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Irvin Rosenfeld is the longest surviving federal medical marijuana patient in the United States. He is also a stockbroker (all of his superiors, co-workers and clients are aware of this). He smokes 10-12 joints a day without any adverse affects.

Luckily for me, I’ve never been “convicted” of possession of marijuana. However, nearly a million people were less fortunate than I in the year 2007. Imagine what that figure would look like if they caught all of us “users.” I’ve probably smoked 5 days a week since 2001. That’s a shitload of potential busts I’ve managed to avoid. I hope some of the readers are knocking on wood for me, but hopefully the US will have a complete overhaul to current drug policies sometime in the near future. Anyone else not holding their breath?

Absent fathers, orphaned children and growing numbers of HIV and Hepatitis C infections are what some African Americans are facing due to the anti-drug policy, ‘war on drugs’.

Advice for aspiring criminals looking to reduce the opportunity costs of time spent in prison: if you’re given a choice between selling drugs or murdering a young woman, choose murder so you’ll get a shorter prison sentence. Consider the example of Robert Chambers, the so-called “Preppie Killer” who in 1986 strangled Jennifer Levin to death in Central Park. He got 15 years for the deed, served it, got out and just returned to serve a 19-year sentence for selling cocaine. And that was a plea bargain; he could’ve gone to prison for life.

In one of the largest seizures ever of methamphetamine in Contra Costa, Narcotics Detectives from the Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff and the Concord Police Department seized 91 pounds of methamphetamine worth over $2.3 million.

The US government succeeds in over 90 per cent of its prosecutions, which indicates that the system is a stacked deck. US criminal justice is based on the plea bargain, which is essentially the exchange of immunity or a reduced sentence for inculpatory perjury against targeted people. It is an evil and repulsive system based on intimidation, suborned falsehoods, and impoverishment. Irish, British and Canadian prosecutors using these tactics would be disbarred.

It’s the day after Christmas in 2001. You’re 21 years old. After finally putting your 18-month-old daughter to sleep, you’re relaxing in your favorite recliner, nodding off in the flickering light of the television show you’re only half-watching and the string of Christmas lights around your front window.