Parolee allegedly found in possession of cocaine

We need to stop the roller coaster ride of putting people into jail for drugs. This guy has been to prison 3 times for criminal possession of a controlled substance and now he'll go back to prison again, at taxpayers expense.

05B3403 BUTLER, JOHN H PAR PAROLE WILLARD
03B0039 BUTLER, JOHN H PAR PAROLE WILLARD
00B1765 BUTLER, JOHN H PAR PAROLE GREENE

Could someone please explain the positive benefits of sending people to jail for using drugs? There's no mention of him going to prison for being violent, robbery, theft..nothing. It seems that he just likes doing drugs and prison isn't what he needs.

Patricia M. Anderson, arrested yesterday, sure in the hell doesn't look like a "menace to society." The report says she sold cocaine to an agent of the Genesee County Local Drug Task Force on two occasions in the past six months. They've known about her activities for at least 6 months and allowed it to continue to happen.

I'd bet money that she might have been selling small quantities to support her own habit. Look at her..she doesn't look healthy. Why didn't they get her help instead of allowing her to sink deeper into a crappy hole so that they could put her into prison? I think there's something seriously wrong and flawed with how drug problems are handled in this country.

Doug, if I could 'thumbs up' that comment a hundred times, I'd do it. There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to imprison non-violent drug offenders alongside murderers, rapists and other violent individuals.

If we insist on putting non-violent drug offenders in jail, there should be a separate facility for them and we all know how much that would cost.

Obviously it's not as simple as all that, but my basic point is that criminalizing drugs creates violence and imprisoning users and low level dealers does nothing to solve the problem.

It's well past time to de-criminalize naturally occurring substances such as marijuana. It's also time to find a way to control and contain the use and distribution of drugs like heroin and cocaine. If we eliminate the illegal drug markets, we eliminate drug violence.

Chris, I say legalize it all. Not just decriminalize, but LEGALIZE. It's already a choice. A person isn't going to run out and do drugs if they were legalized. If they already don't do drugs, the law has nothing to do with it. They've made the choice not to do them because everyone knows drugs are easy to get. If a person wants to do them, there's nothing stopping them now.

I agree with the idea of possibly a mandatory dry-out facility for the worst case drug abusers but maybe that just prolongs the inevitable. I've lost people to drugs and it's tough to watch them self destruct, but it's their life. I refuse to sink with them and I can only help them stay afloat for just so long. Prison is NOT the answer.

If people could grow a garden full of marijuana in their own back yard, they wouldn't be downtown trying to buy it from Johnny or Jane pot dealer. If dippy Don or dopey Donna could go to a dispensary for their drug of choice and have the drugs be cheap and clean, they wouldn't be committing crimes to support their habit and the drug cartels would be out of business.

We did it with booze, why not drugs? It's a no brainer solution for me.

We as tax payers are forced to spend BILLIONS of dollars every year fighting a war that can't be won. Corruption, bloated police agencies, rights violations, billionaire drug barons and lots of dead people are the end result. IT'S NOT WORKING!

Doug, I almost want to agree with you fully, but there are certain drugs that are truly a bane on society. Methamphetamine comes to mind.

I'd sign up for full legalization of most drugs (I they would need to be looked at on an individual basis) as long as the production and sale of those drugs was heavily regulated.

I certainly don't think the conversation should be about whether or not this should be done at some level. We're way past that, the 'War on Drugs' was an absolute failure and should never have been our policy in the first place. I'm very sick of American drug policies that are still based on Reefer Madness and a strange, inexplicable fear of black jazz musicians.

The conversation about drug legalization needs to be about how do we do it instead of whether or not we should.

Some may disagree with me, but I see American drug policy as an effect of class disparity. White suburbia rarely feels the effect of drug violence...I feel a rant coming on here, saving it for one of my own pieces...

Chris, I agree that meth stands out as a drug that brings distinct problems. However, a lot of those problems are with the illegal meth labs and their dangers. Legalizing would end the meth labs. Ending prohibition ended all the back woods stills that were in operation.

I know it's difficult for people to get their head around the idea of legalizing, but I see it as being beneficial to everyone and to society as a whole. Booze is legal but not everyone is a drunken alcoholic and we're able to control it with regulation.

If people want to sit in their home and shoot up, snort powder, smoke weed..whatever, I don't give a hoot. Don't get into a vehicle and drive while under the influence of anything and of course, keep the intoxicated hands off of guns. Other than that, I think things would be just fine if people didn't have to worry about going to jail and tax payers wouldn't have to foot the burden of the massive incarceration in this country.

It's funny you mention class disparity. Cocaine was originally a rich person's drug. The average blue collar guy couldn't afford it so it was being consumed by doctors, lawyers, bankers..etc. That's fact! It then took a different turn when people learned how to convert cocaine back into its "free base." It was freebase long before it was called crack and it became incredibly cheap. I survived the 80's and remember people being carted off to rehab. No, I did not ever need to go to rehab..HAHA!

Meth isn't anything like booze. It is highly addictive, can cause severe and unpredictable violent and even psychotic behavior in users. This isn't 'beer muscles.' It's a drug that i could never support for legalization. There is no way to 'safely' use this drug and it needs to be eradicated.

I'd like to see the baby steps approach here. Let's start by decriminalizing all drugs. Even if it's just a stated 'brown paper bag' policy where if you're not shooting heroin on the sidewalk and your drug use isn't a danger to others, it will be ignored. Same goes for sale.

At the same time, I'd like to see the immediate legalization of anything that grows naturally. How ridiculous is it to criminalize plants? Why can I smoke tobacco, but not marijuana? Both have an altering effect on my body, both are consumed in the same manner, but one of them is illegal. Same goes for the other stuff that grows naturally.

The man made, refined via chemical process stuff, needs to be looked at on an individual basis

Drugs will never be allowed to be legalized until you take away the "dress-up" time for cops. You would think they are going to Afghanistan rather than a drug bust. I'm sure there may be occasions where excessive force is required; but for an individual user? I've actually seen cops foaming at the mouth during "dress-up" time. They are so psyched up you would think that they are on drugs. I think some actually experience orgasms. Take away their toys and legalization may be possible. The legal system will never give up the money and power that the so called drug war bestows on them.

"Meth" (not Methamphetamine- which the current products attempt to mimic) and so-called 'designer drugs' would probably not exist if other recreational drugs had been either decriminalized or legalized decades ago. The backroom chemistry set abominations come from the imaginations of the drug sellers- not the drug users. As with the deadly concoctions of 1920s bootleggers, the cook who manufactures "Meth" isn't operating under FDA oversight or even conscience... The quality standard is determined by availability/lack of availability of ingredients.

Howard, I was trying to distinguish between the commercial drug once known as speed, and what current Meth labs cook up- based on ephedrine and who-knows-what. If the terminology is historically, chemically or technically inaccurate- the point bears out. The powder vacuumed up certain noses is manufactured by folks who probably couldn't follow grandma's recipe for chocolate cake- even if it relied on a box labeled "Pillsbury."

Criminalizing marijuana has led to breeding of significantly more potent varieties of the drug, because it's easier to conceal a few cellophane wraps of high-potency pot than large quantities of low-potency pot. In general suppression of access to drugs or the ingredients for drugs has encouraged manufacture and sale of drugs such as Meth, crack, ecstacy (MDMA), GHB, Special K, etc. Aside from the questionable conditions under which these chemicals are manufactured, the consumers of these drugs have no gauge for potency, toxicity or impairment- moreover, neither do the emergency room personnel who have to deal with the aftermath. One could take the cynical stance, "Oh well, pay the piper," but the price is typically paid by someone's teenage son or daughter. ...Not to mention the impact on cost of healthcare and building more prisons/hiring more guards to contain the burgeoning numbers prosecuted for drug possession.

Ultimately, society is not solving 'the drug problem' by criminalizing drug use. Society is creating a whole gamut of secondary problems; many of which are more debilitating and costly than those problems criminalization is intended to solve. Foremost in my mind: the violence associated with the illegal drug trade and the progressive development/marketing of more potent/toxic varieties of drugs aimed at recreational use.

I wanted to make the same point that CM is making but I wasn't sure how to properly word it. I know it's only an unprovable theory, and I can't properly back it up, but logic would seem to suggest that if more routine drugs were available legally and at relatively cheap rates, people wouldn't need to build dangerous home chemistry sets to produce modern methamphetamine.

Chris, just for the record, there are prisons in NY set aside for inmates who have drug and/or alcohol problems. I personally think they are a waste of time.

Also for the record the prison population in NY is dropping to the point that we are now closing prisons in New York State.

http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/crimnet/ojsa/stats.htm

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/111662/20110211/marijuana-arrests-new-y…

http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/content/2011/03/16/Cost-NYCs-Marijuan…

http://www.econ.brown.edu/fac/Glenn_Loury/louryhomepage/teaching/Ec%202…

http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/pio/annualreport/baseline_trends_rep…

Drugs are, and always will be prevalent in our society,they will be used and abused, whether obtained legally or not. Addicts of legal or illegal drugs have to want to stop using before any treatment can be effective.
The war on drugs is the biggest failure, since the Bay of Pigs.
Legalizing marijuana would actually be an asset to the war on drugs, as many "smokers" are in rehabs, and pot is easy to detect, they use other drugs that are more difficult to detect and a way shorter shelf life in the body.
Pot can be 30 days, herion 3 days, mushrooms, undetectable. Pot will be illegal for the rest of my lifetime due to the economy it creates for organizations such as GCASA, local, state, and federal law enforcement, and the prison system. Sad but true.