Life without Parole for nonviolent Cannabis conviction

[planetdoc]

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dai...efforts_co.php



Efforts to release Jeff Mizanskey, the only man in Missouri serving a life-without-parole sentence for a nonviolent marijuana charge, are continuing this month with help from Show-Me Cannabis and Change.org.

Show-Me Cannabis has bought billboard space on I-70 near Kansas City (and near Sedalia, where Mizanskey was arrested). The billboard features a photo of Mizanskey and says: "Life without parole for cannabis? It's time we fix our unjust marijuana laws."

Jeff Mizanskey was convicted under Missouri's "Prior and Persistent Drug Offender" statute, the only drug-specific three-strike law in the country. Each of his felonies were for marijuana, the largest being approximately six pounds, which he didn't even have on him. To read the details of Mizanskey's story, go to: How a Missouri Man Could Die in Prison for Weed

[planetdoc]

Sentenced to life in prison, man hopes new clemency rules will get him out
(highlights of cnn article)

Timothy Tyler says his life ended when he was 23-years-old. That was two decades ago, when he was arrested and later sentenced to a mandatory double-life term in prison without the possibility of parole for conspiracy to possess LSD with intent to distribute. A self-described "Deadhead," Tyler was busted after mailing five grams of the hallucinogenic drug to a friend who was working as an informant for the federal government.

Though the Obama administration has been campaigning for prison reform for some time, it has recently begun to take concrete steps to alleviate overcrowded federal prisons that are flooded with non-violent offenders.

And in April, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted unanimously to back a Justice Department proposal to change the sentencing formula for drug offenders that could shorten prison stays for as many as 70% of federal drug defendants.

--------------------------------------------

In the USA, LSD is classified as schedule 1 which is meant for drugs that have a high potential for abuse + no currently acceptable medical use + lack of acceptable safety for use. All of which is not true.



LSD has an extremely low likelihood of dependence, and their are no known human fatalities from LSD consumption. LSD is schedule 3 in Canada and the UK.

[planetdoc]

End The War On Drugs, Say Nobel Prize-Winning Economists
(highlights)

The decades-long global war on drugs has failed and it's time to shift the focus from mass incarceration to public health and human rights, according to a new report endorsed by five Nobel Prize-winning economists.

The report, titled "Ending the Drug Wars" and put together by the London School of Economics' IDEAS center, looks at the high costs and unintended consequences of drug prohibitions on public health and safety, national security and law enforcement.

"The pursuit of a militarized and enforcement-led global ‘war on drugs’ strategy has produced enormous negative outcomes and collateral damage," says the 82-page report. "These include mass incarceration in the US, highly repressive policies in Asia, vast corruption and political destabilization in Afghanistan and West Africa, immense violence in Latin America, an HIV epidemic in Russia, an acute global shortage of pain medication and the propagation of systematic human rights abuses around the world."

The report urges the world's governments to reframe their drug policies around treatment and harm reduction rather than prosecution and prison.

It is also aimed at the United Nations General Assembly, which is preparing to convene a special session on drug policy in 2016. The hope is to push the U.N. to encourage countries to develop their own policies, because the report declares the current one-size-fits-all approach has not proved to be effective.

Full 82 pg report

[planetdoc]

A whopping 98.7 percent of marijuana arrests in Illinois were cases involving simple possession

Illinois ranked fifth in the nation for the number of marijuana arrests made in 2010, and the state ranked first in the country for its high proportion of marijuana possession arrests vs. marijuana sales/distribution arrests. A whopping 98.7 percent of marijuana arrests in Illinois were cases involving simple possession, according to the study.

n 2013 alone, the study calculated between 24,000 and 63,000 hours may have been spent by Chicago police arresting marijuana misdemeanants, with costs associated with the arrests ranging from $25 million to $116 million.

[Anyong Bluth]

Originally Posted by planetdoc

A whopping 98.7 percent of marijuana arrests in Illinois were cases involving simple possession

That's shocking as I was under the impression that the city cared very little about people who were holding so long as it was basically within personal use amounts.

[Mr. Laz]

The faster legalization process happens, the better.

Then all the simple possession cases can be put of for review/parole.

should open up tons of room in the prisons for violent offenders

[Coochie liquor]

Originally Posted by Mr. Laz

The faster legalization process happens, the better.

Then all the simple possession cases can be put of for review/parole.

should open up tons of room in the prisons for violent offenders

Too bad the jails feel the need to be overcrowded to get more tax dollars for improvement and building new jails. Been through all that before.

[planetdoc]

The World Health Organization calls for the decriminalisation of drug use

The United Nations' leading health agency, the World Health Organization, has called on countries around the world to end the criminalisation of people who use drugs.

In the report, the WHO says:

“Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalize injection and other use of drugs and, thereby, reduce incarceration.
Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalize the use of clean needles and syringes (and that permit NSPs[needle and syringe programs]) and that legalize OST [opiate substitution treatment] for people who are opioid-dependent.
Countries should ban compulsory treatment for people who use and/or inject drugs ”

The report also highlights Portugal's success in decriminalising personal drug possession and treating drug use as a health, rather than a criminal justice, issue.

[planetdoc]

Drug offenders in federal prisons can seek shortened sentences
(highlights)

Under new US sentencing guidelines, 46,000 federal inmates would be able to shave about two years off stiff punishments meted out during America's 'war on drugs.'

The US Sentencing Commission, an independent agency in the federal judiciary charged with establishing appropriate punishments for federal crimes, had already overhauled its drug-sentencing guidelines in April, reducing prison sentences for those newly convicted of selling or possessing drugs of any type.

On Friday, the commission voted unanimously to apply these new, more lenient sentences to those who are already serving time.

The commission’s vote comes amid a rising consensus across the country of the need to roll back the harsh terms of an earlier era. The federal prison system is now 32 percent over capacity, officials say, and many state prison systems are also weighed down by nonviolent drug offenders.

"As we continue the march toward fairness in our country’s failed, racially biased sentencing policies, we can’t leave behind those who had the bad luck to receive their sentences before the policies were changed," said Jesselyn McCurdy, senior counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement. "Making these new guidelines retroactive will offer relief to thousands of people who received overly harsh sentences under the old sentencing guidelines.”

[MIAdragon]

Can't post a link but he's a free man

[seclark]

Originally Posted by MIAdragon

Can't post a link but he's a free man

http://ktvo.com/news/local/missouri-...eed-09-01-2015
EFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - A Missouri man sentenced to life without parole for marijuana-related offenses is set to be released from prison.

Jeff Mizanskey's attorney says he will be released Tuesday from the Jefferson City Correctional Center after spending more than two decades behind bars.

Police say Mizanskey conspired to sell 6 pounds of pot to a dealer connected to Mexican drug cartels.

He was sentenced and convicted as a persistent drug offender under Missouri law. The law allowed life without parole for people with three felony drug convictions. It's since been changed.

Missouri's Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon commuted Mizanskey's sentence in May, making him eligible for parole.

Mizanskey's attorney says the man's son and grandchildren are expected to meet him once he's released.

[BigMeatballDave]

Is Missouri getting legalization on the ballet this year?

I'll be voting for it here in Ohio in November.