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POT LAWS PROVIDE GRIM FUTURE EVEN AFTER PRISON
SILJA J.A. TALVI, IN THESE TIMES - Once you've been arrested for the
harsh anti-marijuana laws on the books, you can be denied everything
from food stamps to voting rights to the right to adopt a child. When a
person is sent to prison for the first time on a drug-related felony
charge, there is little chance that he or she will be told about the
"collateral consequences" of their sentence.
The severity of these residual punishments depends on the state. . . Up
until the early '90s, people who smoked pot were rarely arrested in
large numbers. If sentenced, most users and small-time dealers did not
face long sentences. That has changed. . .
"ONDCP's crusade seems to get more incoherent and detached from reality
every day," says Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana
Policy Project. "One minute they say marijuana makes you an apathetic
slug, the next they say it turns you into a violent gangbanger. Neither
has the remotest connection with reality, and these latest claims of a
link between marijuana and violence are based on shameless manipulation
of statistics taken completely out of context.". . .
Government-funded propaganda has been disseminated everywhere, from ads
in some
http://www.alternet.org/rights/58346/
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
POT LAWS PROVIDE GRIM FUTURE EVEN AFTER PRISON
SILJA J.A. TALVI, IN THESE TIMES - Once you've been arrested for the
harsh anti-marijuana laws on the books, you can be denied everything
from food stamps to voting rights to the right to adopt a child. When a
person is sent to prison for the first time on a drug-related felony
charge, there is little chance that he or she will be told about the
"collateral consequences" of their sentence.
The severity of these residual punishments depends on the state. . . Up
until the early '90s, people who smoked pot were rarely arrested in
large numbers. If sentenced, most users and small-time dealers did not
face long sentences. That has changed. . .
"ONDCP's crusade seems to get more incoherent and detached from reality
every day," says Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana
Policy Project. "One minute they say marijuana makes you an apathetic
slug, the next they say it turns you into a violent gangbanger. Neither
has the remotest connection with reality, and these latest claims of a
link between marijuana and violence are based on shameless manipulation
of statistics taken completely out of context.". . .
Government-funded propaganda has been disseminated everywhere, from ads
in some
http://www.alternet.org/rights/58346/
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