Young man sells weed to support seven kids
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 at 4:02 pm | By: Radical Russ
FORT PIERCE — A 25-year-old man told police during a raid of his home Tuesday that he was selling marijuana to help support his seven kids, according to an arrest affidavit released Wednesday.
But the excuse didn’t keep Antonio L. Mills out of jail after investigators turned up about 2.5 ounces of marijuana in the refrigerator of his home in the 800 block of North 23rd Street.
Mills said he peddles marijuana to “supplement his income because he has seven children.”
Mills faces felony charges of possession of marijuana with intent to sell, possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana and possession of a firearm while in the commission of a felony.
Antonio Mills will now be tried, and if convicted, sentenced to at least a five-year mandatory minimum, probably more. The state will probably have to take care of Mills seven kids, and who knows what kind of effect they’ll suffer from losing their daddy during their formative years.
Here he is, trying to keep his family together with the only decent job prospect many young men have. That is something we have to think about as we work to end adult marijuana prohibition and institute a system of taxed and regulated controls on marijuana sales. When weed is no longer illegal and subject to black market pricing, what will millions of weed dealers, growers, and smugglers, and thousands of weed-fighting cops, prosecutors, and prison guards do for a living?
Unless we revive our manufacturing base and provide lots of good, low-skill union jobs for them, I fear the black marketeers will just switch products to a still-banned drug like cocaine or heroin. Then when use and overdose rates of those drugs hit the news, the drug warriors will blame the legalization of weed.
