# President Obama's latest pardons. Are these really the most deserving? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 18, 2015, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813 "2015-12-18T23:48:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/1 "2015-12-18T23:48:30Z")
[The 95 people pardoned.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/12/18/here-are-the-95-people-whose-sentences-obama-just-commuted/) I’m seeing a whole lot of crack/meth dealers on that list. I’m puzzled: surely there are more deserving cases than the scum who deal in these lethal drugs? ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/2 "2015-12-19T00:02:40Z")
Look at the dates of the convictions, they are typically in early-mid 1990s. These are minor drug dealers who have served 20-30 years in prison. a lot of murderers. and most rapists serve less time that. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/3 "2015-12-19T00:02:57Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > [The 95 people pardoned.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/12/18/here-are-the-95-people-whose-sentences-obama-just-commuted/) > > I’m seeing a whole lot of crack/meth dealers on that list. I’m puzzled: surely there are more deserving cases than the scum who deal in these lethal drugs? The sole information in the linked article is the names of those pardoned, in what state they were charged, the offenses they were convicted on and the length of their sentences. Without some minimal bit of context, establishing why these particular people are being pardoned at all, I’ll have to decline rendering an opinion. I’m way too busy to research this, but if someone can be turn up some detail, I’ll listen. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/4 "2015-12-19T00:31:03Z")
He actually only pardoned two people. The rest got their sentences commuted. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/5 "2015-12-19T01:49:17Z")
Anyone who has not initiated violent force against the person or property of another person deserves to be freed. This includes many more individuals than have been pardoned here. I’m glad they got out, but I’d like to see Obama pardon his political prisoners before he gets out. ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/6 "2015-12-19T02:00:11Z")
One of the racist effects of the War on Drugs is that sentences for crack are much stricter than for the powdered cocaine preferred by white folks. Without knowing anything about the cases in question, pardoning crack dealers seems like a step in the right direction toward righting historic wrongs. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/7 "2015-12-19T02:20:10Z")
Thanks, guys. Ignorance fought. I should have looked below the surface ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/8 "2015-12-19T02:25:49Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Anyone who has not initiated violent force against the person or property of another person deserves to be freed. This includes many more individuals than have been pardoned here. I’m glad they got out, but I’d like to see Obama\*\* pardon his political prisoners\*\* before he gets out. And those would be…? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/9 "2015-12-19T10:05:46Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Anyone who has not initiated violent force against the person or property of another person deserves to be freed. This includes many more individuals than have been pardoned here. I’m glad they got out, but I’d like to see Obama pardon his political prisoners before he gets out. Yeah, I’m with running coach. What’chu talkin’ 'bout, Willis?` ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/10 "2015-12-19T11:14:37Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > [The 95 people pardoned.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/12/18/here-are-the-95-people-whose-sentences-obama-just-commuted/) > > I’m seeing a whole lot of crack/meth dealers on that list. I’m puzzled: surely there are more deserving cases than the scum who deal in these lethal drugs? It seems kind of silly to criminalize some recreational drugs and not others. Have you considered the toll for alcohol and cigarettes? What about the scum who sell those two items? Here’s an idea: let people entertain their own lives with their own choices. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/11 "2015-12-19T12:27:53Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > And those would be…? > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Yeah, I’m with running coach. What’chu talkin’ 'bout, Willis?` Those imprisoned by taxes! ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/12 "2015-12-19T12:41:28Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > It seems kind of silly to criminalize some recreational drugs and not others. [“Between 2002 and 2013, the rate of heroin-related overdose deaths nearly quadrupled, and more than 8,200 people died in 2013,” CDC said.](http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/heroin-deaths-quadruple-across-us-n388006) While I don’t endorse marijuana smoking, I think there is a non-silly difference in the number of deaths between marijuana and heroin, justifying different policies. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Have you considered the toll for alcohol and cigarettes? Alcohol consumption (and production) is criminalized at certain times and places. Even cigarette use is illegal in many places. What about the toll for recreational motor vehicle driving? Thousands a year likely die from that. And yet there is no problem with having different rules for that and cocaine. Each of these more or less dangerous recreations have a combination of laws and regulations. There are places where you would be fined if you smoked a cigarette but offered help to quit if you were seen shooting up heroin. All this is quite relevant to the thread title. It is impossible to set up a system where the law acts so that a morally worse offense is, in every one of millions of cases, always punished less than a greater one. I’m not going to throw out the whole system of law – or of pardons – as a result, just as I’m not going to send a message that heroin is a-OK. And if marijuana legalization is a slippery slope to selling heroin to all comers in CVS, I would be be against it. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/13 "2015-12-19T13:13:25Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Here’s an idea: let people entertain their own lives with their own choices. A cocaine or heroin dealer is not enabling people to choose how to entertain themselves any more than a date rapist is. They are in the business of preying on the mentally ill - a self-inflicted mental illness, sure, but still incapable of providing the consent necessary to make their business anything less than evil. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/14 "2015-12-19T16:07:55Z")
Basically these people were imprisoned when the penalties were much harsher than they are today for drug offenses, and the effect of the commutations is to cut down the length of the sentences so that they would be much closer to what currently sentenced prisoners serve. There are many thousands of prisoners in this situation. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/15 "2015-12-19T17:19:54Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > And those would be…? > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Yeah, I’m with running coach. What’chu talkin’ 'bout, Willis?` Perhaps he is going for what me and many others have pointed out before, Obama is not the one that deserves the whole blame, but all the ones in congress that do not want to end the war on drugs. What me and others pointed before is that anyone that is in prison for drug offences that were not involved in violence **are our political prisoners.** This is because, when one thinks about it, it is clear that drugs remain criminalized for many nations just for political reasons. [As the evidence demonstrates that most drugs are less harmful than alcohol.](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/nov/01/alcohol-more-harmful-than-heroin-crack) ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/16 "2015-12-19T17:42:54Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > [As the evidence demonstrates that most drugs are less harmful than alcohol.](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/nov/01/alcohol-more-harmful-than-heroin-crack) _That study does not look at the evidence._ It’s a survey. You are appealing to the authority of someone else’s appeal to authority. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/17 "2015-12-19T17:55:06Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > _That study does not look at the evidence._ It’s a survey. You are appealing to the authority of someone else’s appeal to authority. [Morbo]Debunkings don’t work that way[/Morbo] You need to show that the surveys (it is not just one as the article mentions) are not looking at the data. Those BTW are not the only studies made of the matter. > **[New Study Finds Marijuana Safer Than Alcohol Or Tobacco](https://www.iflscience.com/new-study-suggests-risks-marijuana-use-have-been-overestimated-27342)** > > New Study Finds Marijuana Safer Than Alcohol Or Tobacco ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/18 "2015-12-19T18:09:27Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > You need to show that the surveys (it is not just one as the article mentions) are not looking at the data. [Another article on the same study:](http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm) > [@](#): > > Researchers led by Professor David Nutt, a former chief drugs adviser to the British government, asked drug-harm experts to rank 20 drugs (legal and illegal) on 16 measures of harm to the user and to wider society, such as damage to health, drug dependency, economic costs and crime. Alcohol is the most harmful drug in Britain, scoring 72 out of a possible 100, far more damaging than heroin (55) or crack cocaine (54). It is the most harmful to others by a wide margin, and is ranked fourth behind heroin, crack, and methamphetamine (crystal meth) for harm to the individual. The authors point out that the model’s weightings, though based on judgment, were analysed and found to be stable as large changes would be needed to change the overall rankings. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/19 "2015-12-19T18:20:05Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > [Another article on the same study:](http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm) And that does not take away what they reported, the most important thing is precisely to check with other studies to see if they are confirming what others found before, indeed others did: > **[Comparative risk assessment of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and other illicit...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311234/)** > > A comparative risk assessment of drugs including alcohol and tobacco using the margin of exposure (MOE) approach was conducted. The MOE is defined as ratio between toxicological threshold (benchmark dose) and estimated human intake. Median lethal... > [@](#): > > Compared to medicinal products or other consumer products, risk assessment of drugs of abuse has been characterised as deficient, much of this is based on historical attribution and emotive reasoning1. The available data are often a matter of educated guesses supplemented by some reasonably reliable survey data from the developed nations2. > > Only in the past decade, have there been some approaches to qualitatively and quantitatively classify the risk of drugs of abuse. These efforts tried to overcome legislative classifications, which were often found to lack a scientific basis3. UNODC suggested the establishment of a so-called Illicit Drug Index (IDI), which contained a combination of a dose index (the ratio between the typical dose and a lethal dose) and a toxicology index (concentration levels in the blood of people who died from overdose compared with the concentration levels in persons who had been given the drug for therapeutic use)4. King and Corkery5 suggested an index of fatal toxicity for drugs of misuse that was calculated as the ratio of the number of deaths associated with a substance to its availability. Availability was determined by three separate proxy measures (number of users as determined by household surveys, number of seizures by law enforcement agencies and estimates of the market size). Gable6 provided one of the earliest toxicologically founded approaches in a comparative overview of psychoactive substances. The methodology was based on comparing the “therapeutic index” of the substances, which was defined as the ratio of the median lethal dose (LD50) to the median effective dose (ED50). The results were expressed in a qualitative score as safety margin from “very small” (e.g. heroin) to “very large” (e.g. cannabis). In a follow-up study, Gable7 refined the approach and now provided a numerical safety ratio, which allowed a rank-ordering of abused substances. > [@](#): > > Many governments in Europe have favoured more restrictive policies with respect to illicit drugs than for alcohol or tobacco, on the grounds that they regard both illicit drug abuse and related problems as a significantly larger problem for society58. Drug rankings can therefore be useful to inform policy makers and the public about the relative importance of licit drugs (including prescription drugs) and illicit drugs for various types of harm58. > > Our MOE results confirm previous drug rankings based on other approaches. Specifically, the results confirm that the risk of cannabis may have been overestimated in the past. At least for the endpoint of mortality, the MOE for THC/cannabis in both individual and population-based assessments would be above safety thresholds (e.g. 100 for data based on animal experiments). In contrast, the risk of alcohol may have been commonly underestimated. > > Our results confirm the early study of Gable6 who found that the margin of safety (defined as therapeutic index) varied dramatically between substances. In contrast, our approach is not based on a therapeutic index, which is not necessarily associated with risk, but uses the most recent guidelines for risk assessment of chemical substances, which also takes the population-based exposure into account. In the study I mentioned early the researchers do make the point that while they did start on a judgement basis their point is that making other judgements (like thinking that there are some items that make the other drugs more harmful than alcohol) are not supported by the reported cases. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813/20 "2015-12-19T18:27:52Z")
BTW David Nutt is a psychiatrist and neuropsychopharmacologist, I do think that your say so that I’m committing a fallacy of an appeal to authority is misguided; to be a fallacy the ones pushing a study either pretend to talk on behalf of someone that is in authority but never really supported that study, or that they claim to have an authority that they do not have. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obamas-latest-pardons-are-these-really-the-most-deserving/740813.md?page=2)