Donald Trump commuted the sentence of Alice Johnson. Johnson, 63, was serving a life sentence for a non-violent, first offense drug crime.
Here’s the thing.
The Right is happy because Trump commuted the sentence of a black woman for a non-violent drug offense, proving that is he not a racist.
The Left, which wants leniency for non-violent drug offenders, especially those who are minorities are mad because TRUMP!!!
So something that they would normally celebrate, they have to shit on, reflexively.
Trump wants to execute drug dealers. But he granted commutation to one because Kim Kardashian asked. https://t.co/ToeDNcSesP
— Vox (@voxdotcom) June 6, 2018
So what did Johnson do?
Johnson, 63, was arrested in 1993 and convicted of drug conspiracy and money laundering in 1996, according to a Mic profile. She became involved with cocaine dealers after she lost her job, her son was killed, she and her husband divorced and her home was foreclosed on, Mic reported.
Johnson has said she did not sell drugs or make deals, though she did admit to acting as an intermediary for those involved, passing along messages. She was given life in prison without parole.
Here are my feelings on this: Fuck everyone, everyone is wrong and this is bullshit.
Johnson fell on hard times and got into drug trafficking for the money. She went Breaking Bad before that was a popular TV show.
So the fuck what. I have no sympathy for her. If one person overdosed because of her actions, that death is on her hands. If one kid was shot in the cross fire of a drug deal, that death is on her hands.
Why do we separate drug dealing and drug using from all the violence and death that is part the “sphere of drugs.” When people overdose and die, when gangs shoot each other (and bystanders) over turf, when people are robbed to feed a habit, that is fallout from drug dealing.
The majority of homicides in America are gang related, and the primary financial endeavor of gangs is drug trafficking or dealing.
So yes, a substantial percentage of homicides in this country are the eventual result of drug dealing. We could reduce homicides in major cities by as much as 50% by ended drug trafficking.
Call me a monster, I don’t give a fuck. I think the Saudis get this one right, they execute drug dealers.
This is a real news headline:
That is one truck containing enough fentanyl to kill the entire population of Texas. How many people would have died in overdoses because of that one shipment?
The son of former Fox News host Eric Bolling died of an accidental fentanyl overdose.
“It ended up being an accidental opioid overdose,” he said. “He bought Xanax from someone. It was a street Xanax. Turns out it was laced with Fentanyl.”
My heart breaks for that man. I can’t imagine getting a call late at night telling me my kid, who should be studying in his dorm, died of an overdose.
I believe we should systematically track down every single person, involved in that shipment, convict them, and send them to the United States Penitentiary, in Terre Haute, Indiana, and fill their veins with fentanyl and potassium chloride until their hearts stop.
Every. Single. One.
You want to stop this shit? Yes, execute the gang members and street criminals. But send SWAT to kick down the office door of the white collar money launderers and people letting a prescription drug out of pharmacies and warehouses too.
The opioid crisis is killing people. Maybe we should start killing the people responsible for it.
It’s time to do away with the idea of a “non violent drug offender.”
“I knowingly sold that guy poison, it’s not my fault he died injecting it into his arm.”
That’s not a defense.
This was a bad act by Trump. I have zero sympathy for a woman who said “I went bankrupt so I facilitated drug trafficking.” I’d be more sympathetic to her if she committed credit card fraud, at leas nobody overdoses when you charge stuff to their account.
Maybe we need to get Eric Bolling to go to the White House and get his picture taken with Trump.
Then we can really start dealing with drug crime.
While I get where you’re coming from, sir, the reality is that drugs don’t cause turf wars. The PROHIBITION of drugs causes turf wars. violence isn’t a side effect of drugs, it’s a side-effect of prohibition.
That’s what Prohibition taught us, if we’re willing to listen.
You don’t see Jack Daniels and Jim Beam gangs shooting it out on the streets.
Prohibition as an attack at a very real and very large public health crisis was extremely effective. We went from Drunk America to Responsibly Drunk America in 10 years.
How the rest of Prohibition was handled? Well, we can argue that point. At least if there was no Prohibition we wouldn’t have been saddled with the family of that NAZI lover Joe Kennedy (yes, those Kennedys.)
But in reality. Everywhere where legalizing drugs has been tried, even in Portugal, the people who were doing illegal things to get illegal drugs still do illegal things to get legal drugs. Still destroy their bodies using legal drugs. Still destroy their families and friends and their local society using legal drugs. But it’s so much better now that drugs are legal, right?
You want to end the war on drugs; by killing the people responsible for it? Fine, just execute those most responsible, the drug abusers themselves! They are parasites on their parents, and by extension, the entire community.
Your sympathy for opioid abusers is oddly misplaced.
Isn’t saying “If one person overdosed because of her actions, that death is on her hands. If one kid was shot in the cross fire of a drug deal, that death is on her hands.” pretty much the same thing that the anti’s are saying about gun manufacturers, dealers, etc…?
Or am I missing something?
1) Drug dealing is not a legal activity.
2) There is not such thing as “responsible heroin use.” Target shooting is good, murder is bad. Shooting heroin into your arm is always bad.
There are many functional drug addicts just like there are many functional alcoholics…. There areany people who use certain drugs purely recreationally. IDK if either fits the bill of responsible to you, II wouldn’ call it responsible per say but not the typical idea of an addict either.
“I’m a functional insider trader… I only counterfeit $100 bills for relaxation… I’m not the typical kind of guy who puts cameras in women’s changing rooms, I’m responsible about it…”
…Nah. Not feeling it. And there’s been a whole lot of graves dug with the phrase “I’m not an addict, I just use recreationally”.
Hey man you can’t handle the sauce it ain’t my problem if you end up dead for it. Doesn’t mean they weren’t a recreational user.
Rogue14 – Bingo. That is exactly what I was thinking.
Nope. That would be saying that the person who supplied the gun illegally is responsible for the illegal use of the gun, which, by the way, already covered in “accessory before the fact.”
The manufacturer, legal transporter, legal seller, legal owner are not responsible for the illegal use of a weapon, whether it be a gun, a knife (thanks, formerly Great Britain) or a chainsaw, a claw hammer. Providing the gun, knife, chainsaw or claw hammer to someone with knowledge that they will use said object illegally is, as I said above, already a crime.
Problem is, very few Prosecutors Offices will charge the illegal obtainer/procurer/seller of the weapon used. Why? Because the Prosecutor is elected predominately by the very group of people who the Prosecutor will be prosecuting the most. Weee.. ain’t crime fun?
Yeah, okay, yes, I think that Trump kinda screwed up on this one. But where is all the bitching and moaning from all the commutations and pardons given to drug dealing drug dealers during the Anointed One’s Reign of Terror? Oh, suddenly everyone forgets all the scumbags and vicious assholes that Okobungler let out.
I never watch the news, but I saw at work today on CNN Headline News, it must have been this woman, and she was praising Trump, endlessly. I didn’t know or care what happened, and I still don’t, but I couldn’t believe CNN would actually air someone praising the President. They must have been caught by surprise.
Careful with your logic.
If the maker of the drug is responsible for misuse of it, then the maker of your gun is responsible for its misuse too.
If the seller of the drug is responsible for misuse of it, then the seller of your gun is responsible for its misuse too.
Mentioning Prohibition is very apt. Nearly all of the crime we’re seeing associated with drugs is because they’re illegal. The parallels with Prohibition are there.
All we really managed to do by banning drugs is make monsters rich and powerful.
“We could reduce homicides in major cities by as much as 50% by ended drug trafficking.”
And the easiest way to do that is make recreational drugs legal. Did we learn nothing from prohibition? Pot is less harmful than booze but even if it wasn’t what right has the government to tell me what type of fun I’m allowed to have. From both a practical and rights protecting viewpoint recreational drugs should be legal.
Way less Crime
Fewer drug deaths due to known purity and dosage.
More tax revenue.
More freedom.
The downside? People get to enjoy things you don’t like. The fear that everyone will suddenly become an addict if we legalize drugs is proven false everywhere it’s been tried. So tell me again why you want to kill people for having fun in a non-government approved manner.
Yes, I have a problem with a chemical being available that have lethal doses in the micrograms. This is how kids OD.
I’ve gotten drunk. It takes work to OD on alcohol but people do it. There is no recreational heroin or fentynal use.
It’s not “not approved fun” it is “one grain of something you didn’t know was there and you die.”
It’s not a comparison. You might as well legalize VX gas for recreational use.
I have no problem culling the herd. Sucks to be them – play the game you may lose. Good riddance.
Want to CUT Drug use? Really cut it?
Give poor blacks and poor whites and poor everybody a real JOB and HOPE for a better life. Busy working people may have more money, but most won’t spend it on drugs. If they can see a brighter future, they won’t turn to heroin and fentanyl in the first place.
President Trump is giving people jobs and hope. Black unemployment is down, Hispanic unemployment is down, all unemployment is way down. If the cost of convincing 15% or 25% of black voters to support Trump policies that produce more employment is pardoning a few deserving black people, then do it.
If President Trump can get 20-25% of black voters to vote Republican, that will destroy the Socialist Democrat Party as a national party. Then we have the margin to choose good pro-gun candidates, and throw out the quislings without worry of empowering the gun grabbers.
All the while, the US will become a richer, working nation with hopeful productive people of ALL races. JOBS are the greatest welfare program ever invented.
When you drill down, most of the opioid crisis exists or is made worse because it is illegal.
The opioid crisis is really a fentanyl crisis, and addicts aren’t choosing fentanyl over heroin or morphine, they are getting fentanyl when they ask for heroin. As cheap as the internet says prescription morphine is, I doubt any significant numbers would take fentanyl instead–and if they did, they would at least get a consistent dose.
But making things better for addicts is very, very low on the list of what I care about here. More important is availability for people in pain, the loss of freedom that comes with the drug war, innocent people getting caught in turf wars, the power of cartels and gangs–all things that would be improved if drugs were legal. I’ll take whatever level of recreational overdoses to get rid of the problems the drug war causes to decent non-users.
I suspect full legality would increase pot use a bit, wouldn’t do much for adult use of other drugs, would reduce overdoses considerably. and would reduce availability to kids. Sounds good to me.
Well, Mexico has de facto drug legalization across most of its northern quarter and look how low their crime rate is… oh wait.
While I believe prohibition is a failure and will always be, it is completely unrealistic to think that simply legalizing or decriminalizing is going to fix everything.
There are many underlying issues that would need to be addressed along with decriminalization or legalization, to scratch the surface.
Poverty
Opportunity
Culture
Enhanced legal protections for those defending themselves
Further criminal justice reform
Social programs to address the above
Elimination of black markets or black market demand
Organized crime
Corruption Issues
In Mexico all of these problems still exist and are largely unaddressed in any meaningful way from what I can see. You also have the huge demand from the US driving the production, control, and distribution of illicit substances. That is at least part or maybe most of where the surrounding violence comes from.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating sacrificing or diminishing our sovereignty to address a problem in another country, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore factors that cause it.
The war on drugs has been an abject failure.
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