Criminal 'Defense' Attorneys May Include Our Biggest Traitors to Drug Policy Reform

From the comments section of an article 'Beyond Marijuana- Legalize All Drugs' By Froma Harrop

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20141002/OPINION04/141009894#

An exchange with a criminal 'defense' attorney that says "I don't even want to hear the synthetic vs. natural argument because it's just plain stupid" , and elsewhere "I'm a criminal defense attorney who has handled literally thousands of pounds worth of marijuana cases, most of that weight being Mexican pot pulled off I-40" - makes a living leaching off the public and clients via processing countless drug cases.  He is potentially dependent upon the other drugs remaining illegal.

Bill Griggs msmassachusetts • 22 days ago

Alcohol is legal. We're talking about illegal drugs. Alcohol does cause enormous harms in this country though, no doubt about that. If I had a nickle for every time I heard a victim/witness/family member in a case talk about what a great guy the defendant is until he starts drinking and gets stupid and mean I would have a whole lot of nickels. I have never once heard that about pot. Most of the battery cases we see in court involved drunk people beating on each other or innocent people. It causes so much stupid and harmful conduct. It's behind most violent crimes, a lot of sex crimes, so much harmful conduct where intentional or reckless conduct causes injuries or deaths and/or property damage or puts others at great risk of serious harm. If it was a new drug there is no way it would be legal.

But of course alcohol is not new. It's widely used. It's popular and has been since ancient times . Marijuana is also a popular drug now and has been for decades. It is not as popular as alcohol and never will be, but it is too popular to ban with any success and not such a threat that it makes any sense at all to continue trying to keep up this ban that costs us a fortune, stops nothing, doesn't do a lick of good, but causes all sorts of harm. The market for it is massive. Government data shows that over half of all American adults under 65 have used it. Over half the kids growing up today will eventually use it, as has occurred for several decades now. It's everywhere, super easy to obtain. The laws against it are unpopular and widely ignored. Most everybody who wants to smoke pot is already doing so. It is just long past time to regulate this entirely unregulated multi-billion dollar industry.

douglasawillinger Bill Griggs • 13 hours ago

You completely neglect how prohibition makes drugs into dangers via banning the drugs and any mixtures containing such. Cocaine and opiates are perfectly safe as legal drugs when used as such DILUTELY. Don't you remember the original Coca Cola? Try researching subjects as Opium, Coca leaves, and Vin Mariani see my blog 'Freedom of Medicine and Diet'. Support languishes because groups as the Drug Policy Alliance have neglected the issue have not held a Coca panel for instance since 1995 when they were the DPF.


 
 Bill Griggs douglasawillinger • 4 hours ago

Are they really safe diluted? I don't know that. How much do they have to be diluted to make them safe? What's to stop people from "undiluting" them, from concentrating them? You'll love this, but I was 100% for putting pseudo ephedrine behind pharmacy counters. That cut the number of kitchen meth labs way way down in my state. I was a public defender back then and we went from getting several new meth lab cases a month down to a handful a year. This cut down on problem use and addiction and child neglect and all sorts of other problems. We didn't have all of these people getting so much nearly free meth, and getting their friends, siblings, cousins, etc., in on the game helping gather pills, scrape red phosphorous off of matchbook strike pads, and all the other things all the hangers on would be doing to get their free dope.

Sorry, but you will never convince me that drugs like heroin and meth need to be legal. I've dealt with so many addicted to the hard stuff, seen so many lives ruined, so much harm done. I think we can and should try to reduce the harms that we cause trying to prohibit these drugs. But I would fight legalizing these drugs, as would most everybody else. Your position is supported by a tiny minority of Americans. That's not going to change. Support for legalizing the hard stuff is not growing, and will not grow much. The best you can hope for is less drug war and more treating this as a health issue. That's just reality and I suggest taking a dose or two of that and focusing your efforts on reducing drug war harms rather than on legalizing all drugs, which will never happen.

douglasawillinger Bill Griggs • 2 hours ago

Research the topics Opium, Coca leaves, Coca and Vin Mariani on my blog 'Freedom of Medicine and Diet' and elsewhere. If you really support what we are doing with prohibiting cocaine and opiates than propose the same for caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. As addictive and reinforcing the latter two are, how many are distilling them into grain alcohol suppositories or shooting or smoking Black Leaf 40? Meth however is a synthetic chemical and way more toxic- but by lumping it with the others you are further demonstrating a severe case of tunnel vision- which is what the perpetrators of prohibition and its benificiaries of court personal, police and drug treatment want- to continue to make money so perversely.

 

Bill Griggs douglasawillinger • an hour ago

 

Douglass, you are the one who suffers from tunnel vision. I am a pragmatic realist. You are a zealot. We aren't going to ban alcohol or nicotine because we can't. We tried with alcohol. It is too ingrained in our culture and too easy to make. It is a hard drug. It causes enormous problems. Nicotine is incredibly addictive and kills those who use it. Neither bring in enough tax revenues to cover the costs that society incurs from them, but it would cost way more to try to ban them, and we'd still have the costs from the use we couldn't stop. Hardly anyone uses drugs like heroin and meth (and I don't even want to hear the synthetic vs. natural argument because it's just plain stupid).

You're wasting your time and mine. I have work to do. You could be better utilizing your time rather than chasing a pipe dream. It ain't gonna happen. We are never going to legalize all drugs. Support for that languishes at below 10% even though support for legalizing marijuana has climbed to over 50% from 12% back in 1969. People realize how bad drugs like meth and heroin are for society. Not only are they incredibly addictive like nicotine (or more so), but they contribute to crime, child neglect, loss of productivity, crazy behavior, etc., and just cause our communities enormous problems. Alcohol does a lot of the same even though it's not as horribly addictive as heroin, but alcohol is here to stay. There's no making it go away or even putting an appreciable dent in use.

So no, I'm not going to support banning alcohol or nicotine, and I'm not going to support legalizing meth and heroin and cocaine either. I've dealt with enough people addicted to those drugs and seen enough harms caused by addicts to know that we don't want to risk having several times as many using these drugs that so few use today. You wouldn't even be able to find heroin in my town. I've handled thousands of pounds worth of drug cases, countless drug cases here, and we just don't see heroin here. The last thing I want is for some store to be selling it because while most would be smart enough to leave it alone some would buy it and before long we'd have a bunch of heroin addicts we see in court over and over again when we have none now. No thanks.

 

douglasawillinger Bill Griggs • 20 minutes ago

Stay ignorant of the facts and continue to leach off the tax payer with your criminal "defense" practice.

People like you do not care about the truth, but ONLY about leaching off of people with your NON defense of people, only defense of an evil status quo that has killed 100 million people via the market distorting of lying about cocaine - safer than caffeine and nicotine when used as such with the criminal ban on Coca that was pushed by the USDA-AMA-APha.

"(and I don't even want to hear the synthetic vs. natural argument because it's just plain stupid)"

You have zero credibility.

http://freedomofmedicineanddie...

There is NO justification for the ban on Coca nor Opium, and if the statutes had any legitimacy they would merely be targeting highly concentrated substances. Please stop pretending to be a reformer. Your idiot-logy is a sick joke that simply serves to en-richen big Tobacco, alcohol, coffee and countless leaches in law enforcement, treatment and of course criminal defense. Continue to keep your head stuck in the sand about God's gifts of Coca and Opium - you WANT to remain selectively ignorant so you can leach off the taxpayers and your clients.