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The point here is that there are more consequences when you're Black in the US. Statistically speaking people of color, and in particular Black Americans, are arrested and convicted of marijuana related crimes at a much higher rate than any other group [1]. That translates into Black Americans being kept out of the newly legal business because of racist policing policies.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-b...

I appreciate your remarks. But -- what I'm saying is that no one should feel sorry for this guy. It pains me to see the vast numbers of Americans who but a few years ago were for tough legislation and tough policies and who now desire to see criminals released from prison because the sentence may be too harsh. Really? If you do the crime, you do the time. We should not undo sentencing. It was all done legally at the time and it should stand.

I don't like the dope industry. It attracts children who think that smoking marijuana is harmless. It's not. The dopeheads can trot out all the industry-inspired crap they like, but it's not healthy. I'm all for ACTUAL medical patients who are in severe pain using it, but so many go to these quack doctors who will give a medical reason for a few dollars. Actual doctors with hospital admitting privileges should be the law.

Marijuana is not harmless and just a few years ago the majority of Americans agreed. The morality in America has slipped precipitously since our heyday as a nation in the 1950s.

>The morality in America has slipped precipitously since our heyday as a nation in the 1950s.

Yea, the 1950's were really America's heyday (/s), while the rest of the world was blown up. I wonder if people in the 1920's were sipping on illegal booze at Gadsby's party thinking "man, the morality in america sure has taken a dive since the gilded age". Is your view so skewed by the media portrayal of the Jones' and white picket fences that you think America was some bastion of morality then? The morals established then were that woman couldn't own credit cards unless their husbands deemed it so, gays should be sent to sanitoriums to prevent the spread of their disease by showing nude pictures to other boys (Lavender Scare anyone?); it took 10+ years for some states to comply with Brown v The Board of Education. So how about you get your kids a history book and let them read that so they don't have to see the world through rose colored bigoted glasses.

edit. The more I think about this the more upset I am. HUAC, being able to LEGALLY beat your wife, this isn't even touching on African-American trials of the time. America was a fucking mess in the 1950's.

> The morality in America has slipped precipitously since our heyday as a nation in the 1950s.

oh man

Only because beating blacks and wives was considered moral behavior in the 1950s.

No, that's precisely backwards.

We changed the law because we thought it had been incorrect. Any convictions from an incorrect law are obvious an error, not a feature.

I totally agree with you about this guy in particular. He is a felon, with a conviction relating to the industry he wants to work in. Don't let fraudsters become accountants, don't let illegal dealers become legal ones.

But the problem is that there are a lot of white people who are guilty of the same offenses, who are currently operating businesses he isn't allowed to operate, but who were never convicted of those crimes due to previous racial profiling.

Whether or not we do something to right the wrongs of our ancestors against blacks, Native Americans, or other groups, and what that something might be, is a hard problem.

The horrors of genocide, racism, and slavery hundreds of years ago or decades ago are one thing, but this is one guy's lifetime - racism played a part in getting him convicted while the crimes committed by his white competitors were ignored. Does that help the argument make more sense?

What you say is likely very true, but has no bearing on this one man's case. This one man was found guilty and is now paying the price. Some will call foul. Some won't. I don't argue the fact that race relations in the US haven't been pretty and that many people were unfairly treated or even falsely convicted, but this particular man was found guilty of a crime he did commit and is now paying for his crimes. It doesn't matter that his white counterparts did the same and are selling legal dope. They didn't get convicted. This is the crux, not what's fair. He's a convict, they are not. Fair or not, he needs to move on and make something of himself before he becomes afoul of the law again and really ruins his life beyond what damage is already done. Nothing stops this guy from learning how to code and selling his software to the legal dope industry if he wants to be involved that badly.

If your only baromrter for morality is "caught and convicted o a crime", your pronouncements on how to build a society (including how crimes are defined, investigated, and prosecuted) aren't very interesting.

Get a grip. Moral people would not want to sell dope, regardless if there were no penalties. Dope changes lives, and never in a good way.

Morality is absolute. People deep down know right from wrong. America now plays relativism with morality and truth with garbage like, "well, if it's true for you...". It's crap.

A felony conviction means you cannot be trusted. This man sold dope to people. He was convicted. What's not to like? The law did it's job. Now, if only we had Singapore's drug laws, this country would be largely free of immoral dopeheads and their ilk. Selling dope is immoral whether legal or not. It attracts bad people and gets children involved in things that are not healthy and righteous.

I read the entire article. The man was duly convicted of a crime in Oklahoma. He broke the law, regardless of what anyone thinks. Fast forward to when black people owning property in certain places is now legal and this guy wants a piece of the action, but...he cannot legally do so because he fled from his master. Should we undo his conviction? No. He was tried fairly and found guilty based on the laws of the time and place. His fault. His color has nothing to do with it, and quite frankly, I'm sick to death of everything in this country now revolving around the blacks, sodomites, and women.

Laws are made by humans, and there is no guarantee that they are fair or ethical. The man in the article was caught with a couple cigarettes filled with a shredded plant (the illegal one, not that legal yet much more harmful plant). He served a felony for it because we instituted a draconian and racist class war under the guise of "saving the children from reefer madness". This country is finally instituting some sensible drug legislation, but the people that were most disproportionately affected by the War on Drugs are now disproportionately locked out of this new market. That is neither fair nor ethical.

Fair from what perspective? I'm a conservative who hates drugs, homosexuality, feminism, and a whole host of other ills that now plague this once-great nation. We are now awash as a nation in sea of immorality, relativism, and moral corruptness. We have no moral compass. I've said it before and I say it again, America was at her best in the 1950s. Since then, we've lost our conservative moorings to immoral behavior, lifestyles, cheapened sexuality, illicit drugs, what not.

You say "market" like selling dope could be a good thing. If it's a harmless plant, as you say, why have any regulations concerning it. Tea is a "harmless" plant, and as such, I can send my children into Walmart and purchase it without so much as a by-your-leave from the cashier. Harmless plants don't need sensible regulations because harmless things don't need regulating. Morality again, gone astray. I miss my old-school America where Americans were conservatives.

HN isn't the place for strident political rants, so please don't post them here.

Thoughtful conversation is what we're going for. It's possible to have that about inflammatory topics, but it requires a conscious effort at respecting those with opposing views and meeting them where they are. That's not always easy—especially when others appear wrong and disingenuous—but if you can't do it, it's best not to comment until you can.

You had me up to this point:

> His color has nothing to do with it, and quite frankly, I'm sick to death of everything in this country now revolving around race, homosexuals, feminists.

Because it's not that simple. And race seems to play a big part in the probability to get convicted and have a record, especially for something as mundane as selling pot.

This is tacking on an extra penalty for breaking the law after the fact which is generally considered unconstitutional. Further, by living in city's poor black people end up with much harsher punishments for the same crimes. Which set's up cycles of negative consequences we are all stuck with.

Picture this, you apply for a job but now all background checks are required by law to include speeding tickets which prevent you from making more than minimum wage. Further, this applies retroactively. Are you now more or less likely to commit a new crime?

A felony conviction is a far cry from a mere moving violation. A felony conviction means you cannot be trusted. Full stop. Selling dope is a choice. The man made a choice and paid for his actions. Should he now be allowed to profit from the same (now legal) action that got him barred in the first place? No. The legal dope industry, as shady as it is, has established laws that says "felons not welcome", and that's OK. Nothing stops this guys from pursuing some other line of work and making something of himself. The problem here is that the legal dope industry is easy money. Too many people want "easy". They don't want to go and actually work.

Felony's where meant to mean something, but it's become a meaningless label.

Give it 20 years and do 5mph over the speed limit could easily be a felony. Hell you have likely committed a few hundred felony's of one type or another. (3 per day is BS, but several a year is common.)