Weird Reaction

We all know the bum rap recreational drugs have received in the United States and other countries. However, many governments are finally making the shift towards more progressive drug policies, treating use as a health matter rather than a criminal matter. There’s good reason for this. Take a short glance into some of the cases we’ve gathered here and you’ll understand why a shift has to be made. Too many families and lives have been torn by mandatory minimums and botched SWAT raids.

Not Such a Super Bowl

Lawrence Tynes is a Super Bowl winning kicker, hoisting the trophy with the NY Giants in their upset victory over the New England Patriots 3 seasons ago. What you don’t know about Lawrence is that his brother is currently serving a 27 year sentence in a federal penitentiary for selling pot.  From the kicker’s own mouth:

“I’m not embarrassed about it. Everyone has skeletons in the closet or whatever. You could go in that locker room and find 50 other stories probably similar to mine. He’s my brother. I love him. He made some bad choices. Rightfully so, he should be punished. But the extent of the punishment, to me, is ridiculous.”

Though Mark Tynes allegedly moved nearly two tons of cannabis between Texas and Florida over the course of several years, his severe sentence came as a result of him refusing to be an informant — a choice made by many defendants in drug cases.

But Mark Tynes had a record, including felony convictions for possession. And he “paid a heavy penalty for refusing to cooperate,” a managing assistant United States attorney told The Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal after sentencing. The others cooperated fully. They became government witnesses. Lawrence Tynes watched as each testified against his brother.  — New York Times

Sadly, the other four defendants in the case were all released before 2007, leaving their boyhood friend to rot until 2026.

Some Dubai Cases

If you are traveling anywhere overseas, just make sure your plane doesn’t make a stop in Dubai. If you’re planning a vacation there, stop! The minimum sentence for possession is 4 years in prison and there are even cases of travelers being sent to prison for failing to claim cough medicine and having leftover poppy seeds from breakfast. How does Dubai expect to be the tourist hot-spot of the world if they are arresting people and incarcearting them for years at a time for such trivial amounts of banned substances?

“A Briton, traveling through Dubai on his way to England, was arrested and sentenced to 4 years in jail, for having a microscopic piece of cannabis stuck to the bottom of one of his shoes. Keith Brown by name, this guy was stopped while he was walking through the Dubai airport and searched with high tech equipment.

The search revealed a piece of cannabis on the bottom of one of his shoes, too small to be seen with the naked eye, weighing only 0.003 grams. — AbsoluteRandom.com

(source)

This next example leaves a traveler spending four years in prison for unknowingly possessing two cannabis seeds. He managed to take a video of the holding cell at the airport prior to having his life forever changed.

I lost my house, car, job and my sense of humor for 0.04 grams of vegetation. I understand zero tolerance, but the sentence was a bit harsh. The side effects of are tragic. Families break up, children suffer tremendous stress, and many lives are ruined through bankruptcy because the breadwinner is locked up.

I did not intentionally smuggle two seeds into Dubai. I had been given a hard kick in the nuts for being ignorant.

You can’t turn on the TV or open a magazine without seeing how grand Dubai is, but the reality is a laughing tourist needs to be careful not to kiss in public, take flu medicine or a sneaky joint on the beach. Unfortunately, starry-eyed individuals are flocking there and being locked up because they had porn on their laptop. Not so starry-eyed any more. Kiss mine Dubai. — Cannabis Culture Magazine

Here’s the video: Orato.com

Oops! Wrong House! Here’s Your Life Sentence.

The next case involves a largely publicized drug war atrocity that can be attributed to a SWAT raid gone wrong and shoddy investigative work.

A young man by the name of Corey Maye, while relaxing in a recliner after putting his 18th-month-old daughter down to sleep, is awakened by men pounding at his door and trying to gain entrance.

Corey made the mistake of retrieving his gun and firing at the unidentified intruders. Turns out the intruders were at the wrong address and the man Corey had shot was the police chief’s son. Corey was sentenced to life in prison despite the officers’ obvious missteps.

Here are some other examples similar to Corey’s. Luckily, for these two, death came swift;  unlike Corey, who may spend the rest of his life in prison for protecting his drug-free home.

You are 57 years old, getting ready for work in mid-May 2003. It’s shortly after six in the morning. A battering ram breaks down your door, and in gets tossed a flash grenade. You can’t breathe, you’re coughing, and the police don’t believe you – they’re looking for a stash of drugs and guns they’ll never find. Taking no notice of your worsening condition, they handcuff you, and in little more than an hour, though you’re finally on the way to the hospital, the heart attack caused by this traumatic violation takes your life. This was Alberta Spruill, a church volunteer and city worker in Harlem.

It gets worse:

It’s November 2006. You’re a fierce 92-year-old woman, frightened by the sounds of someone prying off the burglar bars that cover your front door, but determined to protect your home: when your door is broken down you fire one shot at the intruders, before being shot 39 times, handcuffed and left to die while the police (who are the intruders, and as it turns out, have broken down the wrong door) realize their mistake and plant drugs in your basement. This was Kathryn Johnston of northwest Atlanta; two of the cops responsible for her death pled guilty to manslaughter last year, and a third was recently convicted of lying in the cover-up. — DrugPolicy.org

Citizen’s Arrest!

These next two stories are just as tragic. They cover two elderly men whose only intent was to protect their decaying neighborhoods. However, the thugs they chose to confront, turned out to be undercover police officers. In one case they were posing as drug dealers (it’s easier to pick off low-level offenders — users — and simply force them to snitch through threat of  considerable incarceration time) and in another as a simple drug abuser. The two undercover efforts turned out to be fatal to the two innocent grandfathers.

At around 6pm on January 27 of last year, 80-year-old Isaac Singletary spotted a couple of drug dealers attempting to do business on his front lawn. It wasn’t the first time. Singletary, described by relatives as territorial and a bit crotchety, did what he’d done in the past. He grabbed his gun, and walked out on to his lawn to scare them off. Problem is, this time the men weren’t drug dealers. They were undercover Jacksonville, Florida police posing as drug dealers. They had come on to Singletary’s property to bait possible drug offenders. When he brandished his gun, the police shot Singletary four times, once in the back. He died a short time later. A subsequent investigation by Florida’s attorney general cleared the officers who shot Singletary of any wrongdoing. — Reason.com

Patrick Dorismond was a security guard who wanted to become a policeman. He was off-duty and unarmed when he went out with friends. Standing on the street looking for a taxi, he was approached by undercover police who asked to buy some marijuana from him. Patrick was offended by the request (he didn’t use drugs), and a scuffle ensued. Dorismond was then shot to death by the police. — DrugWarRant.com

Drop the Joint or We’ll Shoot!

The next story is of Grand Valley State University student Derek Copp who was shot during a drug raid. The victim describes himself on Facebook as: “a left-wing hippie peace-keeping liberal.”

– Chyco.com

Spousal Abuse

Family members aren’t just indirectly affected by the drug war. Here’s a case where someone’s wife was sentenced to 25 years in prison for little more than being an accountant to her marijuana distributing husband. Her moral beliefs kept her from leaving him and she paid the price.

Shirley Womble is 58 years old serving her 15th year of a 25-year sentence for “Conspiracy to Distribute Marijuana.” Shirley’s husband, Willard, engaged in the sell of marijuana. Several arguments occurred due to his decision to engage in illegal behavior because they made decent money with their legitimate business, Womble Auto Sales, and Shirley did not want their well being jeopardized. The extent of Shirley’s involvement consisted of counting some of the money that Willard earned from marijuana, and she was present on a few occasions when Willard met with certain co-conspirators. Because Shirley was the bookkeeper for Womble Auto Sales, the government alleged that Shirley handled the bookkeeping for the marijuana business as well, although there was never any tangible evidence to support this allegation. Before this, Shirley had never even received a speeding ticket.

Shirley did not believe in divorce, and because they had two children she wanted to hold the marriage together, but their relationship had deteriorated to such extent they were sleeping in separate bedrooms when they were indicted.

The examples we featured are just a few of thousands, if not tens of thousands. They covered a pretty wide spectrum of circumstances in which the drug war ensnares unintentional victims; collateral damage at its worst. We leave you with a few more examples, courtesy of  The Drug War Rant by Paul Guither.

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