In the 1970s and ’80s, Robert J. Riley was a Deadhead, following the Grateful Dead around the country in pursuit of the music and its free love spirit. Tall and gangly, he was well liked by fellow travelers, or, as he called them, “people unafraid to be barefoot on the Earth.”
It’s no secret that the band and their dedicated fan base consumed psychedelics — everything from LSD to psilocybin. In the mid 1960s, the Grateful Dead found themselves and their characteristic sound by experimenting with music tripping, and fans in their audience became attuned to listening while high. Riley was just another hippie along for the ride.
His first arrest came for selling a joint on a beach in San Diego. Over the next 15 years he’d be arrested two more times; first for selling 3 grams of hash and next for $25 worth of amphetamines.
Then, in 1992, he was arrested for the last time, for mailing LSD and mushrooms across state lines. Under the harsh, black and white mandatory minimum sentencing requirements of federal drug policies, the details of his conviction and arrest history didn’t matter. This was his fourth arrest and he was sentenced to life without parole.
Last week, on Jan. 19, 2017, just days before leaving office, President Obama commuted the rest of Riley’s sentence so that in a year’s time he will walk out of jail a free man.
Riley was one of 330 nonviolent drug offenders to receive clemency or commutation from the executive office that day, the most ever issued in a single day. It brought the total commutations and clemencies granted by Obama to 1,715, more than the last 13 presidents combined.
In a letter to those granted commutation, Obama wrote: “I am granting your application because you have demonstrated the potential to turn your life around. Now it is up to you to make the most of this opportunity. It will not be easy, and you will confront many who doubt people with criminal records can change. But remember that you have the capacity to make good decisions.”
In the name of second chances, Obama’s last and most productive day of commutations was a victory for the 2014 Clemency Initiative, a joint effort between the Executive Office and the Office of the Attorney General to increase the number of clemency applications.
“For our criminal justice system to be effective, it needs to not only be fair, but it also must be perceived as being fair,” wrote then Deputy Attorney General James. M Cole at a press conference announcing the initiative.
“These older, stringent punishments that are out of line with sentences imposed under today’s laws erode people’s confidence in our criminal justice system.”
Despite advocating for reforms to federal drug law during his presidency — such as reducing the disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine sentencing, ending the ban on federal funding for syringe access programs and supporting state medical marijuana laws — President Obama was largely unsuccessful in shifting criminalization platforms to health-based policy. Unable to persuade lawmakers to shift policy or to unilaterally adjust laws, his only power to signal shifting attitudes to drug law was to commute prison sentences.
Colorado was indisputably a catalyst in sparking the shift in public attitudes about drug policy. While there is no way to know why 55 percent of Coloradans voted to legalize marijuana in 2012, it is largely credited to the campaign to treat marijuana like alcohol and the corollary argument that it is unjust to criminalize its consumption or trade.
The scenarios surrounding the 330 names on the list of commutations issued in Obama’s final hours makes it clear that marijuana is but a part of a bigger issue in drug policy. In fact, there are only a few people on the list imprisoned solely for marijuana related charges — the vast majority were convicted for use or distribution of cocaine, amphetamines and other drugs. By broadly addressing convictions for many drugs, Obama points at the need for comprehensive reform that goes beyond the confines of any one drug.
The same day he issued the shortened sentences, Obama also published an article in Harvard Law Review about criminal justice reform, “The President’s Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform.” In the article Obama notes that he is the first president in decades to leave the office with fewer people in federal prison than when he started, but he admits limits to the executive office’s power in reforming policy.
Only Congress can achieve the broader reforms needed to ensure our criminal justice system operates more fairly and effectively in the service of public health and public safety.
With Donald Trump now at the helm in the Oval Office, staunchly committed to a “law and order” platform with all its tough-on-crime implications, it is doubtful that the reform Obama hopes for is coming. His selection for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, has been one of the principle opponents of a bipartisan sentencing reform compromise in Congress.
Criminality is not an inherent trait — it’s accidental, extrinsic. On Jan. 19, Robert J. Riley was a criminal, the next day he wasn’t. Similarly, on Dec. 31, 2013 anyone consuming marijuana in Colorado was in breach of the law, the next day they were not.
The “War on Marijuana” has been a complete and utter failure. It is the largest component of the broader yet equally unsuccessful “War on Drugs” that has cost our country over a trillion dollars.
Instead of The United States wasting Billions upon Billions more of our tax dollars fighting a never ending “War on Marijuana”, lets generate Billions of dollars, and improve the deficit instead. It’s a no brainer.
The Prohibition of Marijuana has also ruined the lives of many of our loved ones. In numbers greater than any other nation, our loved ones are being sent to jail and are being given permanent criminal records which ruin their chances of employment for the rest of their lives, and for what reason?
Marijuana is much safer to consume than alcohol. Yet do we lock people up for choosing to drink?
The government should never attempt to legislate morality by creating victim-less marijuana “crimes” because it simply does not work and costs the taxpayers a fortune.
Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is an inevitable reality that’s approaching much sooner than prohibitionists think and there is nothing they can do to stop it!
Legalize Nationwide!
Marijuana consumers deserve and demand equal rights and protections under our laws that are currently afforded to the drinkers of far more dangerous and deadly, yet perfectly legal, widely accepted, endlessly advertised and even glorified as an All American pastime, booze.
Plain and simple!
Legalize Marijuana Nationwide!
In the prohibitionist’s world, anybody who consumes the slightest amount of marijuana responsibly in the privacy of their own homes are “stoners” and “dopers” that need to be incarcerated in order to to protect society.
In their world, any marijuana use equates to marijuana abuse, and it is their God given duty to worry about “saving us all” from the “evils” of marijuana use.
Who are they to tell us we can’t choose marijuana, the safer choice instead of alcohol for relaxation, after a long, hard day, in the privacy of our own homes?
People who consume marijuana are smart, honest, hard working, educated, and successful people too, who “follow the law” also.(except for their marijuana consumption under it’s current prohibition of course) .
Not the stereotypical live at home losers prohibitionists make them out to be. They are doctors, lawyers, professors, movie stars, and politicians too.
Several Presidents of The United States themselves, along with Justin Trudeau, Bill Gates, and Carl Sagan have all confessed to their marijuana use. As have a long and extensive list of successful people throughout history at one point or other in their lives.
Although that doesn’t mean a dam thing to people who will make comments like “dopers” and “stoners” about anybody who uses the slightest amount of Marijuana although it is way safer than alcohol.
To these people any use equals abuse, and that is really ignorant and full of hypocrisy. While our society promotes, advertises, and even glorifies alcohol consumption like it’s an All American pastime.
There is nothing worse about relaxing with a little marijuana after a long hard day than having a drink or two of alcohol.
So come off those high horses of yours. Who are you to dictate to the rest of society that we can’t enjoy Marijuana, the safer choice over alcohol, in the privacy of our own homes?
We’ve worked real hard our whole lives to provide for our loved ones. We don’t appreciate prohibitionists trying to impose their will and morals upon us all.
Has a marijuana consumer ever forced you to use it? Probably not. So nobody has the right to force anybody not to either.
Don’t try to impose your morality and “clean living” upon everybody else with Draconian Marijuana Laws, and we won’t think you’re such prohibitionist hypocrites.
Legalize Nationwide! Support Each and Every Marijuana Legalization Initiative!
“Marijuana is 114 times safer than drinking alcohol”
http://rt.com/usa/234903-marijuana-safer-alcohol-deadly/
“Marijuana may be even safer than previously thought, researchers say”
“Marijuana may be even safer than previously thought, researchers say New study: We should stop fighting marijuana legalization and focus on alcohol and tobacco instead By Christopher Ingraham February 23
Compared with other recreational drugs — including alcohol — marijuana may be even safer than previously thought. And researchers may be systematically underestimating risks associated with alcohol use.
Those are the top-line findings of recent research published in the journal Scientific Reports, a subsidiary of Nature. Researchers sought to quantify the risk of death associated with the use of a variety of commonly used substances. They found that at the level of individual use, alcohol was the deadliest substance, followed by heroin and cocaine.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/23/marijuana-may-be-even-safer-than-previously-thought-researchers-say/
“The report discovered that marijuana is 114 times less deadly than alcohol. Researchers were able to determine this by comparing the lethal doses with the amount of typical use. Through this approach, marijuana had the lowest mortality risk to users out of all the drugs they studied. In fact—because the numbers were crossed with typical daily use—marijuana is the only drug that tested as “low risk.”
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/02/scientific-reports-weed-114-safer-alcohol