodity from a foreign lands to get to your streets.
If it were not for the considered help of the above mentioned agencies, the drugs could never cross the borders to get here in the first place. Now don’t you tell me some individuals stuffing balloons full of drugs into themselves, are going to fill warehouses full of bricks of drugs in this counrty. The balloon stuffers are the direct competition of the crimminal government.
Listen people, I’m giving you the straight “dope”. Grugs are not bad, like guns are not bad, the improper use of, can be harmfull, but not nessesarily IS harmfull. The real problem from street drug use, is mainly the unusualy high cost of the black market item, that begets the crimminal nature to get more cash than a legitimate employment opportunity would offer.
When you look at the entire picture through the eyes of history, it was a great plan to demonize the intoxicants people liked to use.
Some will say it is a “disease” to want to use a drug in the first place, then what is the govenors sickness? Could it be the scumbag nature of her daddies proffesion or the stress that accompanies it that has her in a mental disstress?
Get real people, the “organized crimminal” does NOT want the drugs legalized, that includes all the parasites making the million dollar salary in your government to prevent the user of drugs from getting his drug.
As I mentioned earlier, the most disgusting aspect of all this, is the people beleiving that propaganda, “drugs are bad”, why do doctors go first to the meds if they are so bad people?
Do I need to state the real problem with drugs? I guess so with so many easily fooled people running around. The behavior of some people, turn nasty when under the influence of drugs, especialy stimulants. But we get the same result from people that take deppresents. Not all people react to the same chemicals the same way, some can maintain the pleasent nature of humans, while others do not know how to control themselves. There is where the propagandist has a point and only there. If you have watched the entire propaganda film “Reefer Madness”, you would first notice it was the sex pervert that lost it, not the drug induced people, the sex pervert was the real problem.
We have laws that presume to take care of violent crimes, property crimes, generaly crimes that include victims. We do not need vice laws. Vice laws are enacted for the crimminal organizations needs.
Didn’t the regan administration enact harsher sentenses for the “druggy”, then they proceded to smuggle in tones of cocaine from the south, as they were transporting it, (oly north), stepped on it so much(cut it with baby laxitive, to enlarge the weight-proffit), it had to be “freebased” to purify it before it could be used. The Regan presidency INVENTED crack cocaine, for the crimminal act of getting weapons of mass destruction to our number one enemy at the time!
It is no wonder you will follow the propaganda mans whims, when you see a man invent a new “dangerous drug” and you see him as the best of the best.
I’m afraid to say it, but your own demise is probably deserved?
To allow your government to crimminalize what was your rights,
Confused? see my first post.
typos are kool
The problem with that idea is that the major church-sponsored rehab program is Narconon, which is run by the Church of Scientology. Since they’ve already got a foothold in several states, I think they’d be the big player in the game. Those old men in their go-carts have enough to do with the children’s hospitals and the 4th of July parades.
But really, let’s not help out those who don’t have the means to become business magnates. And let’s not help out those who die while charitable organizations are filling the void “over time.” :rolleyes:
So you’re not talking about - or decrying - not any specific jurisdictions’ policies, but rather the general “lock’em up up and let 'em rot” sentiment expressed by the faceless crowd.
OK. I certainly agree with that. I’m against mandatory sentences.
- Rick