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Getting Busted for Pot Can Cost Your Right to Vote

“Life Sentences” author Richard Boire writes that the long-term sanctions for drug crimes, even for relatively benign drugs like marijuana, can exceed those of violent crimes like premeditated assault, rape and murder. Intense criminalization of drugs began with the Nixon administration, which ignored its own appointed “marihuana” commission’s recommendation that legalization for personal use was a logical alternative to costly and ineffective criminalization. The drug war intensified during the Reagan era and has since grown worse: Today, fully 45 percent of 1.5 million annual drug arrests are related to marijuana.

Sometimes when you talk or write about our drug laws and marijuana there always seems to someone that will make the illogical leap of assuming that you’re pro drugs. An irritating way of avoiding the heart of the issue, the draconian nature of our drug laws. While most simple possession cases for small amounts of marijuana usually don’t involve jail time, many do and then there’s the nice little arrest record hanging around your neck - many insurance and banking companies will not even consider you for employment just for the arrest. Then to add to that heavy handedness is losing your right to vote or lose of other civil rights. Its the legal equivalent of an exterminator that uses a rocket launcher to rid your house of a few silverfish.

Google shows phone prototype to vendors analysts disagree about its potential for success

“I don’t know how successful it’s going to be. The model of an ad-supported wireless Web has not been successful over the past 10 years,” he said, referring to municipal Wi-Fi networks that offer free Internet connections to users willing to view advertisements while they surf the Web.

“The average adult who can afford a cell phone is not going to want to listen to ads. So this is mainly for teenagers, twenty-somethings, high schoolers or people who can’t afford a phone,” said Kagan.

This part of the article caught my eye because Mr. Kagan lives in his world while people that can’t commit to expensive contracts and for whom even prepaid/pay-go phone plans are a budget strain teens, the poor etc might well be willing to put up with some ads for phone/internet access. People with the best intentions talk about bridging the digital divide between the haves and have nots yet leave out the hows of financing the access. Well this advertising model (which still isn’t clear on details) isn’t the perfect solution, but at least its a start.