Didn’t Biden pardon marijuana convictions? Or am I just high?
Federal, not state convictions.
That law provides several different levels of trafficking, and Hotchkiss was convicted under the lowest level – having between 2.2 lbs and 100lbs. That weight includes all parts of the plant, root and stem and all.
40 years, jesus fucking CHRIST.
And dirt they made sure to water.
I’m 6400km tall if you include the earth under my feet
I’m billions of light years tall if you include the space above my head.
Damn you should play in the NBA
I don’t know if he has the mass to play, he sounds like a lightweight.
And extremely heavy…
Damn they’ll never let me on the rollercoaster now…
This is stupid, why is the lowest charge range so big. 2.2 lb to 100 lb that is a huge range and you’re telling me there is ranges higher than that? He already has life in prison the hell do they do with the higher ranges
Who, actually, believes society is better off for caging this man??
no one. but a great many people like that it happened
The rich for more slave labor?
yeah and general schadenfreude, racism, hippy-bashing and general reefer madness buffonery.
Many–there are people whose lives REALLY suck and they can’t imagine them being better so they want to make others’ lives worse. This is how a significant portion of the population votes.
An old pot grower’s adage goes something like: if the sentencing minimum is for between 1-99 plants, you might as well grow 99.
People like Bud serve as the real life example for this kind of saying sadly.
This stuff just makes my blood boil. Those 3 assholes on the parole board are complete sociopaths. There’s absolutely no justice here.
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Well, political positions, yes. But there are tons of government employees around the country that are just normal people working at a regulatory agency. The overwhelming majority of them. They’re just doing their job.
At least for now. SCOTUS is very close to changing that.
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It’s actually a requirement I think.
In WA during lockdown, they requested compassionate release of someone who was paralyzed on half his body and confined to a chair. The DOC decided that he was a threat to society and needed to be kept in the COVID greenhouse.
Thats what you get when you dare to do gardening
Try to overthrow the government- 18 months. Grow plants- life sentence.
America (for the time being), fuck yeah!
Leading the insurrection? Priceless.
Only 18 months?
…Tempting.
Shit of you succeed the. You don’t have to do any time at all
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Or, you know, you could vote Democrats into a super majority, and we could legally remove all the insanely corrupt politicians and judges, and do things like federally legalize weed and pardon non violent weed convictions.
It’s a flower that makes people happy and hungry. God fucking damn it. There is no fucking reason to destroy people’s lives over this.
Reminds me of the Ballarat Bandit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-gBErW4aoY
To put it short, he was a guy who led federal officers on a chase through the desert. They didn’t know who he was, but he was stealing from travelers passing through. It wasn’t far from some US government facilities, and this being not long after 9/11, they’re super worried he’s a terrorist.
Spoiler: he was a Canadian who started growing weed to help his wife’s medical issues. He apparently made some primo bud and started selling it. Naturally, he got caught and was thrown in jail. When he got out, he moved out to the desert and tried to survive on his own.
Jail changed him. He became more paranoid and detached from his family, friends, and society. He wasn’t the least bit dangerous until they threw him in prison.
Breaking Bud
I’m all for legalized marijuana, but going into another country and breaking their laws is never a good idea. There are places in the world that would be a death sentence.
The guy was clearly mentally unstable after he left prison. He never would have done that in the first place otherwise. And he effectively did get a death sentence for it.
According to the article titled ‘Ballarat Bandit’ lost to family for years, August 4, 2006 for Pahrump Valley Times, Johnston was living in Canada when they were arrested and charged with trafficking marijuana.
Eventually, the couple left Anarchist Mountain and returned to Prince Edward Island, where Rob Johnston had been born and raised. After the birth of her fourth child, Tommi was diagnosed with leukemia and access to medical care became vital. Johnston began cultivating marijuana, discovered he had a knack for it and turned it into a cash crop.
In 1997, when the crop was discovered by Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Johnston was sentenced to two consecutive four-year prison terms. It was then that the couple was legally married, in what Tommi described as an ultimately futile effort on her part to convince him that she would not abandon him.
Edit: HTML linking
Two reason: Conservatism and Christianity.
I don’t even think that article adequately conveys how thoroughly racist the roots of it is. They don’t even quote the awful things Anslinger said to justify cannabis prohibition.
“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”
“…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”
“Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.”
“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”
“Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing”
“You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.”
“Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”
https://fee.org/articles/the-racist-roots-of-marijuana-prohibition/
And then there’s this from Nixon staffer John Ehrlichman:
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.
“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
Nobody has ever been able to explain to me how cannabis use is incompatible with Christianity in any way.
But then again, I don’t expect Christians to be consistent or logical about anything.
Remember that part of the Bible where Jesus was like “forget all the old laws, and just focus on the point, being cool to one another” and then gave a speech about the importance of monogamy? Or when he held the last supper, demonstrating a way to worship without needing a fancy temple, and then said “this is my blood, I’m using a simple cup, but you should always use a gold chalice for this part”. Or how he explained you need a relic of a saint (usually a bit of bone) in every altar or the magic won’t work?
Do you remember the part where Jesus claimed he was the one and only child of a deity? Because when I read it, he called himself “the son of man” and called everyone his brothers and sisters
Jesus was born in July. The Roman sun god had a son, who was sacrificed for the sake of humanity. Want to guess when his birthday was?
There’s a reason why it makes no sense. It’s not the religion you think it is
There’s one very good reason, according to authoritarians: slave labor. 'Murica.
Biden, pardon this dude
Not a federal crime or prison. Either the governor would have to pardon him, or he would have to get his appeal all the way to SCOTUS and get his conviction overturned. Neither of which seem very likely, unfortunately.
He literally does not have the legal power to do that.
Biden has pardoned a lot of federal marijuana charges, but a core part of the Constitution is that the federal government’s authority to interfere in state justice systems is very limited.
No can do with state charges
Ah fuck, my bad. I don’t know much about clemency. So that’s why Trump is freaked out about Georgia
What could the parole board’s justification for denial possibly be? I don’t see any risk from this guy, unless there’s something more nefarious than 2.2 lbm of pot going on.
Guarantee that they looked nowhere beyond the actual text of the law and didn’t consider anything else. This is only “it’s illegal because we say it is and we will punish you for not conforming”.
The cruelty is the point, as they say.
Hotchkiss — who goes by his middle name, Bud —
Poor dude never even had a chance. 😔
Don’t break the law
I guess you must be trolling. Do you think 40 years for growing Cannabis to be justified?
I mean it more of a don’t piss in the wind type of thing. Alabama is like Dubai
Maybe you should take your own advice and fuck off
don’t come to my house to get punched in the mouth
sorry to offend you mr. nutsack
why lick a boot when you can suck on it
usa fucking sucksssss especially the south
2.2 -100lbs is a massive range especially when the weight every part of the plant. That’s a difference of growing enough for a month to smoke and supplying the neighborhood. Two massively different goals.
I don’t understand how 40 years of prison for a non-violent crime isn’t considered to be both “cruel” and “unusual”. It is objectively cruel. I certainly hope that it is also unusual. I certainly hope that there aren’t many more like him, imprisoned for decades for what amounts to personal-use levels of pot. 5.5 lbs of pot when you include the stem and roots isn’t that much and certainly sounds like a personal supply to me.
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Bullshit, reported for spreading false information.
there is no record of any previous arrests or charges for Leon Bud Hotchkiss in Alabama¹²³. He was a first-time offender when he was convicted of marijuana trafficking in 2013². He has maintained a clean institutional record since then².
Fucking trump supporters are the worst, you can’t get anything right.
https://www.al.com/live/2011/10/magnolia_springs_marijuana_house.html
Hotchkiss has a drug history and stated that he had been to federal prison on a drug conspiracy charge. He stated that the conspiracy case was about 20 years ago when he lived in Orange Beach, officials said.
Wtf. If they were growing five hundred plants, 40 years is too much. It’s fucking pot. People get rich selling that shit legally now. Growers should be released.
That will teach m!
It is the most cruel people in the world that hide behind a law book and the pretense of being fair and worse even: past cases.
But since you first have to study for a decade, then kiss ass for a decade or two before even beginning to qualify for ‘JUDGE’ it is not more as normal you will have lost ALL BONDS WITH REGULAR SOCIETY.
If you think 15$+tax+tip is fine for a glass of wine with lunch on a daily basis; you are NOTTTTTTT qualified to speak for the benefit of society : in contrary!
Yeah I think you’re mistaking what a Judges role is. It is merely to uphold the law. The problem in the US is that the role is so politicised that the idea they are legal experts rather than representatives of parties is being lost. They should be representative of society to an extent but ultimately the main qualification is legal experience.
The issue is the law itself and that comes back to the elected politicians in Alabama. It’s a problem of one party rule, and first past the post electoral system plus gerrymandering which means a stagnant political system dominated by one segment of society. The US increasingly looks like a it’s just a large collection of failed democracies.
You don’t specifically need representative judges. You need electoral reform so you have an actual representative democracy, and everything else comes from that.
The MAKING of the law favors the establishment. I say use the guillotine first, then new laws. Slave master still a slave master now, only the slaves believe they’re free
Judges are “supposed to be” impartial, not representative. That’s one of our many problems. They shouldn’t be conservative or liberal, they should be judges, but people don’t seem to be capable of impartiality, especially ones with any degree of power. Just like men who claim to want to lead really wish to rule. Those who would judge really just want to decide.
I’m stating it’s the WRONG ROLE law should NOT be upheld in the same way for poor and rich. For uneducated and the wise.
IT SHOULD NOT BE THE SAME favoring the poor and weak.
HOWEVER IT FAVORS THE EXACT OPOSITE.
It shouldn’t favor anybody.
If anything, it goes to show why legal systems are plain and simply bad ideas and why people need to have the ultimate authority to handle business on their own again. That way, at least, it’s fair, for every man is provided for by either victory, ingenuity, or death.
Okay, I’m genuinely curious, can you elaborate on what you’re advocating? What time in human history do you think we should return to? Tribalism?
I don’t think there has ever been a period of time where there wasn’t some form of social organization. Humans are naturally social and tend to create social groups with rules and enforcement mechanisms. Even if we were to start with a blank slate where there were no governments, companies, tribes, or social groups, humans would quickly recreate them because we have evolved to make use of social structures. We are stronger as a group than individually and groups only survive by having rules and methods of enforcement.
You’re not genuinely curious or here in good faith, you’re derisive, vindictive and guilty of every moral failing you’re about to accuse me of having for not thinking the way you do.
So you do not get the luxury of a debate with me.
Now I said that legal systems are plain and simply bad ideas, and that sadly is not going to change no matter who does what. It’s just the reality of the situation.
So move on from this conversation like you would have told me to had I wasted your time arguing with you about it.
If I came across as derisive, I didn’t mean to. I was genuinely trying to ask what you meant.
I don’t know how it is possible for me to be vindictive when I don’t know you. I don’t want revenge against you. You’ve done nothing to me.
I wasn’t going to accuse you of any kind of moral failing and am not sure why you took my response as a personal attack on your moral character.
You stated that “legal systems are plain and simply bad ideas” and that “people need to have the ultimate authority to handle business on their own again”. That sounds like you are advocating a return to something that existed in the past where people could act autonomously, without regard for the legal system.
I am responding that I don’t think that people have ever had the “ultimate authority to handle business on their own” and am wondering if you can give an explanation of what you are suggesting. I’m arguing that, when presented with anarchy, humans will always tend to create social structures and legal systems.
These people are kept in jail to be used in labor. It’s not about being cruel. It’s about making money in the cheapest way possible. Since Alabama is a hellhole with no workforce they turn to modern day slavery.
Oh it’s both. It’s definitely both, the cruelty and the slave labor, which is cruel in and of itself as well.
Yeah, when you read the article you see that the parole board has stopped issuing paroles almost entirely in the last couple of years. This is 100% about manufacturing cheap labor and keeping the oligarchy running smoothly.
Alabama has an incredible climate for growing outdoor Cannabis, too…
It should literally be everywhere there.
a friend in highschool used to collect all the seeds and scatter them around town. de-seeding was part of the low-grade weed ritual. seeds would explode and blow-up your joints or bowls
Johnny Ganjaseed
