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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday January 03 2018, @10:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-am-the-law-Judge-Dredd dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The state of California legalised recreational cannabis use in November 2016, and it will become legal state-wide on Monday. That means anyone 21 and older will be able to buy cannabis from a licensed store, known as a dispensary.

The resentencing provisions of Proposition 64, California's cannabis legalisation initiative, have been in effect since last year, said Eunisses Hernandez, a policy coordinator at the Drug Policy Alliance, a group working to end drug prohibition. But few people know about the resentencing provision, which applies to people who are currently imprisoned or out on parole, Hernandez told Al Jazeera.

Individuals who apply for resentencing may be released from prison or have the charge on their criminal record reduced. Felonies may be lowered to misdemeanours, misdemeanours to infractions, or infractions to an outright dismissal of charges.

Resentencing will likely affect thousands of lives, since at least 500,000 marijuana-related arrests have been recorded in California over the last decade, Hernandez said.

[...] Several groups in the US have urged authorities to include changes to drug-related criminal offences in their efforts to legalise recreational cannabis.

Proponents of cannabis legalisation feared that allowing people with past drug convictions to get out of jail or reduce their sentences would lower the chance that the laws would pass at all. "There was, in many cases, a reluctance to bring this up," he told Al Jazeera.

Today, opponents of resentencing provisions often argue that retrying these cases puts "a very, very large potential burden on the courts", Sterling said.

Law enforcement officers may also contend that a guilty plea to cannabis possession may follow the dropping of more serious charges, such as possession with the intent to distribute - "and so to make a blanket change without looking at all of the underlying facts of the arrest would mean that more serious offenders would have their records expunged", Sterling said.

Ultimately, Sterling said it is most important to make sure people who may be affected by a resentencing law are aware that the law exists in the first place.

"The key thing, I think, is the ability for people to re-enter the economy and society free of those encumbrances," he said. "We would also say they are eligible to vote, they are eligible for jury duty, that all of their civil rights are restored."


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Wednesday January 03 2018, @05:29PM (2 children)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday January 03 2018, @05:29PM (#617230) Journal

    Should people convicted of recreational cannabis use be pardoned outright? NO*. It was against the law when they used it. They knew the law, even if it was bad, they choose to break it.

    Laws against recreational drug usage by, and production for, and sales to, informed, consenting adults are inherently wrong; therefore, any conviction for these things is also inherently wrong; therefore, they should be reversed. This also goes for attempts to non-violently protect one's self from ancillary legal consequences of wrongful laws, such as charges that you didn't report your sales to the tax authorities.

    Initiating violence, however, is unacceptable. Convictions for initiation of violence should stand.

    The moral authority for peaceful civil disobedience comes directly and inevitably from the fact that the law is morally wrong. There is no moral authority in advocating, creating, obeying or enforcing a law that is wrong, nor in simply declaring “it’s the law.” Only moral failure.

    When the government asserts it can interfere with the choices of an informed, consenting adult, or like-minded adults, the government is always wrong.

    This Thomas Aquinas quote is particularly relevant:

    …in so far as [law] deviates from right reason it is called an unjust law; in such case it is no law at all, but rather a species of violence.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday January 03 2018, @06:44PM (1 child)

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday January 03 2018, @06:44PM (#617278) Journal

    and production for, and sales to

    You were doing well until you tried to loop in the entire illegal industry. A step too far.

    You seem to forget that all law is based only on "human opinions". Even murder. Its just the opinion of the majority that makes murder illegal. We simply agree that murder is wrong, even in the face of plenty of examples of infanticide and patricide in the animal world. (We then carefully engineer exceptions to the law which make murder perfectly legal and even the right thing to do).

    Given that, there is no way you can, with any degree of intellectual honesty, make blanket statements that any law is inherently wrong. So you are on thin ice from the get go. But you went too far when you said humans have no right to regulate human business practices. Do you REALLY want to open that door? Didn't I see you raging against corporations a while back?

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Wednesday January 03 2018, @07:36PM

      by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday January 03 2018, @07:36PM (#617305) Journal

      You were doing well until you tried to loop in the entire illegal industry. A step too far.

      No, I'm still doing fine. Immoral law is immoral law.

      Your attempt to grandfather in unjust, immoral and harmful government acts as "okay" is what's going too far.

      Unjust and immoral punishment is not made just and/or moral because it was in the past. If it fails in these regards, it has failed, period, end of excuses – and the obligation to repair the damage caused immediately arises.

      The justice system must strive to be just, and law must strive to be moral, and mistakes must be put right, or there's little point to law (other than creating an immoral, unjust society) and the concept of "justice" become meaningless.

      When the government is wrong – and it most certainly has been wrong in this matter – it should cease causing harm and seek to undo harm previously caused insofar as that is reasonably possible, certainly not less so when we're talking about ruined lives and prospects as we are here.

      But you went too far when you said humans have no right to regulate human business practices.

      I didn't say that; you have erected a strawman there.

      What I said was that immoral law was wrong. Laws removing adult, personal / consensual informed choice are immoral. Those regulations are inherently without legitimacy. That's quite different in nature from legitimate regulation of business practices in general. What we're talking about here is the setting aside legitimate business practices as beyond the pale – and that is wrong, was wrong, and shall forever be, wrong.