States ponder early release for prisoners – Economy in Turmoil- msnbc.com
NEW YORK – Their budgets in crisis, governors, legislators and prison officials across the nation are making or considering policy changes that will likely remove tens of thousands of offenders from prisons and parole supervision.

In California, faced with a projected $42 billion deficit and prison overcrowding that has triggered a federal lawsuit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to eliminate parole for all offenders not convicted of violent or sex-related crimes, reducing the parole population by about 70,000. He also wants to divert more petty criminals to county jails and grant early release to more inmates — steps that could trim the prison population by 15,000 over the next 18 months.

In Kentucky, where the inmate population had been soaring, even some murderers and other violent offenders are benefiting from a temporary cost-saving program that has granted early release to nearly 2,000 inmates.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine is proposing early release of about 1,000 inmates. New York Gov. David Paterson wants early release for 1,600 inmates as well as an overhaul of the so-called Rockefeller Drug Laws that impose lengthy mandatory sentences on many nonviolent drug offenders.

Here’s an idea: how about you stop arresting so many of those non-violent drug offenders in the first place?  Based on the numbers from the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2007:

• California arrested 289,449 people for drugs
• Kentucky arrested 11,883 people for drugs
• Virginia arrested 32,941 people for drugs
• New York arrested 61,163 people for drugs

Now if it is too scary to think about not arresting the users of all illegal drugs, let’s narrow it down to cannabis.  The FBI didn’t give me state-level breakdowns of cannabis arrests, but nationwide cannabis accounts for 47% of all drug arrests.  For the four states mentioned, that’s 185,854 cannabis arrests, and since 89% of those are possession-only arrests, that’s 165,410 otherwise law-abiding pot smokers arrested – not growers, traffickers, or dealers, just tokers.

To be fair, most of these 165,410 don’t spend much more than their booking time in a jail.  But it still takes time, money, and space to prosecute them and that begins to add up.  If these four states mentioned just taxed and regulated cannabis like Jagermeister, combined they’d raise $1.9 billion every year.  That wouldn’t completely solve these states’ budget crises, but it sure would keep a few more actual criminals behind bars.

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The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released its latest report, Prisoners in 2007, which looks at the state and federal prisoner, parolee, and probationer population.

More than 7.3 million men and women were under correctional supervision in the nation’s prisons or jails or on probation or parole at yearend 2007, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. About 3.2 percent of the U.S. adult population, or one in every 31 adults, was incarcerated or under community supervision at the end of 2007.

During 2007, the prison population increased more rapidly than the U.S. resident population. … From 2000 through 2007, the imprisonment rate increased from 475 per 100,000 U.S. residents to 506 per 100,000 U.S. residents. During these seven years, the number of sentenced prisoners increased by 15% while the general population increased by 6.4%.

Black males made up the largest percentage of the overall sentenced population (36.3%) and the sentenced male population (39.0%).  Black male offenders had the highest imprisonment rate (3,138 prisoners per 100,000 U.S. residents) of all racial groups, male or female. This was 6.5 times the imprisonment rate of white males and 2.5 times that of Hispanic males. Similarly, the black female imprisonment rate (150 prisoners per 100,000 U.S. residents) was almost double the imprisonment rates for Hispanic (79 prisoners per 100,000) and 3 times the rate for white females (50 per 100,000).

Federal prisons operated at 136 percent of capacity in 2007. State prisons operated between 96 percent of highest capacity and 113 percent of lowest capacity, compared to between 100 percent and 115 percent in 2000. This trend indicates that prison populations are increasing at the same rate of capacity.

253,300 inmates are serving time in state prisons where drug offenses are the most serious charge for which they’ve been sentenced. They make up about 19.5% of all state prisoners, and about 45% of those drug offenders are black. 95,446 inmates are in federal prisons where drug offenses are the most serious charge for which they’ve been sentenced. They make up about 53% of all federal prisoners.

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Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2008-11-10

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Whoa!  No, you’re not in a time warp, this is yesterday’s Daily Audio Stash.  I got it all recorded and edited and I set it to upload.  It was uploading when I left to take a call.  I come back today, it’s not uploaded.  My internets got the hiccups or something.  So now I’m posting it today.

This Stash features Tom Daubert from Montana Patients and Families United with great news about a state supreme court decision that allows people on probation or parole to continue using their cannabis medicine.

Then I’m breaking out more exclusive audio from NORML CON.  Today you’ll hear Jenny Kern from the Drug Policy Alliance discussing random student drug testing during the Legal Marijuana Generation panel.

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High court upholds medical marijuana law | greatfallstribune.com | Great Falls Tribune
HELENA — Montana courts cannot bar medical marijuana patients from using the drug as a condition of their probation or parole, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The decision overturned a lower court’s ruling that prohibited a Conrad man from using marijuana while serving a three-year deferred sentence. 

In Tuesday’s 6-1 decision, the Supreme Court found that District Judge Laurie McKinnon overstepped her authority when she barred Timothy Nelson of Conrad from using medical marijuana as a condition of his sentence.

At a Feb. 26, 2007, sentencing hearing, Pondera County Attorney Mary Ann Ries told the judge that officials at the Department of Corrections would not allow Nelson to smoke marijuana while under their supervision, but would allow him to use the pill form of marijuana.

Whoops, excuse me.  There is no pill form of marijuana.  There is a pill form of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol.  Marijuana does contain delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, but it also contains cannabinol, cannabidiol, cannabigerol, cannabichromene, cannabicyclol, cannabivarin, tetrahydrocannabivarin, and about 60 other cannabinoid compounds.  Calling Marinol a pill form of marijuana is like calling a shot of rum the pill form of a strawberry banana daquiri.  Small detail.  Anyway, carry on…

McKinnon gave Nelson a three-year deferred sentence subject to 20 conditions. Nelson appealed two of those conditions on the basis that they illegally prevented him from using medical marijuana.

Those two conditions were that Nelson comply with all city, county, state and federal laws and that he not possess or use illegal drugs, or any drugs, unless prescribed by a licensed physician. Since physicians cannot legally prescribe marijuana because of federal licensing restrictions, that condition barred Nelson from using medical marijuana. That same sentencing condition also stated that Nelson may not possess marijuana, except in pill form, and only then by prescription from a licensed physician.

Nelson’s attorneys, Justin Lee of Choteau, and Colin Stephens of Missoula, argued that the pill form of marijuana, Marinol, is cost-prohibitive for their client, which contradicts the intent of the Medical Marijuana Act of 2004.

In his appeal, Nelson said McKinnon’s sentencing conditions were illegal because it restricted him to using Marinol, and that the court exceeded its authority in requiring him to obey all federal laws.

The Supreme Court agreed.

“The District Court unlawfully denied Nelson the right and privilege to use a lawful medical treatment for relief from a debilitating condition under the Montana Medical Marijuana Act,” Justice Patricia Cotter wrote in the majority opinion.

Law enforcement just cannot divorce itself from the concept that marijuana equals crime.  In their view, how in the world could you allow someone on probation or parole to use pot?  Pot is a crime to them, period.  Not even the smoking of it, mind you, but the pot itself is criminal.

Have you thought about that?  We have huge helicopter-riding task forces whose job it is to find and rip up any marijuana plant they find.  Even if it is an untended, wild, low-THC feral hemp plant, it is illegal and must be destroyed.  Even if no man had ever seen it and it was growing just out of the bounty of Nature herself, it is a crime and must be obliterated.

So you can see how they can’t imagine that cannabis is a medicine, and a judge denying it to someone as a condition of probation or parole is as cruel as denying them insulin if they were diabetic.

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Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2008-06-25

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Today’s Audio Stash features an interview with Tom Daubert, Founder and Director of Montana Patients and Families United.  Tom tells us about the interesting wording of Montana’s medical marijuana law and how it protects the rights of patients on probation or parole.

For our Cannabis Science we speak with Dr. Mitch Earleywine from SUNY Albany.  The good doctor exposes the frauds behind the latest report from the Centers on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) that claim the “Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed!” is driving the teenagers insane!!!

And me, I’m heading to the Central Oregon Coast!  I love living close to the ocean.  I’m visiting with all my extended relatives at our biennial family reunion.  I just can’t wait to answer the question, “So what do you do?”

“Well, Great Aunt Millie, I read, write, and talk about marijuana…”

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