Drug Law Reform: Perils of the Afflicted

ALABAMA COURTROOM-A Caucasian female living in a major city in the south is arrested late one night for unknowingly selling a gram of methamphetamine to an undercover officer. This isn't her first rodeo, however, due to the fact that she had been picked up a few times before on possession charges. Every time, she had been court ordered into an alternative sentencing program which demanded frequent urine samples on a random basis, as well as her compliance with rehabilitative treatment. Her name is Jane.

For whatever reason, be it her unwillingness to comply with the court-ordered abstinence from her DOC (drug of choice), or non-compliance with the treatment programs orders, Jane failed to meet the courts' demands. Warrants were issued for her arrest and her probation was revoked.

It's a common circumstance in every city in America. Court dockets around the globe, in fact, are filled with drug-related offenses, and every elected authority sitting on the proverbial throne issues the appropriate payment for the addict's sin.

If the charged could afford the same defense that O.J. monetarily secured, there would be gloves which did not fit in her case, also. Of course, the "glove" her costly defense attorney should herald would indeed be one that outsized her hands so much that she would not even have to model them with outstretched hands before the jury box.

First, Jane resides in a country which vigorously protects its citizens' right to freedom of speech. Somehow over the years, this constitutional right (intended to allow the free flow of political thought from the press) now guarantees the freedom of almost any type of artistic expression. She is the citizen of a country which protects a musician's "constitutional right" to publish songs that urge the listener to obtain, sell, and use illicit drugs - even as a way of life.

Whether this protected right was what anyone in any era anywhere in American history ever intended or not is irrelevant here. The fact still remains that American society freely idolizes a criminal intent and destructive lifestyle, and there is no simple way to change the onslaught of constitutionally protected BS which streams out into the lives of Americans everyday.

Ironically, we have laws that, when broken, sentence a person to a mandatory fine of at least $50,000, and 10 years+ in prison. However, the majority of entertainment in this country centers around the protected expression that rollin' down the street with a kilo of coke and an open container of booze is what entitles a person to join the elite group of "heroes" that have been chosen to mentor our children.

Second, Jane, who had prior convictions of breaking drug possession laws, will be sentenced to a prison term which will emotionally and mentally change her for the worse forever. The Department of Corrections will see to it that she pays for her crime. And at least in one Southern state, this woman's very safety and health will be endangered. Proof of this is found in the inhuman and outright dangerous conditions of Julia Tutwiler Prison, the one and only female prison in Alabama.

Even though this soon to be convicted felon does not have the heart of a criminal, she will be confined and treated as such. The only reason she sold drugs was in order to afford the expensive "fixes" that relieved the ills of her gnawing addiction, and had chosen to finance this relief by dealing to other users instead of robbery or theft. She was not a violent person and disagreed strongly with hurting anyone, even to the extreme that other drug addicts were able to take advantage of her trust.

But even considering her non-violent character and the reasons for committing the crimes associated with her drug addiction, Jane will soon have to endure horrible withdrawals without medical supervision or caring support, extreme anxiety and panic attacks, crippling fear, and a quick and unusual adaptation to life under extreme and unsafe conditions.

She will have to quickly adapt to a strategy of survival among women the likes of whom she has never encountered before. She will have to protect herself from an institutionalized extreme of criminal personalities who, though female, model themselves after the cool, "bad ass" men they knew on the streets. In fact, the worst of the female inmates she will live with are slightly different from the worst incarcerated male inmates in her Southern state: the institutionalized female inmate is not only more vindictive, but also "has more to prove."

Having lived among the large, dangerous female inmates myself, I found that the "bulldaggers" (i.e. women desiring to be men) seem to have a need to prove their "masculinity." Unfortunately, the males many of them choose to be like are apparently ones with a very cruel heart. I can say with no doubt whatsoever that serving even less than substantial time among personalities as evil as these can and will change a person forever.

And so this second "glove" does not fit Jane either, given the fact that the sentence does not fit the crime, and in most cases, the sentence even outweighs the normal societal ideas of punishment.

Except for those who deal drugs simply to make money, the fault of a drug-related charge should be shared between many, many accomplices. It seems to me that the accomplice to drug-related crimes is actually you, America.

Your politics and legislation produces the imposed treatment options that a society deems necessary to combat this illness, but normally you overlook the cost for the treatment itself (drug addicts tend to spend all their money on drugs and have none set aside for rehabilitation fees).

Add to your cheap choice of evidently ineffectual treatment options this fact also: you do not view the destructive influences of our society as a crime because, hell, it's just artistic entertainment that some parent somewhere ought to turn their child away from, which is actually becoming quite hard to do outside of moving in with the Amish.

And though I do not wish to sound like a manipulative defense attorney who shouts "I'll put the system on trial," it is the fault of Americans that so many are reaping what we have sown into law. As long as we spend time and money protecting the artistic expression that is in direct opposition to laws which protect us and keep us sane and free, we will continue to self-destruct as a nation.

I was convicted of trafficking methamphetamine in 2001. It was my first offense of any kind, besides the occasional driving violation. Within the lifestyle that I understand I freely chose to live in order to support my meth habit - and before my state mandated rehabilitation that was ineffectual on many levels - I remember hearing a song that many dealers and addicts knew word-for-word. Soon thereafter, I knew it well, also.

Therefore, America, since you choose to protect the artistic expressions of an angry, murderous crack dealer's lifestyle, plan to also protect the expressions of your children who grow up being influenced by what you deem necessary to constitutionally protect. Though Dayton Family does not directly cause your children to use drugs, consider that the lifestyle is much harder to pull away from when it is so widely accepted by the general public as an avid form of entertainment, if not the preferred "style" of many young people.

You have protected something which enabled the "Ballers" to become the cool new icons and idols of America's youth. This enablement has also led to the popular belief that to be cool and respected, one should at least appear to emulate the lifestyle of a criminal - of a "Gangster." And - ding-dong! - just the mere imitation of the drug-dealing culture brings your children into contact with, guess who? They come into contact with an influential criminal element with a little more direct pull than Dayton Family, all in the name of supposed constitutional liberty.

In closing, the following is a constitutionally protected "artistic expression of song" by Dayton Family that was being played on a friend's jammin' stereo as we thu-thumped! through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama one fine night - I believe the lyrics in this protected expression of criminal intent prove my point (content advisory - offensive content):

...Police in disguises and he tries to buy Peruvians;
Knockin' at my fuckin' door, duckin' and dodgin' on that floor,
That thinkin' got you noid - got me reachin' for my forty-four.

Creepin' up out my window pane, I smell cops -
A honkey on the block, drop to my knee, I took a shot,
I seen him drop. "One time!" This ain't the place for that.
Since he's a fed, I took off his face for that.

That shit that he tried to pull,
You know he couldn't get away with this.
Bitch, I'm a time bomb, time, so don't you play with this.

Fuck being indicted, don't you try it, that's the fuckin story.
Cops roll to the cemetery, all snitches to my laboratory.
I'm fittin' to stir it, rock it up, so where's my silver spoon?
I put my yay out on the block, and all you hear is "boom!"

This is my set, so you can jet, or get that sweater wet-
A fed is bloody, he's been wounded by a fucking tech.
"Rat-tat to the tat-tat!" I'mo take him up out his memory,
For ridin' my nuts and tryin' to stick me with delivery.

Loose lips sink ships, boy, this is do or die.
This is a letter from Shoestring to the F.B.I.
Backstabbers gone, so I guess you dirty cops are clean.
You took a father from their family, "motherfuck their dreams,"
Is what you said, so motherfucking bitch ass fed,

I want you dead, I'mo pump your ass full of lead.
"Let's make a deal."
This shit is real ill.
I pack my steel, you let him go,
Then we can let you live.

You made that switch,
And now it's time to kill you bitch.
Give you an overdose of bullets, and put you in a ditch.
Drug dealers and fed killers, lets get united!
Boom holes on them hoes, scream "fuck being indicted!"
(Dayton Family, FBI, Koch Records, 1996)