New Drug War (snitch) Bill

viraljimmy · 06-06-05, 07:29

H.R. 1528, Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005, is one of the worst drug war bills that Congress has ever considered.

Among other things, HR 1528:

--Virtually eliminates the ability of federal judges to give sentences below the minimum sentence recommended by federal sentencing guidelines, essentially creating a mandatory minimum sentence for every federal offense (including both drug and non-drug offenses).

--Expands the federal “three strikes and you’re out” law to include new offenses, including mandating life imprisonment (with no possibility of parole) for anyone convicted a third time under the RAVE Act.

--Mandates a 10-year minimum sentence for anyone 21 or older that gives marijuana or others drugs to someone under 18 (i.e. a 21 year old college students gives a joint to his 17-year old brother). A second offense would be life in prison.

--Expands what is considered to be a “drug-free” school zone to include almost any place in an urban area, and increases penalties for selling or distributing drugs in that area. (The result will be enhanced penalties for people in inner cities, while people in rural and suburban areas get less time for the same offense).

--Mandates a 5-year minimum sentence for any person that commits a drug trafficking offense near the presence of a person under 18 or in a place where such person resides for any period of time. The sentence is 10 years if they are parent. (I.e. a mother that sells her neighbor a joint will get a 10-year minimum sentence, even if her kids were at school at the time).

--Creates a new offense for persons who witness or learn about certain drug offenses that fail to report the drug offender to the police within 24 hours or fail to provide full assistance to the police in tracking and prosecuting the offender. Offenses that would get someone a 2-year minimum sentence, including failing to report a neighbor that is storing or selling drugs when that neighbor has kids, failing to report anyone that gives a joint to someone under the age of 21, and failing to report a college student that is selling marijuana on a college campus.

--Mandates a 5-year minimum sentence for any person that offers, solicits, encourages, or induces a person enrolled in drug treatment, or previously enrolled in drug treatment, to purchase, possess or receive drugs.

--Makes it a federal crime to provide "drug paraphernalia" to anyone. While the goal is to make it a crime - punishable by up to three years in prison - to give someone a bong as a birthday present, it would also make it a federal crime to provide someone with sterile syringes (except where it is explicitly authorized by local or state law). If enacted, it would essentially criminalize many needle exchange programs.

Link to bill text.

Hippie3 · 06-06-05, 08:03

bastards

06-06-05, 08:22

With the republican controlled congress' approval rating hovering in the low 30% range, they're just pandering to their right wing base 18 months before we have a chance to kick their asses out of OUR government. Please register and vote this time around folks. . .
RR

Hippie3 · 06-06-05, 08:27

vote for who ?
the democrats ?
just as bad, imho.
clinton put more folks in prison for smoking pot
than nixon did.
bastards.

vrooota · 06-06-05, 09:55

I fear you're right hippie, that neither the dems nor reps have anything to gain from enacting more sane drug policies. The courts and PO's must have a serious % of drug related cases; to the point where they'd have to lay off some folks like a lot of other businesses in the country if they didn't pass stiffer drug laws. I would have hoped to see light at the end of the tunnel for this kind of nonsense by 2005, but I guess people are still up for more reefer madness

cheeseball · 06-06-05, 09:57

That is what sucks about all of this. There is no good side. I grew up in a republican home and thought that was how the world is supposed to be. Then I listened to the democratic side for a couple of years and pretty much sided with them. But now when I look at everything, there is no side for us. Not until one side decides that MJ is not a lethal killer and doesn't ruin lives. It can, but so can many other things. BLAH BLAH BLAH, I don't want to be cliche, so I will stop now

06-06-05, 12:15

I have served in public office before as a Democrat and I can assure you that more Dems then Repubs favor legalization, but they are afraid of being portrayed as soft on drugs. Vote Dem, then write letters to your congressmen on both sides of the isle. Keep it in front of them continuously and they'll get the message. The supreme court just ruled against dying people getting medical mj by the way, thanks to testimony by walters, dubya's appointed drug expert.
RR

06-06-05, 12:19

"clinton put more folks in prison for smoking pot
than nixon did."

I've said right here many times that Clinton betrayed the people like me who put him in office. His claim to fame was returning fiscal responsibility to government by balancing the books after 12 years of republican mismanagement. It only took dubya one year to put us back in the red again. Clinton, to his discredit governed on the daily polls. If the polls had shown 51% favored legalization, we'd have had it. Write those letters people.
RR

Ali · 06-06-05, 12:25

Tonight were gonna party like it's '1984'...

Hippie3 · 06-06-05, 12:57

so rodger,
your basic argument goes-
yeah, i know the dems have always screwed us over in the past
but we should still prefer
being screwed over
by democrats than by republicans
since at least the dems will give us
a little reach-around and a kiss-on-the-cheek
as they bury it in our ass.

troutlips · 06-06-05, 13:08

I'm sooo glad I live in Canada! 8)

cheeseball · 06-06-05, 17:07

Canada seems nice, but I am super proud to be an american, I feel a great sense of pride about our country, but I also hate seeing all of the abuse of power. It just seems like it is going to take all of the older people dying off from the reefer madness days and allowing youngblood to take over and do things right.

Hippie3 · 06-06-05, 18:08

lol
plenty of young folk who are anti-drug
they'll still be there
it's not an age issue,
plenty of "old" people smoke pot too.

06-06-05, 18:58

"so rodger,
your basic argument goes-
yeah, i know the dems have always screwed us over in the past
but we should still prefer
being screwed over
by democrats than by republicans
since at least the dems will give us
a little reach-around and a kiss-on-the-cheek
as they bury it in our ass."

That's a less eloquent way of putting it, but . . .yea.

I used to hold the feeling that it would be the republicans who legalized our crop due to the 'old republican' philosophy of keeping out of our personal lives and the state's rights issue to decide for ourselves what is good or bad for us. That republican platform ended with ronald reagan, and they show no desire to return to it. I do have hope in that two of the three dissenting supreme court judges in the medical mj case were hard core conservatives who voted in favor of california's medical law due to the states rights issue along with sandra, a liberal. The other so-called liberals on the court voted against the medical law. I do know that far more democrats would favor legalization than republicans.

Not that that is the only issue before voters. Arnold has fallen in popularity in california like a brick due to jumping on the republican bandwagon. His and their definition of 'special interests' are the elderly, working people, family farmers, union members, students, skilled tradespeople, minorities, etc., while their definition of 'the people' are large utility companies, logging companies, health care megafirms, big oil, the insurance industry, etc. There's certainly more than one issue before the voters. Apathy will get us more of what we've seen in the last five years; Financial mismanagement, a war for oil, while letting bin laden go. Pretending to fight a war against terrorism in the other hemisphere, while protecting terrorists like posada who blow up commercial airliners in this hemisphere. . .You get the point.
RR

Hippie3 · 06-06-05, 19:12

Quote:

their definition of 'the people' are large utility companies, logging companies, health care megafirms, big oil, the insurance industry, etc

if i may play devil's advocate
i believe the answer to that criticism
is that fact that companies like those
are all public-held,
i.e. owned by the stockholders
e.g. we, the people
since all are free to invest.
including

Quote:

the elderly, working people, family farmers, union members, students, skilled tradespeople, minorities, etc

Hippie3 · 06-06-05, 19:16

Quote:

far more democrats would favor legalization than republicans.

perhaps
but even so
that doesn't mean that the
party bosses
would heed the rank-and-file's wishes,
they sold out to big labor, trial lawyers
and various other interest groups
long ago.

Hippie3 · 06-06-05, 19:20

Quote:

Apathy will get us more of what we've seen

the voter turn-out has been very high
setting new records
yet things remain the same.
when one is dealing on a sociological scale
involving millions of people acting out
cultural mores, drives,
merely inflating the numbers won't
change the basic equation.
what is needed
isn't more voters,
it is changing minds already set in their ways,
altering the very elements of the equation
by changing the values of the society
and no mere election or political rhetoric
is going to accomplish that.

Hippie3 · 06-06-05, 19:25

Quote:

while letting bin laden go

how can we let go of someone
we never had ?

joey_megabucks · 06-06-05, 21:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hippie3

if i may play devil's advocate
i believe the answer to that criticism
is that fact that companies like those
are all public-held,
i.e. owned by the stockholders
e.g. we, the people
since all are free to invest.
including

do you think that most of the stocks are held by "we the people" or mostly by the super wealthy interested in the pursuit of more wealth and power? just curious

06-06-05, 22:27

I'm honored.

You needed four posts to respond to one of mine. That has to be a victory.

RR

Hippie3 · 06-07-05, 04:29

lol
i could have put them all in one post, ya know...

Hippie3 · 06-07-05, 04:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by joey_megabucks

do you think that most of the stocks are held by "we the people" or mostly by the super wealthy interested in the pursuit of more wealth and power? just curious

surely more people of 'average' means
invest, as they out-number the ultra-rich.
as to exactly who owns how many shares of what-
that's matter of free will, and of course the means to carry it out.
some choose to invest more than others,
'fairness' in opportunity is enough,
society can't expect/compell
every individual to have
exactly the same investment portfolio.

pskovinsky · 06-07-05, 13:52

My opinion is still that california ought to say "Belgh" to the US and become the great nation of cali.

Aside from that, given the choice of reach around, or no reach around, and no other real choices, which would YOU choose?

06-07-05, 17:23

Someone should make a four star movie about marijuana, like an epic such as Traffic with one story about what happened to make the shit illegal in the first place, one story about a sick person who can once again function with it, another about some normal family guy getting a long sentence and losing his property from a judge who just give a rapist a "slap on the wrist," and another about money-driven struggle to keep it illegal. Traffic was good and it showed how fucked up the cia, dea, drug cartels, and drugs can be, but it was about coke and heroin, two drugs whose users and sellers are unlikely to ever get sympathy from the majority of Americans.

Hippie3 · 06-08-05, 12:23

Quote:

given the choice of reach around, or no reach around, and no other real choices, which would YOU choose?

no reach around suits me fine.
a rapist that feigns affection for his victim
offends me more
than the blunt but honest rapist.

06-09-05, 01:15

I've often had thoughts of making a marijuana film. Hoping to make it into a reality before I die of my natural use of plants.

Hippie3 · 06-09-05, 06:08

title for a MJ film-
As The Joint Burns
or how about
The Young & The Wasted ?

l33t · 10-28-05, 05:53

child protection?
protect this

Slimlilshroomer · 10-28-05, 10:09

ahh crap i live near a school o.O

l33t · 10-28-05, 18:41

"(The result will be enhanced penalties for people in inner cities, while people in rural and suburban areas get less time for the same offense)."

this particular part is borderline genocide...
interesting how we like to weed out the "undesireables"...

kaysuds · 11-04-05, 10:51

Quote:

is that fact that companies like those
are all public-held,
i.e. owned by the stockholders
e.g. we, the people

stockholders can live in any country.

Hippie3 · 11-04-05, 10:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodger

I have served in public office before as a Democrat ...
RR

aha!
git a rope...

Hippie3 · 11-04-05, 10:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaysuds

stockholders can live in any country.

so can citizens.
23,000 americans live in venezuela, for example

11-04-05, 13:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hippie3

aha!
git a rope...

Here's a word to the wise. NEVER allow yourself to get caught by narks throwing your pork to the wife of the chief of police, especially in Oklahoma....lol
RR

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06-06-05, 07:29	#1 (permalink)
viraljimmy Mycotopiate Join Date: Jan 1973 Posts: 454	New Drug War (snitch) Bill H.R. 1528, Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005, is one of the worst drug war bills that Congress has ever considered. Among other things, HR 1528: --Virtually eliminates the ability of federal judges to give sentences below the minimum sentence recommended by federal sentencing guidelines, essentially creating a mandatory minimum sentence for every federal offense (including both drug and non-drug offenses). --Expands the federal “three strikes and you’re out” law to include new offenses, including mandating life imprisonment (with no possibility of parole) for anyone convicted a third time under the RAVE Act. --Mandates a 10-year minimum sentence for anyone 21 or older that gives marijuana or others drugs to someone under 18 (i.e. a 21 year old college students gives a joint to his 17-year old brother). A second offense would be life in prison. --Expands what is considered to be a “drug-free” school zone to include almost any place in an urban area, and increases penalties for selling or distributing drugs in that area. (The result will be enhanced penalties for people in inner cities, while people in rural and suburban areas get less time for the same offense). --Mandates a 5-year minimum sentence for any person that commits a drug trafficking offense near the presence of a person under 18 or in a place where such person resides for any period of time. The sentence is 10 years if they are parent. (I.e. a mother that sells her neighbor a joint will get a 10-year minimum sentence, even if her kids were at school at the time). --Creates a new offense for persons who witness or learn about certain drug offenses that fail to report the drug offender to the police within 24 hours or fail to provide full assistance to the police in tracking and prosecuting the offender. Offenses that would get someone a 2-year minimum sentence, including failing to report a neighbor that is storing or selling drugs when that neighbor has kids, failing to report anyone that gives a joint to someone under the age of 21, and failing to report a college student that is selling marijuana on a college campus. --Mandates a 5-year minimum sentence for any person that offers, solicits, encourages, or induces a person enrolled in drug treatment, or previously enrolled in drug treatment, to purchase, possess or receive drugs. --Makes it a federal crime to provide "drug paraphernalia" to anyone. While the goal is to make it a crime - punishable by up to three years in prison - to give someone a bong as a birthday present, it would also make it a federal crime to provide someone with sterile syringes (except where it is explicitly authorized by local or state law). If enacted, it would essentially criminalize many needle exchange programs. Link to bill text.

06-06-05, 08:03	#2 (permalink)
Hippie3 Admin Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 36,124	bastards __________________ GROW SUPPLIES: www.Mycrotopia.com ------------Simply The Best------------ Namaste Temet Nosce

06-06-05, 08:27	#4 (permalink)
Hippie3 Admin Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 36,124	vote for who ? the democrats ? just as bad, imho. clinton put more folks in prison for smoking pot than nixon did. bastards. __________________ GROW SUPPLIES: www.Mycrotopia.com ------------Simply The Best------------ Namaste Temet Nosce

06-06-05, 09:55	#5 (permalink)
vrooota Mycotopiate Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 622	I fear you're right hippie, that neither the dems nor reps have anything to gain from enacting more sane drug policies. The courts and PO's must have a serious % of drug related cases; to the point where they'd have to lay off some folks like a lot of other businesses in the country if they didn't pass stiffer drug laws. I would have hoped to see light at the end of the tunnel for this kind of nonsense by 2005, but I guess people are still up for more reefer madness __________________ I am what you see

06-06-05, 08:22	#3 (permalink)
~Peter Cottontail Guest Posts: n/a	With the republican controlled congress' approval rating hovering in the low 30% range, they're just pandering to their right wing base 18 months before we have a chance to kick their asses out of OUR government. Please register and vote this time around folks. . . RR

06-06-05, 09:57	#6 (permalink)
cheeseball Mycophage Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 146	That is what sucks about all of this. There is no good side. I grew up in a republican home and thought that was how the world is supposed to be. Then I listened to the democratic side for a couple of years and pretty much sided with them. But now when I look at everything, there is no side for us. Not until one side decides that MJ is not a lethal killer and doesn't ruin lives. It can, but so can many other things. BLAH BLAH BLAH, I don't want to be cliche, so I will stop now

06-06-05, 12:15	#7 (permalink)
~Peter Cottontail Guest Posts: n/a	I have served in public office before as a Democrat and I can assure you that more Dems then Repubs favor legalization, but they are afraid of being portrayed as soft on drugs. Vote Dem, then write letters to your congressmen on both sides of the isle. Keep it in front of them continuously and they'll get the message. The supreme court just ruled against dying people getting medical mj by the way, thanks to testimony by walters, dubya's appointed drug expert. RR

06-06-05, 12:19	#8 (permalink)
~Peter Cottontail Guest Posts: n/a	"clinton put more folks in prison for smoking pot than nixon did." I've said right here many times that Clinton betrayed the people like me who put him in office. His claim to fame was returning fiscal responsibility to government by balancing the books after 12 years of republican mismanagement. It only took dubya one year to put us back in the red again. Clinton, to his discredit governed on the daily polls. If the polls had shown 51% favored legalization, we'd have had it. Write those letters people. RR

06-06-05, 12:25	#9 (permalink)
Ali Mycophiliac Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 90	Tonight were gonna party like it's '1984'...

06-06-05, 12:57	#10 (permalink)
Hippie3 Admin Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 36,124	so rodger, your basic argument goes- yeah, i know the dems have always screwed us over in the past but we should still prefer being screwed over by democrats than by republicans since at least the dems will give us a little reach-around and a kiss-on-the-cheek as they bury it in our ass. __________________ GROW SUPPLIES: www.Mycrotopia.com ------------Simply The Best------------ Namaste Temet Nosce Last edited by Hippie3 : 06-06-05 at 19:06.

06-06-05, 13:08	#11 (permalink)
troutlips Moderator Join Date: Jun 1972 Posts: 1,243	I'm sooo glad I live in Canada! 8)

06-06-05, 17:07	#12 (permalink)
cheeseball Mycophage Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 146	Canada seems nice, but I am super proud to be an american, I feel a great sense of pride about our country, but I also hate seeing all of the abuse of power. It just seems like it is going to take all of the older people dying off from the reefer madness days and allowing youngblood to take over and do things right.

06-06-05, 18:08	#13 (permalink)
Hippie3 Admin Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 36,124	lol plenty of young folk who are anti-drug they'll still be there it's not an age issue, plenty of "old" people smoke pot too. __________________ GROW SUPPLIES: www.Mycrotopia.com ------------Simply The Best------------ Namaste Temet Nosce

06-06-05, 18:58	#14 (permalink)
~Peter Cottontail Guest Posts: n/a	"so rodger, your basic argument goes- yeah, i know the dems have always screwed us over in the past but we should still prefer being screwed over by democrats than by republicans since at least the dems will give us a little reach-around and a kiss-on-the-cheek as they bury it in our ass." That's a less eloquent way of putting it, but . . .yea. I used to hold the feeling that it would be the republicans who legalized our crop due to the 'old republican' philosophy of keeping out of our personal lives and the state's rights issue to decide for ourselves what is good or bad for us. That republican platform ended with ronald reagan, and they show no desire to return to it. I do have hope in that two of the three dissenting supreme court judges in the medical mj case were hard core conservatives who voted in favor of california's medical law due to the states rights issue along with sandra, a liberal. The other so-called liberals on the court voted against the medical law. I do know that far more democrats would favor legalization than republicans. Not that that is the only issue before voters. Arnold has fallen in popularity in california like a brick due to jumping on the republican bandwagon. His and their definition of 'special interests' are the elderly, working people, family farmers, union members, students, skilled tradespeople, minorities, etc., while their definition of 'the people' are large utility companies, logging companies, health care megafirms, big oil, the insurance industry, etc. There's certainly more than one issue before the voters. Apathy will get us more of what we've seen in the last five years; Financial mismanagement, a war for oil, while letting bin laden go. Pretending to fight a war against terrorism in the other hemisphere, while protecting terrorists like posada who blow up commercial airliners in this hemisphere. . .You get the point. RR

06-06-05, 22:27	#20 (permalink)
~Peter Cottontail Guest Posts: n/a	I'm honored. You needed four posts to respond to one of mine. That has to be a victory. RR

06-07-05, 04:29	#21 (permalink)
Hippie3 Admin Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 36,124	lol i could have put them all in one post, ya know... __________________ GROW SUPPLIES: www.Mycrotopia.com ------------Simply The Best------------ Namaste Temet Nosce

06-07-05, 13:52	#23 (permalink)
pskovinsky Ex-chat M0d of Doom, y3 Join Date: Nov 1971 Posts: 1,359	My opinion is still that california ought to say "Belgh" to the US and become the great nation of cali. Aside from that, given the choice of reach around, or no reach around, and no other real choices, which would YOU choose? __________________ In soviet russia, the mushrooms grow you.

06-07-05, 17:23	#24 (permalink)
~mindovermycelia Guest Posts: n/a	Someone should make a four star movie about marijuana, like an epic such as Traffic with one story about what happened to make the shit illegal in the first place, one story about a sick person who can once again function with it, another about some normal family guy getting a long sentence and losing his property from a judge who just give a rapist a "slap on the wrist," and another about money-driven struggle to keep it illegal. Traffic was good and it showed how fucked up the cia, dea, drug cartels, and drugs can be, but it was about coke and heroin, two drugs whose users and sellers are unlikely to ever get sympathy from the majority of Americans.

06-09-05, 01:15	#26 (permalink)
~freakachino Guest Posts: n/a	I've often had thoughts of making a marijuana film. Hoping to make it into a reality before I die of my natural use of plants.

06-09-05, 06:08	#27 (permalink)
Hippie3 Admin Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 36,124	title for a MJ film- As The Joint Burns or how about The Young & The Wasted ? __________________ GROW SUPPLIES: www.Mycrotopia.com ------------Simply The Best------------ Namaste Temet Nosce

10-28-05, 05:53	#28 (permalink)
l33t Former Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 70	child protection? protect this

10-28-05, 10:09	#29 (permalink)
Slimlilshroomer Former Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 65	ahh crap i live near a school o.O

10-28-05, 18:41	#30 (permalink)
l33t Former Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 70	"(The result will be enhanced penalties for people in inner cities, while people in rural and suburban areas get less time for the same offense)." this particular part is borderline genocide... interesting how we like to weed out the "undesireables"...