Parole denied for 68-year-old in Alabama: ‘A life sentence for growing marijuana’
Parole denied for 68-year-old in Alabama: ‘A life sentence for growing marijuana’
Leon Hotchkiss, now 68, remains behind bars in Alabama, spending decades imprisoned for growing pot. The parole board thinks he should stay there.
You're viewing a single thread.
Remember these headlines any time someone makes excuses for the lack of action by the Federal Government, even when we give Democrats Congress and the presidency.
I hope you don’t consider the 50-50 split Senate to be one of the times we “gave Democrats Congress and the presidency”. Do you think they were going to find 10 Republicans and overcome the filibuster for that legislation?
The last time the Democrats had control that gave them a realistic chance of doing something like this, marijuana legalization didn’t even have majority support in the US. Even among Democrats it was pretty divided.
The time before that, Bill Clinton was president and was under fire for admitting he had ever tried marijuana in his life, and had to claim he “didn’t inhale”.
And those were all the times in my life that the Democrats had any sort of majority in Congress and a Dem president.
You make it sound like there have been these chances over and over. But there isn’t even one single time you can look back at and say “right here, you had all the opportunity in the world and we asked you to do it, and you didn’t do it”.
You're right.
I shouldn't expect better.
That's really all you have to say? Your statement that I responded to strongly suggested at least one, if not multiple, clear opportunities to make major changes to marijuana law that Democrats didn't take. Are you not interested in the fact that that is not true?
Your reaction is like if someone pointed out factually wrong statements made by an antivaxxer and the antivaxxer responded with "I guess I shouldn't try to protect my body". No, that part is perfectly fine, it's that you should just use actual facts or you could end up deciding on a course of action that is diametrically opposed to the outcome you want!
I expect better -- from you!
I'm going to wager the federal government couldn't do anything for state charges
Totally.
Just like the Federal Government did nothing about alcohol prohibition.
You see, this is kind of the reverse. The federal govt could blackmail states into legalization but it's going to be hard to make states adjust their own prior convictions. Apples and oranges.
LOL
I miss the days when Democrats had balls. FDR had a literal plot on his life and still didn't bitch out on using his office to make real, substantial change.
These days people look at things have have been done and still somehow convince themselves better things aren't possible. That should be the Democrats' slogan in the race this year.
While I largely agree with you, I'm not sure a civil war for a 20,000 state level prisoners makes immediate sense
Yeah, I'm sure Joe Manchin is really pro-cannabis.