While I was out at the NORML Conference, this bombshell of a story exploded in Oklahoma:
OKLAHOMA CITY — Converting marijuana to hashish could land Oklahomans a life prison sentence under a bill approved in the Oklahoma Senate.
Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs spokesman Mark Woodward said the goal of the bill is to “send a message” that illegal drugs won’t be tolerated in Oklahoma.
Conviction of a first offense of cooking hashish would result in a prison sentence from two years to life in prison. Sentences would be doubled under a second offense, and those convicted would not be eligible for a suspended sentence or probation.
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=336&articleid=20110420_336_0_OKLAHO247887
Ah, yes, the OBNDD, the people who brought you the marijuana “fact sheet” that claims pot today is 30 times stronger than Woodstock Weed and it damages brain cells and reproductive organs. Apparently, they feel hashish is so much more dangerous than raw cannabis that we must enact a life sentence for it. Hash is much more potent than cannabis, so I wonder how the OBNDD will react when they discover Schedule III dronabinol (legal even in Oklahoma) is even more potent than hash?
When I read these stories about stiffer sentences for cannabis, I like to compare them to the sentences that most of us will agree are heinous crimes. It turns out that if you make cannabis into hashish or if you serially and violently rape five adult women, you can get a life sentence in Oklahoma.
(Slane & Phillips) An Oklahoma City man who pleaded guilty to five charges of first degree rape in Oklahoma County District Court last October was sentenced late last week. John Earl Stepney, Jr., 33, was given a life sentence without parole for each of the five rapes of which he was convicted.
Oklahoma County District Judge Kenneth Watson sentenced Stepney to life in prison without parole for each of the following Oklahoma City rape incidents:
- the November 17, 2008, rape of a woman who was asleep in her apartment
- the December 7, 2008, rape of a woman who was attacked as she walked home from work
- the December 23, 2008, kidnapping and rape of a woman who was shopping for Christmas at Penn Square Mall
- the January 5, 2009, rape of a woman who was doing laundry at her apartment complex
- the January 7, 2009, rape of a woman who was vacuuming her car at a car wash
Stepney is accused of forcing two of the women to withdraw cash from their bank accounts at ATMs. He reportedly used a BB gun that looked like a handgun to threaten and coerce his victims.
But if you plead no contest to first-degree rape and forcible sodomy of a four-year-old girl, you may get by with one year in prison.
(USA Today) ALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Two state lawmakers are questioning a plea agreement that will allow a man to serve only one year in jail on a conviction for raping a 4-year-old girl.
Nineteen of the 20 years of a sentence against 64-year-old David Harold Earls were suspended as part of a plea agreement reached with Pittsburg County prosecutors.
Earls pleaded no contest on May 13 to first-degree rape and forcible sodomy. He has spent nearly nine months in jail already and is scheduled to be released Sept. 24. He would serve the remaining 19 years of his sentence under supervised release and would have to register as a sex offender.
(News9.com) The daughter of a convicted rapist speaks out, saying he deserves more than one year behind bars. She says her father deserves a life sentence. David Earls’ rape conviction made national headlines this month after a Pittsburg County judge sentenced him to only one year in prison.
“My father is a monster and he needs to stay, he needs to stay in prison,” said Denise Earls.
Denise Earls says when she was young Earls raped her. She hoped he was finally going to get the punishment he deserved.
“Well I was completely outraged because it brought back all the memories that I went through as a child and just to know that he only got a year when I have a life sentence to deal with this,” said Denise Earls.
Maybe somebody can convince David Earls to make some hash so Oklahoma will seriously consider keeping him in a prison for life.
By the way, in case anyone thinks that hashish is somehow different or more dangerous than raw cannabis, it isn’t. It is still non-toxic with low risk of dependency and tolerable side effects. Here’s the basic difference between regular old pot and hash:
Pot = puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff… whoa, I’m high!
Hash = puff, puff… whoa, I’m high!
That’s it. Hash is a concentrate. It’s not “cooked”, it’s extracted. It’s not transformed into something else. Hash is to cannabis as a frozen can of orange juice mix is to an orange. And for some patients who need extremely high dosages to achieve medical effects, there isn’t the time or lung capacity to take all the puffs of cannabis one needs. For these most-vulnerable patients, hash is a medicine, pure and simple.
Contact your elected representatives and urge them to 'Stop Arresting Marijuana Smokers'. 
[...] make sure that even legal medical cannabis will be ended. He wants to toughen penalties (he loves Oklahoma's drug laws like he loves Arizona's new unconstitutional immigration laws) and increase incarceration. [...]
Point of fact: once herb is legalized hashish is obsolete . The main advantage of hashish always was that it was compact, somewhat less smelly, easier to hide, easier to transport etc. , all virtues based on the police state situation we’re temporarily confronted with.
With a cheap long-stemmed, screened-crater one-hitter (chillum, Jamaica; kiseru, Japan; midwakh, UAE; sebsi, Morocco) you can lightervaporize 25-mg servings of loose sifted kief and just forget about heat and pressure and hash-making kits. Suck slow and keep 385-F air moving into the crater where the herb particles are. (Of course if you do have some hashish and want to use it up, you can just stick it in a vaporizer or do the above like you would any herb.)
In fact, the tragic history of hashish (besides being dubiously accused of causing whatever the Hashashins did) has climaxed in the modern European holocaust of nicotine $igarette addiction caused by kids being mentored to roll hashish in a joint with tobacckgo (which has a lower burning temperature than cannabis). Did you know that the US, with under 20%, now has a lower adult $igarette addiction percentage than any European country (worst: Greece with over 40%)? This is because we can usually get pure herb and don’t have to mess much with hashish “joints” which beside tobacckgo may also be “medicated” with various chemical poisons or glass beads to add a “drug effect” or weight or a glistening trichomic look.
Comparisons to child rape, etc.– what about something various “mentors” do which can have worse consequences than “molestation”– getting kids hooked on nicotine? When my dad took me to ball games (now thankfully there are more restrictions) you could smell the tobacco smoke a block away. Imagine a kid sitting 150 minutes breathing that 14 times a minute… all “educational” of course, in order to ingrain the “sporting” we-win-you-lose attitude etc. When a 13-year-old girl inhales that stuff, the nicotine and 421 other toxins are in the cytoplasm of each of the 22,222 eggs within 7 seconds. Future financially fruitful addicts for the Industry– and once the eggs are hooked, women have a more difficult time quitting.
This is where I think you have to base the argument on the above legal abuses: “CONSIDER THE ALTERNATIVE”. If your kid gets hooked on $igarettes, a pack-a-day habit can cost $100,000 within the first 3 decades, $100,000 for medical treatments, lipitor etc. within the last decade, and a more expensive funeral because they died young when their friends were still alive and a bigger chapel had to be paid for to accommodate mourners. Less well educated, lower-income persons are statisticly more likely to get hooked on $igarettes, hitting the taxpayer with medical expenses later.
Any cannabis (even hashish) available to a youngster so they can look kool smoking something BUT NOT TOBACCKGO can help them get through adfoolescence without getting hooked on #1 Drug, resulting in colossal savings to family and society. Why don’t right wing Christians understand that? Well, part of it is the $tranglehold the tobacckgo industry has on & through the Republican Party, with low-tar-puffin’ Johnny in the Speaker Chair two gunsmokes from the White House. Vote against every Republican you can find on your ballot (even Dr. Paul unless he switches party).
[...] who merely rented space to a medical marijuana dispensary? Or how a guy who pleads no contest to sodomizing a four-year-old in Oklahoma gets a year behind bars but a college student with a keif box… in prison. Or why there are more arrests for marijuana possession almost every year than for all [...]
RE: cooking. Maybe they were looking at Rick Simpson’s method of reduction etc. when they drafted this nonsense.
We know that’s not “hash” by definition, but most of these Holy rollers dont let facts get in the way of their policies.
This is disgusting. Simply making hash is punishable by two years to life? What? A few more steps backward and we’ll have witch trials again.
Don’t confuse people with legal injustice. Besides, crimes like rape involve actual victims and force the police to built a case. Can’t fill private jails that way, jeez.