.....it seems like a reasonable thing to do , since the so called war on drugs has been a waste of time, money and human lives......java
hxxps://www.newsweek.com/democrats-unveil-bill-decriminalize-drug-possession-federal-level-expunge-records-1600839
my observation IRL, it seems, is that police are no longer jailing drug dealers, even 'traffickers'. People get arrested, and then not much more happens. like they bust the person, take away whatever they have on them, and then drive them home.goddamn it's about time.
Wish I could say the time. I’ve been to prison multiple times for drugs, hell most of my friends have. I have a lot of friends who aren’t getting out of the feds OR state for a long time.
While sentencing AND earlier release options are getting better in my state, any dope case in the feds you are looking at 10 years minimum. For reference btw, if you know anyone who got indicted for drugs and somehow got out in 5 years (downward departure from the sentencing guidelines), they told. Period. End of story. The MAJORITY of people I know from doing time, are drug dealers. Not to say that’s the majority of people in there, the number of sex offenders in Medium custody in some states is absurdly high but it’s not like I’d ever have anything to do with them anyway.
The feds are full of drug cases. There’s only so many things they regularly prosecute, so many things are simply only dealt with at the state level but drugs is at the top of their list. It also seems to be a crap shoot whether they or the state charges you. I’ve done all my time in the state system, but I have friends who did less and got caught with less who will be coming out of federal prison feet first. Guess I’ll call myself lucky and stay out of trouble from now on.
yes, agreed, and yes agreed.
The main reason, from a purely legal standpoint, of why you don't wanna get indicted from state to federal, is because like 4 or 5 other English speaking countries, the USA follows Common Law, which is defined by judicial precedent as WELL as by legislative statute. And somehow the way the surreal war on drugs story unfolded in the federal courts, the whole "drug addiction is a disease not a crime" aka, drug possession is required to charge someone with a drug crime, well it played out a bti differenty federally .
They can do historical cases and charge someone not with "Possession of x amount of class A substance" - "with intent to distribute" like normal, but they can use indirect evidence to charge someone with "Moved a total of 10 tonnes since we first began surveillance, 4 years ago"
The times that are changing have begun to change only JUST recently. Some states have 'shooting galleries' now. And the feds say "we'll just support whatever is decided on the state level".
There's decriminilization of hard drugs.
In my state there's a huge grant fund now, that is made exclusively available to those that have done time for non violent drug offences. Can be ANY drug. And the grant provides crap loads of resources to get seriously into the emerging cannabis industry.
It's like they're finally saying "ok yes we'll stop, and yes, we're sorry"
All of this is still in a small percentage of only the most cutting-edge(eye-roll) political areas.
ANd obviously covid catalyzed most of this. Sure they don't like to admit this, but they do .