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Title: Police Arrest 94-year-old Veteran for Felony Marijuana Charges
Source:
Counter Current News
URL Source: http://countercurrentnews.com/2015/ ... ce-arrest-94-year-old-veteran/
Published: Sep 6, 2015
Author: Justin Gardner
Post Date: 2015-09-07 08:14:27 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 1155
Comments: 12
The War on Drugs may have reached its pinnacle of absurdity when 94-year-old World War II veteran Douglas Ponischil was arrested for felony marijuana charges earlier this year. The pot had been mailed to his home on someone else’s behalf, and law enforcement swept him up with no further investigation. The case against Mr. Ponischil, who miraculously survived a Nazi U-Boat attack, was dismissed on June 30 after months of negotiating with prosecutors by attorney Christopher Connelly. Only in a thoroughly immoral and baseless system of prohibition can something like this happen. What began in the late 1970s as a crusade against “the devil’s candy” is now well-known as a miserable failure. That is, unless you are interested in giving the State tremendous power and billions of dollars in civil asset forfeiture. The shell of purported righteousness has fallen away from the War on Drugs to reveal its sickly core. An analysis released five days ago by the Pew Charitable Trusts confirmed the ineffectiveness and waste of the drug war. The report, titled “Federal Drug Sentencing Laws Bring High Cost, Low Return,” describes how mass incarceration, mandatory minimums, and billions of dollars per year have done nothing to curb drug use or supply, while caging tens of thousands for minor roles in trafficking. The stated goals of the drug war, misguided as they are, have never been met. Even the decreased crime rate since the 1990s has virtually nothing to do with it. “The National Research Council concluded in a 2014 report that mandatory minimum sentences for drug and other offenders “have few if any deterrent effects.” Even if street-level drug dealers are apprehended and incarcerated, such offenders are easily replaced, ensuring that drug trafficking can continue, researchers say. …research credits the increased incarceration of drug offenders with only a 1 to 3 percent decline in the combined violent and property crime rate. “It is unlikely that the dramatic increase in drug imprisonment was cost- effective,” one study concluded in 2004.” Recidivism, or the relapse into criminal behavior, has remained unchanged. One of the main goals of criminal justice is to reduce recidivism. “Of the more than 20,000 federal drug offenders who concluded periods of post-release community supervision in 2012 (the latest year for which statistics are available), 29 percent either committed new crimes or violated the conditions of their release. This proportion has changed little since the mid-1980s, when sentences and time served began increasing sharply. Conversely, targeted reductions in prison terms for certain federal drug offenders have not led to higher recidivism rates.” While government has increased spending dramatically to cage people for possessing drugs or being involved in the trade, supply has increased, prices have declined, and potency has increased. “From 1980 to 2013, federal prison spending increased 595 percent, from $970 million to more than $6.7 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.19 Taxpayers spent almost as much on federal prisons in 2013 as they paid to fund the entire U.S. Justice Department—including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and all U.S. attorneys—in 1980, after adjusting for inflation.” The obsessive rise in spending coincided with sharp increases in sentence lengths and near disappearance of probation, swelling the federal prison population to nearly 800 percent higher in 2013 than it was in 1980. More than a quarter of drug offenders are “mules” representing the lowest-level trafficking role, and nearly a fifth were street-level dealers selling an ounce or less to users. As we have described before, drug offenses are victimless crimes. This is highlighted by the fact that in 2014, less than 1% of drug cases featured violence or threats of violence, and only 16% of federal drug convictions involved a weapon. There is nowhere for Drug War proponents to hide anymore. There is literally nothing they can use to support the case for continuing this crusade. When Mr. Ponischil was floating at sea for days during World War II, hoping that the government he valiantly served would rescue him after the Nazi U-Boat attack, he never imagined that same government would be hauling him to prison decades later for inadvertently receiving a dried plant in the mail. 
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
The stated goals? What are they and where can I find them?
It's called the rule of law. It applies to everyone equally. I can't think of a more solid and moral system of prohibition. The author wants to make exceptions for certain citizens. If they have a good sob story, the law doesn't apply to them. THAT is an immoral and totally baseless system.
Rule of law my ass. The War on Drugs may have reached its pinnacle of absurdity when 94-year-old World War II veteran Douglas Ponischil was arrested for felony marijuana charges earlier this year. The pot had been mailed to his home on someone else’s behalf, and law enforcement swept him up with no further investigation. Your drug war is an affront to all Americans paulsen. In a Cop Culture, the Bill of Rights Doesn’t Amount to Much None needed. The pot was mailed to his home. Oh, wait. I get it. You want to set up a courtroom on his front lawn and have the trial right then and there where he gets to present his side of the case and call witnesses and plead to the jury. You're an idiot. Or maybe you're simply ignorant of the workings of the American judicial system. In either case, you shouldn't be posting.
You are lucky I do not rule. I would make a law specially made for you. He, he.
And the police make 3 dozen more enemies.
In either case, you shouldn't be posting. Have you ever read the Constitution? You have made yourself out to be nothing more than a g0vt apologist, Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Do you want the cops to establish guilt or innocence, right there, on the spot? Do you want them to do sentencing also? STFU about the U.S. Constitution. You've either never read it or you don't understand it.
Bye. Into the bozo box you go for thirty days.
Yeah, that old guy sure looks dangerous to me. I hope the swat team was well armed, and that they all went home safe. I sure would be worried if that old guy lived in my neighborhood. LOL!!
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Ah, you kind a forgot the < /sacasm> This is what is causing the cops so many headaches. You always hear about the guy who served his time in a Japaneses or German POW camp who forgives his torturer, what you never hear about is the guy who comes back doesn't marry, works and saves his money till he has enough to go back, hunt the guard down, and kill him leaving his body on the side of the road, in a ditch, in a cess pool, or somewhere. I rekon that old man had friends, kin, family, sons of warrior friends, or just plan younger men who liked him and enjoyed his company.
Yeah, sorry about that. Sure hope the old sailor is doing OK. Si vis pacem, para bellum
"The stated goals of the drug war, misguided as they are, have never been met."
#2. To: Deckard (#0)
"Only in a thoroughly immoral and baseless system of prohibition can something like this happen."
#3. To: misterwhite (#2)
It's called the rule of law. It applies to everyone equally.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
Paul Craig Roberts
#4. To: Deckard (#3)
"and law enforcement swept him up with no further investigation."
#5. To: misterwhite (#2)
I can't think of a more solid and moral system of prohibition.
#6. To: Deckard (#0)
#7. To: misterwhite (#4)
You're an idiot. Or maybe you're simply ignorant of the workings of the American judicial system.
#8. To: BobCeleste (#7)
"Have you ever read the Constitution? You have made yourself out to be nothing more than a g0vt apologist"
#9. To: misterwhite (#8)
#10. To: BobCeleste (#6)
#11. To: Stoner (#10)
Yeah, that old guy sure looks dangerous to me. I hope the swat team was well armed, and that they all went home safe. I sure would be worried if that old guy lived in my neighborhood. LOL!!
#12. To: BobCeleste (#11)
" you kind a forgot the < /sacasm> "
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