A large percentage of the inmates that are in there for violent crimes are crimes that were drug related. If drugs were legalized, the prison population would be reduced by more than half. But they can't have that because of the huge budgets that could no longer be justified, the highly-profitable contracts would go away and people would be put out of work.
Here is an example of what I mean, this article shows who the 5 biggest supporters of keeping marijuana illegal are and they all have a financial interest in keeping it that way:
The Top Five Special Interest Groups Lobbying To Keep Marijuana Illegal | Republic Report
Beyond the cost (to us taxpayers) of the War on Drugs, there is the human cost of not only the inmates but the cost to the families of the inmates who have had their lives turned upside down over something as minor as a bit of weed.
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, two-hundred and ninety people in the United States are killed by prescription drugs every day. And that does not count the number of patients that die from malpractice and medical mistakes.
Why is someone that is harmed by prescription drugs a victim but someone that smokes a bit of weed a criminal?
And my opinions are based on many years of experience dealing with both. I spent almost 20 years in emergency medical services with brief breaks where I did law enforcement. Law enforcement was not for me because, and this was back in the 80s, the un-Constitutionality of the laws I was supposed to enforce was just not right. I have seen people arrested for having a t-shirt with a marijuana leaf on it because of paraphernalia laws in Texas.
I have never, in all my years as a paramedic, picked up anyone that was stoned on weed and had an accident, killed anyone, overdosed or did anything violent...NEVER!
The numbers of people that I have picked up that were dead or injured by alcohol are in the thousands. Yet, people that are using a bit of weed in their own home are in prison, people with full liquor cabinets are not.
So where is the justice in our so-called justice system?
In a common sense society, your rights would end where mine began. Smoke weed, get drunk off your ass, shoot up peanut butter, whatever, it is your life to mess up and none of my business nor should it be the business of the government what we put into our bodies.
But, like someone said, common sense is not very common.
An excellent article about this can be found here.
The USA ceased being the "Home of the free, land of the brave" decades ago.
If you really mean your statement:
From the story:
Those nasty, nasty criminals! How dare they do anything that is not sanctioned by the nanny state! Criminals, criminals all! Throw them in jail for their consensual acts and feed those "inmates" vegetarian meals! No "sympathy"!In fact, it is hardly a lone instance of government cracking down on the sale of raw milk.
Police arrested James Stewart, the owner of Rawesome Foods, and two raw milk suppliers, Sharon Ann Palmer and Eugenie Bloch of Healthy Family Farms.