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Grateful Dead Fan Timothy Tyler Has Been Granted Clemency

222 points by WhitneyLand 10y ago

SwellJoe 10y ago
I don't see any mention of clemency on that page. Perhaps there was a mod-edit to point to a "better" source, which doesn't actually cover the clemency?
- jc4p 10y ago
  I think the purest source is this: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/president-obama-grants-commutations-6 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/president-obama-grants-commut... but that lists a lot more clemencies
  - ascorbic 10y ago
    I wonder how they decide on the commuted sentence. Timothy Tyler's sentence has been commuted, but he still has to spend another two years in prison.
  - ryanlol 10y ago
    Not exactly relevant but it's somewhat interesting that so many people apparently deserved life sentences but not even a mention of any of them on google.
    - TylerE 10y ago
      Huh? I picked one at random... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mancer-l-barrington-iii/mandatory-minimums-plea-from-behind-walls_b_8521552.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mancer-l-barrington-iii/mandat...? another http://legaliq.com/Case/United_States_V_Quentin_C_Adams http://legaliq.com/Case/United_States_V_Quentin_C_Adams and another http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/182/820/627468/ http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/182/... Those were literally the first 3 I tried.
  - toomanybeersies 10y ago
    From one of the clemencies > use of a communication facility to facilitate the commission of a felony How exactly is this an additional crime to said felony? How does using a telephone make the crime more heinous? This seems like one of those laws that's designed to be guaranteed to add more charges, similar to such gems as "non-violently resisting arrest".
    - marcoperaza 10y ago
      Non-violently resisting arrest is a real thing and should most certainly be a crime. E.g. you put your hands firmly across your chest and force the police to overpower you and force you into handcuffs. You're not attacking anyone, but you're resisting arrest in a way that threatens the safety of the arresting officers and obstructs the lawful execution of an arrest warrant. Also, when the charges are all for the same crime, the sentences are almost always concurrent, which means they run at the same time. It doesn't actually increase the length of the prison sentence.
      - fennecfoxen 10y ago
        > Non-violently resisting arrest is a real thing and should most certainly be a crime. Sure. How bad of a crime? Thirty days in jail? A week? A year? Is that in line with practice?
Natsu 10y ago
The downside of this, sadly, is that he appears to have mental health issues. Unless he has some outside support, which may be difficult with his dad being dead and having been incarcerated since something like 1994, he would be rather likely to end up on the street, alone :( Here's hoping there are people on the outside to help him out.
- sdrothrock 10y ago
  > Here's hoping there are people on the outside to help him out. I thought the same thing and wondered whether he had been granted clemency, so I googled a bit and found a page by his sister[1], which at least suggests that he has family that thinks of and cares about him. So hopefully they could help out. 1. https://www.change.org/p/my-brother-was-sentenced-to-life-without-parole-for-a-nonviolent-drug-offense https://www.change.org/p/my-brother-was-sentenced-to-life-wi...
  - Natsu 10y ago
    That's encouraging to hear, thank you.
- justinator 10y ago
  I would bet that a jam band or ten would be more than happy to put on a concert/festival on his behalf.
- omginternets 10y ago
  >incarcerated since something like 1994 Wow. Wait until he sees a cell-phone...
  - gFbPR7mAcCcmI5z 10y ago
    You are aware they have television, newspapers, books, and, yes, even in some cases cell phones in prison, aren't you?
    - omginternets 10y ago
wvrvwwwe 10y ago
This is only related in that it's another person incarcerated over LSD, but I've always found this individual and his story pretty fascinating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard http://www.freeleonardpickard.org/Skinner-Timeline.html http://www.freeleonardpickard.org/Skinner-Timeline.html The second link discusses Gordon Todd Skinner, who was the informant that facilitated the arrest of Pickard. I don't know how much of that information is accurate, but it's an engrossing read and it paints a horrible picture of what a government informant can get away with.
- cnp 10y ago
  It's so fascinating. Not to sound insensitive, but I've been waiting for a screenplay about this for a while...
- billh 10y ago
  VICE did a documentary on Krystle Cole, a friend of Mr. Skinner's prior to his arrest. It includes a tour of the missile silo that Skinner had been using as a lab. (NSFW - Drugs, Sex, etc.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7qliVpGEk0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7qliVpGEk0
  - nkurz 10y ago
    Even more incredible is the perspective of Brandon Green, the man who Skinner is in jail for kidnapping and torturing. Brandon posted his version of events online at the end of last and beginning of this year: https://www.shroomery.org/forums/dosearch.php?uid=367971 https://www.shroomery.org/forums/dosearch.php?uid=367971 I am totally in awe of his attempts to come to terms with what happened to him. I also credit him with the likely the greatest understatement I've ever read on the internet: "To all you guys who constantly say how badly they want to have sex with 'Neurosoup,' take it from me - I've been there and I can testify that its definitely not worth it!"
  - steve-howard 10y ago
    It's kind of creepy to watch that in light of the link on Mr Skinner's history, which included allegations that Ms. Cole was an enthusiastic participant in the brutal torture of Brandon Green. The details are fairly disturbing. The narrator's awestruck tone sounds pretty nauseating in that light.
dharness 10y ago
I'm not sure where this title came from - this article seems to indicate there has been no clemency?
Cozumel 10y ago
Link actually mentioning the clemency: http://liveforlivemusic.com/news/grateful-dead-fan-timothy-tyler-has-been-granted-clemency-by-president-barack-obama/ http://liveforlivemusic.com/news/grateful-dead-fan-timothy-t... How would you even start putting your life back together after been in jail so long? It's unimaginable.
- sctb 10y ago
  Thanks, we updated the link from http://famm.org/timothy-tyler http://famm.org/timothy-tyler.
JohnTHaller 10y ago
Those infamous 'carrier weight' LSD laws where the weight of what the single drop of LSD is on counts as part of the drug in calculating the sentencing. And it's not even the dumbest 'war on drugs' law in our arsenal of dumb 'war on drugs' laws.
- mighty_atomic_c 10y ago
  Call me cynical, but I don't think it is dumb. I think it is intentional.
  - MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
    Dumb and intentional aren't mutually exclusive here. What would be truly cynical is to believe it's pragmatic, and not just dumb.
  - ellisdewalt 10y ago
    It's dumb because even if they wanted to have that severe of a punishment for LSD specifically, they could do math and just make the sentence greater for smaller amounts of actual drug. Be as cynical as you like, but we'd see equivalent exaggerations for every other drug if your line of thinking made sense.
    - eropple 10y ago
      It depends on the audience for those drugs and their relationship to the people making laws. Take, for example, crack versus cocaine. Crack and cocaine are nearly identical drugs. Crack has the same sentence for one gram as cocaine does for eighteen. (The disparity used to be five times greater before 2010.) But crack users are more likely to be black, low-income, and less educated. I can't imagine why they'd be a preferred target for "tough on crime" legislation. Aside from, y'know, systemic, institutionalized racism (and good old-fashioned poor-stomping, but it is well-known that the War on Drugs was intended to target black people). Similarly, LSD was widely associated with undesirables in the sixties and seventies--counter-culture movements. Do you have a better way to provide yourself with cover for attacking them? If you're surprised or skeptical of either claim, I recommend you read Dan Baum's recent report regarding his discussions with John Erlichman and H.R. Haldeman's diaries[1] (themselves available in the Nixon Presidential Library). Both men were deep in the Nixon White House during the formation of the War on Drugs; it's illuminating stuff. [0] - http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/?single=1 http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/?single=1 [1] - http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/18/us/haldeman-diary-shows-nixon-was-wary-of-blacks-and-jews.html http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/18/us/haldeman-diary-shows-ni...
iconjack 10y ago
I will never, ever vote for anyone who supported the drug war. Yes, that includes you, Hillary.
- duaneb 10y ago
  This kind of thinking helps nothing. If you are outraged, push to change it. If you seriously think the best way to do that is to not vote for Hillary, I'd love to hear your reasoning.
  - wvrvwwwe 10y ago
    You can not vote for Clinton and push to change drug laws, they're not mutually exclusive.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - iconjack 10y ago
    I am outraged by the drug war, therefore I will not vote for a drug warrior. Not sure what else to say.
    - LyndsySimon 10y ago
      I wouldn't worry about it much - there are a lot of us out there who aren't exactly "single-issue voters", but for whom a single issue can make a candidate completely unpalatable. For me, that's guns. For you, that's drugs. For many others, it's abortion.
      - hutzlibu 10y ago
        Just curious, pro or against guns? I suppose against, meaning you want a candidat who wants tight regulation?
        LyndsySimon 10y ago
sova 10y ago
May he feel safe and at home where-ever he stands.
thowar2 10y ago
The bigger story here, Obama has granted clemency to 111 inmates. It looks like they are mostly drug related. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/president-obama-grants-commutations-6 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/president-obama-grants-commut...
- PhantomGremlin 10y ago
  Many of our drug laws are way too harsh, so it's a good thing that Obama is injecting a modicum of sanity into things. In contrast, on Bill Clinton's last day in office, he shamelessly engaged in "cash for pardons". E.g.: Critics complained that Denise Eisenberg Rich, [Marc Rich's] former wife, had made substantial donations to both the Clinton library and to Mrs. Clinton's senate campaign. Longtime Clinton supporters and Democratic leaders such as former President Jimmy Carter, James Carville and Terry McAuliffe, were all critical of the Clinton pardon. Carter said the pardons were "disgraceful." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controversy#Pardons_and_commutations_signed_on_President_Clinton.27s_final_day_in_office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controvers...
- downandout 10y ago
  Agreed. I am no Obama fan - for one thing I think his unprecedented expansion of covert surveillance programs and defiant tone in the wake of the Snowden revelations did tremendous damage to US tech companies seeking to do business overseas. But I am quite happy he did this. It shows a measure of humanity and common sense that is rare in US politicians. These are traits that we are unlikely to see in the next President, regardless of which candidate wins.
  - bmm6o 10y ago
    According to the report on NPR, they are inmates would have served more time than they would if they were convicted today (due to changes in sentencing guidelines or criminal classifications). It seems to me like we should default to releasing such people or it should at least not require something as powerful as a presidential pardon.
toodlebunions 10y ago
Mandatory minimums are terrible.
hasbroslasher 10y ago
Always amazes me that LSD is illegal while alcohol is legal, the latter causing all host of metal and physical ailments, the former causing mostly hilarious navel-gazing
- ultramancool 10y ago
  Alcohol is probably only legal because it's easy to make and has existed in the culture for ages, nothing to do with any ailments. History defines the laws far more than logic does.
  - aaronbrethorst 10y ago
    Specific background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-first_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-first_Amendment_to_the_... And the Ken Burns documentary is fantastic: http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/ http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/
  - smcl 10y ago
    What do you mean "nothing to do with any ailments"?
    - ultramancool 10y ago
      Just that the harm caused by it is not a major factory in its legal status.
      - smcl 10y ago
        AH ok - I wasn't sure if you were suggesting it wasn't responsible for any health issues, but quite the opposite :)
- wastedhours 10y ago
  I'm intrigued by this line of argument - have always assumed it's mainly because alcohol can be enjoyed on its own merits, whereas most drugs are taken solely for the impact on the mind (e.g. wine for taste etc...).
eggy 10y ago
It's crazy to spend that much time in jail for a nonviolent offense, and such a small amount of substance in the US. The war on drugs is a big waste of many things. But to put it in perspective, I am currently living in SE Asia where you are informed by airline announcements and signs that drug trafficking is punishable by death in several of the countries here! I'm from Brooklyn, but I live in Indonesia now. I'm currently in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 138 Nigerians are awaiting death penalties in China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore at this time.
- bogomipz 10y ago
  It wasn't an 'offense' it was plural 'offenses' as in three. And we aren't talking about personal possession we are talking about intent to distribute. The distinction between these are night and day.
  - eggy 10y ago
    I read that, and I get your point, but LSD, or marijuana, to me are not in the same league as heroin or cocaine and the amounts those are usually traded in along with the gangs and violence associated with them. I'm not at all addressing the law; I am expressing surprise over the extreme sentence in comparison to what I think are worse crimes. Rapists get what, 4 years in the US if prosecuted? There were/are people serving life sentences over marijuana sales, and now it's legal in some states.
    - bogomipz 10y ago
      But there are two different things - selling and using. Using is only marginally criminalized. Selling and distributing is a much more serious offense. Alcohol in some ways is no different. I can home brew all I want and bottle it and put it in the refrigerator. If throw the garage door open and start selling it to the general public I can expect some trouble from the legal system. Crossing state boundaries and using a Federal system like the mail further compounded this individual's situation. I can assure rapists don't get 4 years and they are almost always prosecuted if there is enough evidence.
ImTalking 10y ago
Laws should only be there for harm, not morality.
jonathanstrange 10y ago
Everybody in the US has mental health issues. He'll do just fine.
- dang 10y ago
  Please don't comment like this here. We detached this from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395787 and marked it off-topic.
fnj 10y ago
I get that the right to consume any substance one wants into one's own body is a basic human right, but outlawing LSD and cannabis are two cases of outrageous, striking dumbness and pointlessness. Neither one is addictive, and the LD50 of each is an incredible number of orders of magnitude higher than a normal dose. It is virtually impossible to harm yourself.
- andrei_says_ 10y ago
  > I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” Self harm never had anything to do with anything.
  - titzer 10y ago
    I think this quote is complete bunk. It comes from here: http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ This is Dan Baum recalling a conversation with a dead Ehrlichmann after he got out of prison, 20 years after he served with Nixon. Dan puts quotes around this passage but I don't believe for a second that that is what Ehrlichmann said. And Ehrlichmann died 17 years ago, so he's not around to defend himself.
    - k__ 10y ago
      It doesn't sound far fetched to me, when I look what the Nixon administration did.
    - 10y ago
ievahanordah 10y ago
What is it with. "I don't believe in the war on drugs." "The amount wasn't that much." Make up your minds you schizophrenic fucks. Either you're for it or against it. Jesus Christ.
- dang 10y ago
  We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12396392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12396392 and marked it off-topic.
ievahanordah 10y ago
Not stupid is still a thing. You're describing "institutionalized" income classism, not racism. Dumbass. Also educationism. Is anybody not pants on head retarded?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 10y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12396308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12396308 and marked it off-topic.
ievahanordah 10y ago
"I get that the right to consume any substance one wants into one's own body is a basic human right"." To do that you have to posses it first, which is a felony. Felony != "human right". Whatever the fuck a "human right" even is supposed to mean. Dumbass
- atom-morgan 10y ago
  Possession being a felony doesn't mean it's right.
  - ievahanordah 10y ago
    Hgjgddfdfjfufhdjd
- dang 10y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12397003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12397003 and marked it off-topic.
ievahanordah 10y ago
Like typing into an abyss of dumb. "LSD makes you wear flowers in your hair". Someone kill me please, make the misery end.
- dannypgh 10y ago
  If you're finding hackernews so miserable after only 22 hours, leaving the site seems a better option than suicide.
- snsr 10y ago
  > Someone kill me please, make the misery end. How about you just stop posting instead?
  - dang 10y ago
    Comments like this make the thread even worse, so please don't post them. Instead, when you see an egregious comment, you can flag it by clicking on its timestamp to go to its page, then clicking 'flag'. (There's a small karma threshold, currently 30, before you can do this.) Moderators review these flags and take action based on them.
- dang 10y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12397153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12397153 and marked it off-topic.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
GrinningFool 10y ago
> This story is extremely sad, but now seems to be heading towards a happy ending. Two lives (plus unknown others that they touched on) destroyed, and 20+ years later getting set free - with no acknowledgement of anything wrong with doing that to them in the first place - that fixes everything. /s

222 points by WhitneyLand 10y ago

I don't see any mention of clemency on that page. Perhaps there was a mod-edit to point to a "better" source, which doesn't actually cover the clemency?

jc4p 10y ago
I think the purest source is this: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/president-obama-grants-commutations-6 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/president-obama-grants-commut... but that lists a lot more clemencies
- ascorbic 10y ago
  I wonder how they decide on the commuted sentence. Timothy Tyler's sentence has been commuted, but he still has to spend another two years in prison.
- ryanlol 10y ago
  Not exactly relevant but it's somewhat interesting that so many people apparently deserved life sentences but not even a mention of any of them on google.
  - TylerE 10y ago
    Huh? I picked one at random... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mancer-l-barrington-iii/mandatory-minimums-plea-from-behind-walls_b_8521552.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mancer-l-barrington-iii/mandat...? another http://legaliq.com/Case/United_States_V_Quentin_C_Adams http://legaliq.com/Case/United_States_V_Quentin_C_Adams and another http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/182/820/627468/ http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/182/... Those were literally the first 3 I tried.
- toomanybeersies 10y ago
  From one of the clemencies > use of a communication facility to facilitate the commission of a felony How exactly is this an additional crime to said felony? How does using a telephone make the crime more heinous? This seems like one of those laws that's designed to be guaranteed to add more charges, similar to such gems as "non-violently resisting arrest".
  - marcoperaza 10y ago
    Non-violently resisting arrest is a real thing and should most certainly be a crime. E.g. you put your hands firmly across your chest and force the police to overpower you and force you into handcuffs. You're not attacking anyone, but you're resisting arrest in a way that threatens the safety of the arresting officers and obstructs the lawful execution of an arrest warrant. Also, when the charges are all for the same crime, the sentences are almost always concurrent, which means they run at the same time. It doesn't actually increase the length of the prison sentence.
    - fennecfoxen 10y ago
      > Non-violently resisting arrest is a real thing and should most certainly be a crime. Sure. How bad of a crime? Thirty days in jail? A week? A year? Is that in line with practice?

Natsu 10y ago

The downside of this, sadly, is that he appears to have mental health issues. Unless he has some outside support, which may be difficult with his dad being dead and having been incarcerated since something like 1994, he would be rather likely to end up on the street, alone :( Here's hoping there are people on the outside to help him out.

sdrothrock 10y ago
> Here's hoping there are people on the outside to help him out. I thought the same thing and wondered whether he had been granted clemency, so I googled a bit and found a page by his sister[1], which at least suggests that he has family that thinks of and cares about him. So hopefully they could help out. 1. https://www.change.org/p/my-brother-was-sentenced-to-life-without-parole-for-a-nonviolent-drug-offense https://www.change.org/p/my-brother-was-sentenced-to-life-wi...
- Natsu 10y ago
  That's encouraging to hear, thank you.
justinator 10y ago
I would bet that a jam band or ten would be more than happy to put on a concert/festival on his behalf.
omginternets 10y ago
>incarcerated since something like 1994 Wow. Wait until he sees a cell-phone...
- gFbPR7mAcCcmI5z 10y ago
  You are aware they have television, newspapers, books, and, yes, even in some cases cell phones in prison, aren't you?
  - omginternets 10y ago

wvrvwwwe 10y ago

This is only related in that it's another person incarcerated over LSD, but I've always found this individual and his story pretty fascinating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard http://www.freeleonardpickard.org/Skinner-Timeline.html http://www.freeleonardpickard.org/Skinner-Timeline.html The second link discusses Gordon Todd Skinner, who was the informant that facilitated the arrest of Pickard. I don't know how much of that information is accurate, but it's an engrossing read and it paints a horrible picture of what a government informant can get away with.

cnp 10y ago
It's so fascinating. Not to sound insensitive, but I've been waiting for a screenplay about this for a while...
billh 10y ago
VICE did a documentary on Krystle Cole, a friend of Mr. Skinner's prior to his arrest. It includes a tour of the missile silo that Skinner had been using as a lab. (NSFW - Drugs, Sex, etc.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7qliVpGEk0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7qliVpGEk0
- nkurz 10y ago
  Even more incredible is the perspective of Brandon Green, the man who Skinner is in jail for kidnapping and torturing. Brandon posted his version of events online at the end of last and beginning of this year: https://www.shroomery.org/forums/dosearch.php?uid=367971 https://www.shroomery.org/forums/dosearch.php?uid=367971 I am totally in awe of his attempts to come to terms with what happened to him. I also credit him with the likely the greatest understatement I've ever read on the internet: "To all you guys who constantly say how badly they want to have sex with 'Neurosoup,' take it from me - I've been there and I can testify that its definitely not worth it!"
- steve-howard 10y ago
  It's kind of creepy to watch that in light of the link on Mr Skinner's history, which included allegations that Ms. Cole was an enthusiastic participant in the brutal torture of Brandon Green. The details are fairly disturbing. The narrator's awestruck tone sounds pretty nauseating in that light.

dharness 10y ago

I'm not sure where this title came from - this article seems to indicate there has been no clemency?

Cozumel 10y ago

Link actually mentioning the clemency: http://liveforlivemusic.com/news/grateful-dead-fan-timothy-tyler-has-been-granted-clemency-by-president-barack-obama/ http://liveforlivemusic.com/news/grateful-dead-fan-timothy-t... How would you even start putting your life back together after been in jail so long? It's unimaginable.

sctb 10y ago
Thanks, we updated the link from http://famm.org/timothy-tyler http://famm.org/timothy-tyler.

JohnTHaller 10y ago

Those infamous 'carrier weight' LSD laws where the weight of what the single drop of LSD is on counts as part of the drug in calculating the sentencing. And it's not even the dumbest 'war on drugs' law in our arsenal of dumb 'war on drugs' laws.

mighty_atomic_c 10y ago
Call me cynical, but I don't think it is dumb. I think it is intentional.
- MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
  Dumb and intentional aren't mutually exclusive here. What would be truly cynical is to believe it's pragmatic, and not just dumb.
- ellisdewalt 10y ago
  It's dumb because even if they wanted to have that severe of a punishment for LSD specifically, they could do math and just make the sentence greater for smaller amounts of actual drug. Be as cynical as you like, but we'd see equivalent exaggerations for every other drug if your line of thinking made sense.
  - eropple 10y ago
    It depends on the audience for those drugs and their relationship to the people making laws. Take, for example, crack versus cocaine. Crack and cocaine are nearly identical drugs. Crack has the same sentence for one gram as cocaine does for eighteen. (The disparity used to be five times greater before 2010.) But crack users are more likely to be black, low-income, and less educated. I can't imagine why they'd be a preferred target for "tough on crime" legislation. Aside from, y'know, systemic, institutionalized racism (and good old-fashioned poor-stomping, but it is well-known that the War on Drugs was intended to target black people). Similarly, LSD was widely associated with undesirables in the sixties and seventies--counter-culture movements. Do you have a better way to provide yourself with cover for attacking them? If you're surprised or skeptical of either claim, I recommend you read Dan Baum's recent report regarding his discussions with John Erlichman and H.R. Haldeman's diaries[1] (themselves available in the Nixon Presidential Library). Both men were deep in the Nixon White House during the formation of the War on Drugs; it's illuminating stuff. [0] - http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/?single=1 http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/?single=1 [1] - http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/18/us/haldeman-diary-shows-nixon-was-wary-of-blacks-and-jews.html http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/18/us/haldeman-diary-shows-ni...

iconjack 10y ago

I will never, ever vote for anyone who supported the drug war. Yes, that includes you, Hillary.

duaneb 10y ago
This kind of thinking helps nothing. If you are outraged, push to change it. If you seriously think the best way to do that is to not vote for Hillary, I'd love to hear your reasoning.
- wvrvwwwe 10y ago
  You can not vote for Clinton and push to change drug laws, they're not mutually exclusive.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- iconjack 10y ago
  I am outraged by the drug war, therefore I will not vote for a drug warrior. Not sure what else to say.
  - LyndsySimon 10y ago
    I wouldn't worry about it much - there are a lot of us out there who aren't exactly "single-issue voters", but for whom a single issue can make a candidate completely unpalatable. For me, that's guns. For you, that's drugs. For many others, it's abortion.
    - hutzlibu 10y ago
      Just curious, pro or against guns? I suppose against, meaning you want a candidat who wants tight regulation?
      - LyndsySimon 10y ago

sova 10y ago

May he feel safe and at home where-ever he stands.

thowar2 10y ago

The bigger story here, Obama has granted clemency to 111 inmates. It looks like they are mostly drug related. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/president-obama-grants-commutations-6 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/president-obama-grants-commut...

PhantomGremlin 10y ago
Many of our drug laws are way too harsh, so it's a good thing that Obama is injecting a modicum of sanity into things. In contrast, on Bill Clinton's last day in office, he shamelessly engaged in "cash for pardons". E.g.: Critics complained that Denise Eisenberg Rich, [Marc Rich's] former wife, had made substantial donations to both the Clinton library and to Mrs. Clinton's senate campaign. Longtime Clinton supporters and Democratic leaders such as former President Jimmy Carter, James Carville and Terry McAuliffe, were all critical of the Clinton pardon. Carter said the pardons were "disgraceful." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controversy#Pardons_and_commutations_signed_on_President_Clinton.27s_final_day_in_office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controvers...
downandout 10y ago
Agreed. I am no Obama fan - for one thing I think his unprecedented expansion of covert surveillance programs and defiant tone in the wake of the Snowden revelations did tremendous damage to US tech companies seeking to do business overseas. But I am quite happy he did this. It shows a measure of humanity and common sense that is rare in US politicians. These are traits that we are unlikely to see in the next President, regardless of which candidate wins.
- bmm6o 10y ago
  According to the report on NPR, they are inmates would have served more time than they would if they were convicted today (due to changes in sentencing guidelines or criminal classifications). It seems to me like we should default to releasing such people or it should at least not require something as powerful as a presidential pardon.

toodlebunions 10y ago

Mandatory minimums are terrible.

hasbroslasher 10y ago

Always amazes me that LSD is illegal while alcohol is legal, the latter causing all host of metal and physical ailments, the former causing mostly hilarious navel-gazing

ultramancool 10y ago
Alcohol is probably only legal because it's easy to make and has existed in the culture for ages, nothing to do with any ailments. History defines the laws far more than logic does.
- aaronbrethorst 10y ago
  Specific background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-first_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-first_Amendment_to_the_... And the Ken Burns documentary is fantastic: http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/ http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/
- smcl 10y ago
  What do you mean "nothing to do with any ailments"?
  - ultramancool 10y ago
    Just that the harm caused by it is not a major factory in its legal status.
    - smcl 10y ago
      AH ok - I wasn't sure if you were suggesting it wasn't responsible for any health issues, but quite the opposite :)
wastedhours 10y ago
I'm intrigued by this line of argument - have always assumed it's mainly because alcohol can be enjoyed on its own merits, whereas most drugs are taken solely for the impact on the mind (e.g. wine for taste etc...).

eggy 10y ago

It's crazy to spend that much time in jail for a nonviolent offense, and such a small amount of substance in the US. The war on drugs is a big waste of many things. But to put it in perspective, I am currently living in SE Asia where you are informed by airline announcements and signs that drug trafficking is punishable by death in several of the countries here! I'm from Brooklyn, but I live in Indonesia now. I'm currently in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 138 Nigerians are awaiting death penalties in China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore at this time.

bogomipz 10y ago
It wasn't an 'offense' it was plural 'offenses' as in three. And we aren't talking about personal possession we are talking about intent to distribute. The distinction between these are night and day.
- eggy 10y ago
  I read that, and I get your point, but LSD, or marijuana, to me are not in the same league as heroin or cocaine and the amounts those are usually traded in along with the gangs and violence associated with them. I'm not at all addressing the law; I am expressing surprise over the extreme sentence in comparison to what I think are worse crimes. Rapists get what, 4 years in the US if prosecuted? There were/are people serving life sentences over marijuana sales, and now it's legal in some states.
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    But there are two different things - selling and using. Using is only marginally criminalized. Selling and distributing is a much more serious offense. Alcohol in some ways is no different. I can home brew all I want and bottle it and put it in the refrigerator. If throw the garage door open and start selling it to the general public I can expect some trouble from the legal system. Crossing state boundaries and using a Federal system like the mail further compounded this individual's situation. I can assure rapists don't get 4 years and they are almost always prosecuted if there is enough evidence.

ImTalking 10y ago

Laws should only be there for harm, not morality.

jonathanstrange 10y ago

Everybody in the US has mental health issues. He'll do just fine.

dang 10y ago
Please don't comment like this here. We detached this from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395787 and marked it off-topic.

fnj 10y ago

I get that the right to consume any substance one wants into one's own body is a basic human right, but outlawing LSD and cannabis are two cases of outrageous, striking dumbness and pointlessness. Neither one is addictive, and the LD50 of each is an incredible number of orders of magnitude higher than a normal dose. It is virtually impossible to harm yourself.

andrei_says_ 10y ago
> I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” Self harm never had anything to do with anything.
- titzer 10y ago
  I think this quote is complete bunk. It comes from here: http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ This is Dan Baum recalling a conversation with a dead Ehrlichmann after he got out of prison, 20 years after he served with Nixon. Dan puts quotes around this passage but I don't believe for a second that that is what Ehrlichmann said. And Ehrlichmann died 17 years ago, so he's not around to defend himself.
  - k__ 10y ago
    It doesn't sound far fetched to me, when I look what the Nixon administration did.
  - 10y ago

ievahanordah 10y ago

What is it with. "I don't believe in the war on drugs." "The amount wasn't that much." Make up your minds you schizophrenic fucks. Either you're for it or against it. Jesus Christ.

dang 10y ago
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12396392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12396392 and marked it off-topic.

ievahanordah 10y ago

Not stupid is still a thing. You're describing "institutionalized" income classism, not racism. Dumbass. Also educationism. Is anybody not pants on head retarded?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dang 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12396308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12396308 and marked it off-topic.

ievahanordah 10y ago

"I get that the right to consume any substance one wants into one's own body is a basic human right"." To do that you have to posses it first, which is a felony. Felony != "human right". Whatever the fuck a "human right" even is supposed to mean. Dumbass

atom-morgan 10y ago
Possession being a felony doesn't mean it's right.
- ievahanordah 10y ago
  Hgjgddfdfjfufhdjd
dang 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12397003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12397003 and marked it off-topic.

ievahanordah 10y ago

Like typing into an abyss of dumb. "LSD makes you wear flowers in your hair". Someone kill me please, make the misery end.

dannypgh 10y ago
If you're finding hackernews so miserable after only 22 hours, leaving the site seems a better option than suicide.
snsr 10y ago
> Someone kill me please, make the misery end. How about you just stop posting instead?
- dang 10y ago
  Comments like this make the thread even worse, so please don't post them. Instead, when you see an egregious comment, you can flag it by clicking on its timestamp to go to its page, then clicking 'flag'. (There's a small karma threshold, currently 30, before you can do this.) Moderators review these flags and take action based on them.
dang 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12397153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12397153 and marked it off-topic.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

GrinningFool 10y ago

> This story is extremely sad, but now seems to be heading towards a happy ending. Two lives (plus unknown others that they touched on) destroyed, and 20+ years later getting set free - with no acknowledgement of anything wrong with doing that to them in the first place - that fixes everything. /s