Drug War Issues
Politics & Advocacy
In Louisiana, merely possessing an ounce of heroin earns a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence and up to 45 years, and possessing 400 grams (less than a pound) earns a 15-year mandatory minimum. Possession of any amount with the intent to distribute earns a five-year mandatory minimum sentence, and up to 50 years. That's not enough for one Louisiana legislator.
An ounce of heroin would get you eight years in prison under a bill proposed in Louisiana. (wikimedia.org)
Those bills are currently before the Senate Judiciary Committee, as is another Morell-sponsored bill, Senate Bill 3, which would alter the state's second-degree murder statute.
Under that law, deaths that occur during the commission of any of 15 specified felonies are considered second-degree murder, even if the perpetrator had no intent to kill. Morrell's bill would add "the unlawful sale, distribution, or dispensation of heroin, methamphetamine or 'crack' cocaine" to the list. Under Morrell's bill, people who sold those drugs to others who then overdosed and died could be charged with second-degree murder.
Yet another Morrell bill, Senate Bill 59, would make it a felony offense to use a minor in a drug trafficking offense or even to commit such an offense if a minor is present. Morrell seeks a 10-year mandatory minimum for that one, and up to 30 years. SB 59 has already passed out of committee and awaits a Senate floor vote.
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Comments
What?
Wait, wait, wait, wait! Hold on just a minute! So, is it really true that . . . that we elect people like this? Holy S*** how did that happen?!
Add Louisiana to the list of places I never want to live, I guess. Let's see, that makes Louisiana, Iraq, Iran, Florida . . .
Louisiana you broke my heart baby
wow. you know, it reminds me of a time...when things werent going so well and, naturally, as a happy as a pig in slop player, surveyor of the daily heroin grind, i'd had to put myself in the withdrawal suppression clinic aka methadone clinic. atleast until i could get tolerance down and finances up enough to resume my lifes mission. during this time, and of course, ive done it plenty of times, hahaha at the thought of it being my first trip to the ole waste of time clinic. always though, aside from the first time, long before, when i was young, naive, silly and truly foolish enough to believe in the "jane says" deal. Nevertheless, the profound ridiculousness of methadone and it's clinics, not nearly as dumb nor as much a waste of time as the far worse buprenorphine (suboxone, subutex) which although a greater waste of time and dumber than methadone, is still, as horrible as it is, better than the worst waste of time of all, naloxone. i digress - but, i do remember watching the Vancouver Drug Users Union sitting in a meeting with Vancouver public officials and arguing to get suboxone into their country - talking about it as if it were so great, ah, of course, the grass is always greener. There's only one benefit to suboxone and it's a tradeoff benefit. You get a script for a months worth, but, it's not as good a drug as methadone and it has the most treacherous thing of all in it, narcon. AH!! Anyway - goodness have i digressed or what? A wake up digression, i apologize. Back to the clinic. You know, dealing with that daily monotony was alwawys a pain in the favorte inner elbow and one time, sitting with a counselor, you know the archetypes A. Been lied to a thousand times in their 20 year career, has lost all faith in the drug war, has realized their lifes worth was to further a horrendous, harmful system that did more to destroy lives than anything else and are thus curt, rude and useless. B. The impassioned, near 8 year veteran who refuses to be like model A and accept the reality, and continues to fight - this person will either become A or leave the business altogether. C. The wide eyed, bushy tail, new to the business kind. Is still a 'virgin' to the lies that come from both the system and the users. Well my counselor was the C type, ME and a C type. I KNOW! It's just, well, honestly I am a very good looking guy, and the system doesn't perpetuate the idea that all us true users know, that the stuff is a fountain of youth that preserves your youthful good looks. The system would have you believe youd be a decrepit, destroyed multi-felony train wreck. So because I look like a model and everything, they always assume ive not done it long enough or been in the "industry" (of heroin loving) long enough to need to be with the A types they always put me with the C types. So, yeah, it was coming close to the point where I was going to disappear never to be seen again (even if things eventually returned to bad finances and high tolerance with a way too expensive supplier id simply go to a different clinic as usual) because finances were getting up and enough time had passed. I'd had weekly one on ones with the C type counselor they gave me, so naive, so ignorant, but with such a desire to...please, I guess. My heroin fused/otherwise broken heart bled for this poor lady, as those idiots in AA and NA know, the good book says, father forgive them for they know not what they do. Well, I sat there and I said to her, you know, what would happen to this place if the drug war ended later this year, hypothetically speaking? It was, of course, the first and only time I'd ever say anything that contradicted the routine a veteran need display of "oh i hate the stuff, i hate what i did, i regret all the stuff i did, i hate it i never wana touch it again, you saved my life, blablablablablablabla." So it caught her off guard, I have to give this puppy eyed lady credit, with all the astuteness of a straight A civil service student she didn't show any surprise at my out of the ordinary routine remark and quipped, "I don't know, what do you think would happen?" Now far be it for me to ever lose my cool or concentration in this game anymore. I just smiled and said, I don't know, as I gave her my saliva drug test and left...There would not be another sit down with her next week, we'd never see eachother again, unfortunately for her, she'd never get to ask me about my first dirty drug test under her "care" and one would assume she's no longer that type C, never been lied to. I doubt it was me, but I would assume she found her first "one" the one who she puts alot of her professional idealism faith into, the one she has all that government sponsored, nearly government issued hope for, who, like the professional heroin lover I am, said, just like I looked her in the eye for those months and said, all the right things to elicit all that hard studied for hope she got from her collegiate career. And alas, that person disappeared, and she called his cell phone in vain when (as we all know how backed up, cluster pluck and confused those places are) she realized this. She probably never spoke to that "patient" again, and he probably (but maybe, depending, possibly did) did not know what he meant to her but thus began her descent to type B and, in my opinion, from my little experience with her, probably in her case, type C as well.
What that has to do with this, piece of garbage, well to do, has no business in my (and our) business, disgusting excuse for a human being politican from Louisiana is this... This disgusting, this injustice to human rights known as the drug war and all it's facets.. I mean, drugs were legal for over a thousand years. This horrendous affront to human existence is less than an infant in comparison to the length of time drugs were legal and NOT BOTHERED. However, these politicans, law enforcement, judges, lawyers, all of them far worse and far more evil than any Nazi or genocidal warlord. Indeed, they are and in the short time they've compiled a system so deeply rooted, from the way they've manipulated peoples thoughts to the physical buildings they own or rent for their institutions, (rehabs, detoxes, "help groups", medicine clinics etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.) it's frightening. It's frightening as a reformist and it's frightening as a person with common sense how voracious, vicious, violent and indeed deeply rooted this thing truly is. Make no mistake about it, this person does deserve, in MY OPINION, to suffer the worst case of shared syringe issued AIDS, Hep C and other STD's and i know he will, much to the delight of those idiots in AA and NA and their sister groups of manipulation, burn in hell yes hell the domain of the evil higher power, LOL. Indeed in their quest to destroy a very tangible, very real, in my life, from before to now and til the day i die, the only tangible and real higher power, the kind that comes in many, many forms and many, many names and indeed takes on a life changing role of religious significance as it can be called God, Satan, China White, Black Tar, Roxicet or for others, Pot, Weed, Coke, Meth, Cyrstal, Wet, Dope ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC.
It really can be overwhelming to see something like this printed in public where this person is committing such a horrendous crime against humanity and it's reported and nothing will happen. Nobody is gonna kill this guy or arrest him. Sometimes as a reformist, it can be depressing and scary... But we can't give up, less I become a Type C heroin lover - jaded about reform and the drug war, later found dead of an OD in my bathroom or with vomit in my throat having tried to sleep nose to the ceiling after a particularly heavy round of poorly manufactured God.
In reply to Louisiana you broke my heart baby by The C.J (not verified)
calls for still tougher heroin penalties
My first thought was does Sen. Morrell have undisclosed interests in the penal system? If his reasoning is simply ideological he should consider that even where Draconian drug laws exist, people still use drugs. Singapore which has the death penalty for possession, supply & trafficking claims to be successful at reducing this 'problem'. I reckon if numbers relating to class 'A' are falling it's more likely to be because people have to take extra care to hide their involvement, or a reflection of a changing taste in drugs. Either way how can you call executing hundreds of people year on year a success - especially when their involvement is often driven by poverty?
Re. 'the C.J.'s' (?!?) post - it made me smile and cringe; the truth of it depressed me - it's length gave me a headache. As a heroin addict of 30 years (and no I'm not proud of this) your appraisal of treatment providers/counsellors and addicts is very recognizable. (I hope if any counsellors read this they understand why addicts might feel they have to be less than truthful at times and don't take offense.) I've never lied outright myself although I have underestimated at times.....). I was SO happy when I found a clinic where I could be truthful but I'm only in this position because I go to a private clinic, i.e. I pay. I was going to explain why I'm still in this position in an effort to convince those still undecided about reform why drugs prohibition won't achieve it's aims, but two long posts in a row is too much.
One last point. For all those who wonder why some people on heroin appear to age more slowly than others - at least as far as wrinkles go, or why they rarely get colds (I haven't had one in decades), I'm guessing it's to do with breathing more shallowly. In case vanity puts silly thoughts in any minds, my 'Fabulous Shape Forever' yoga book (sadly I never get much beyond lesson 4) says 'Life is breath and he who only half breathes, only half lives' (Currie, 1997). I sometimes think this is an apt description of opiate addiction!
It's all about control
I will never understand the compulsion that some people have to control the thoughts and freedom of others. I have never known someone addicted to opiates that would hurt another for any reason other than someone standing in he way of their need for the medication. I have a dependence on opiates,( not an addiction) thanks to chronic pain issues, and I have to say, that only 1 of 10 medical professionals that I encounter do NOT understand the difference nor do they care; Prohibition has blinded even those we depend on to relieve pain for the most part. I resent the attitude that I am so weak and ignorant that given control of my own pain relief, I would do my self harm. There was a time before politicians and their bigoted laws, when people and doctors did just fine. What needs to be controlled is the quality and price and availability of the medications people need or simply choose to use as are alcohol and tobacco.
I'm sad to have to cross NOLA off of my list of places to vacation and to recommend to others. It is a beautiful place with wonderful people, and I hope they can remedy this before it destroys them.
you
stop writing when your high!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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