7 ms·

Didn't DC just vote to legalize it, you just cannot buy or sell it. Here is to hoping the next big issue after marriage equality if fixing our drug laws, which

Didn't DC just vote to legalize it, you just cannot buy or sell it. Here is to hoping the next big issue after marriage equality if fixing our drug laws, which are more damaging than many will admit and far too profitable to law enforcement and the prison industry.

metrix 12y ago
Profitable? It costs the state a lot to hold a prisoner.
- chaostheory 12y ago
  Yes but you're forgetting that there's a private prison industry. A lot of states have outsourced it. I feel that's what Shivetya was alluding to.
- techpeace 12y ago
  I believe they're referring to the private prison industry, which makes a pretty penny off locking up non-violent drug offenders. Their trade organization listed liberalizing drug laws as a potential threat to their bottom line in their last annual report, so we can expect that they will fiercely lobby against anything happening at a federal level.
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    I feel like this situation is overstated a lot. Something like 8% of prisoners in the US are in privately run prisons, which could be a problem, but it's not the massive number that is often implied.
    - smtddr 12y ago
      That's still 8% too much. That still means there are millionaires out there lobbying to keep drug laws as is so they can keep filling their prisons. And the other 92% of prisons probably have a ton of people behind bars due to drug laws because of the 8% of prisons that lobby for & profit from them.
      - adventured 12y ago
        As though the 92% isn't attempting to hold onto its massive profit system. There's vastly more money flowing into pockets in the 92% than in the 8%, that's logically obvious. Jobs, graft, construction, maintenance, slave labor, etc. - huge sums of profit derived from the government prison system, far more than in the corporate system. As though the 92% of that equation is looking to give up its jobs and tax dollars. Because we just know how much the government likes to give up its spending.
    - munificent 12y ago
      > Something like 8% of prisoners in the US are in privately run prisons For the other 92%, how much work does that state-run prison contract out to private companies?
    - jdminhbg 12y ago
      People do often overestimate how many prisoners are in privately-run prisons, but at the same time, if the US suddenly had 10% fewer prisoners, those privately-run prisons would likely be the first to go. As far as lobbying, the other 92% of prisoners are guarded by very powerful public sector unions, whose incentives are the same.
    - king_jester 12y ago
      It's not just the privately run prison complexes, but also suppliers, consultancies, police equipment manufacturers, arms manufacturers, and so. That's the 'industrial' in prison industrial complex.
    - anigbrowl 12y ago
      That's true, but 8% of anything in the US is a lot. There's roughly 2.2 million prisoners so maybe 200k of them are held in private prisons. And as someone points out upthread, when you add in all that prison-building, the firms that deliver services tot he corrections market and so on, it adds up to a lot of economic activity.
      - vidarh 12y ago
        About 133,000 as of 2013. And two companies (CCA and GEO Group), both of whom are aggressively fighting for tougher laws as a matter of course have about 129,000 bed capacity.
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      It's absolutely massive when you consider that locking up humans in cages is perhaps not the sort of thing we ought to encourage by making the practice lucrative. The existence of even a single for-profit prison provides a perverse incentive to put the marginal criminal into a private, profit-generating cage rather than a public, tax-draining, politically-risky rehabilitation or diversion program. Furthermore, it is an invitation to corruption. Remember the judge that was sending juvenile defendants to a reform camp, often regardless of the merits of their cases, because he was getting kickbacks from the camp?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - CamperBob2 12y ago
      Something like 8% of prisoners in the US are in privately run prisons, which could be a problem, but it's not the massive number that is often implied. Quick, off the top of your head: do you have any idea just how many people are incarcerated in this country, in both absolute and per-capita terms, and how those figures compare to, say, every other country on Earth? 8% of the US prison population is a HELL of a lot of people.
  - adventured 12y ago
    The government makes a lot more money locking people up than the private prison industry does. It's 11 times larger. That's a lot of tax money to roll around in, and generates a ton of profit in the form of slave labor manufacturing, graft, jobs that politicians use as platforms, labor unions that get kickbacks and get to dole out well paying jobs. What's the difference, when we're speaking of "profit" when it comes to whether the corporate prison generates a 7% margin, or whether that 7% goes to a union at a government prison? There is no real difference, it's just a matter of whose pocket the cash ends up in.
- iwwr 12y ago
  As with most politics, decisions aren't made by the people who actually incur the costs.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- TallGuyShort 12y ago
  Exactly. That means there's a whole industry / sector of government trying to make it look like a lot of people should be prisoners to protect their jobs and expand their departments.
- nate_meurer 12y ago
  Yes, profitable. For example, prison guard unions lobby ferociously against relaxing drug laws, in order to protect prison guards' jobs and salaries: http://www.republicreport.org/2012/marijuana-lobby-illegal/ http://www.republicreport.org/2012/marijuana-lobby-illegal/ http://mic.com/articles/41531/union-of-the-snake-how-california-s-prison-guards-subvert-democracy http://mic.com/articles/41531/union-of-the-snake-how-califor... EDIT: Here's a cute quote from Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest for-profit prison companies: "any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them." [0] [0] - http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9NDE5MTEwfENoaWxkSUQ9NDMyMjg1fFR5cGU9MQ==&t=1 http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9N...
  - refurb 12y ago
    It's true they have a financial incentive to maintain current drug laws, but those same incentives exist for many important roles. If someone comes up with a cure for cancer, a lot of oncologists are going to be out of a job. Does that mean that oncologists are actively suppressing cancer cures?
    - throwaway234 12y ago
      Many uninformed people honestly do believe that, yes.
    - nate_meurer 12y ago
      This might be the most useless analogy I have ever encountered. I'm sorry, I don't mean to attack you but I honestly have no idea what your point is. Corrections Corporation of America and other private prison companies openly fight efforts to relax drugs laws. Same for prison guard unions; In 2008 the CCPoA, California's largest prison guard union, was the most active opponent of Prop 5, which would have expanded treatment for non-violent drug offenders, and reduced criminal penalties for non-violent drug crimes [1]. As far as I know, oncologists are not fighting cancer research in order to protect their careers. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_5_%282008%29#Donors_to_no_on_5_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_5_%2820...
kemiller 12y ago
@metrix many prisons are run by for-profit companies. It costs the taxpayers a lot, but there is profit to be made, and some elected officials benefit at least indirectly. edit: awkward wording
- mason240 12y ago
  >many prisons are run by for-profit companies. Citation for the "Many"? Only about 5% of prisoners are in private prisons.
  - Mikeb85 12y ago
    Given how many prisons are in the US, that probably still qualifies as 'many'...
  - spacemanmatt 12y ago
    I've got 8.4% (2013 U.S. DOJ statistics) via WikiPedia
  - trhway 12y ago
    if you add prison guards unions - which are formally non-profit, and that only means that they have no taxes to pay and they have nobody else to give the formal profit away, and as result they have all the money they collect to themselves - you'd get pretty much 100% of US prisons run by organizations with direct financial interests in growing the prisons in size and number.
    - mason240 12y ago
      By that logic, wouldn't every part of government with unions be "run by organizations with direct financial interests in growing...?" That seems like it would be a union problem and not a prison problem.
      - cloudwalking 12y ago
        Except in this case, peoples' freedoms are denied. Versus, say, waiting longer in line at the DMV.
showerst 12y ago
I think in DC the situation will be that private individuals can't sell it, but there will be licensed dispensaries. That's pending congressional approval though. (Really it's pending congress not striking it down, which they seem loathe to do except for one very zealous committee member without much power).
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  > I think in DC the situation will be that private individuals can't sell it, but there will be licensed dispensaries. No, the DC provision does not allow for licensed dispensaries for recreational use[0]. (Dispensaries for medical use have just begun opening under the medical law passed in 2011, but this is separate from the situation in Colorado post-Amendment 64). > That's pending congressional approval though. (Really it's pending congress not striking it down, which they seem loathe to do except for one very zealous committee member without much power). Do you have a source for this? Congress has struck down similar measures from DC in the past. [0] http://dcmj.org/ballot-initiative/ http://dcmj.org/ballot-initiative/
  - showerst 12y ago
    Oops you're right, I thought the initiative had a provision for the dispensaries to sell to everyone, but that will have to happen in the city council. Grosso has a bill pending for it, but media doesn't seem to think the council is in a hurry; they'll at least wait out congress. I'm trying to track down my source for the approval, but the general thought seems to be that the republicans other than Andy Harris (aforementioned super opposed member) are less likely to start a fight where they're in the minority on a "state's rights" issue during what should be a quiet legislative session. Harris isn't a committee chair so he can't bring up the ban/amendment without help. I don't know the committee politics to well enough to know this is likely; but usually they sneak these things in as budget riders which takes the approval of the committee chair.

metrix 12y ago

Profitable? It costs the state a lot to hold a prisoner.

chaostheory 12y ago
Yes but you're forgetting that there's a private prison industry. A lot of states have outsourced it. I feel that's what Shivetya was alluding to.
techpeace 12y ago
I believe they're referring to the private prison industry, which makes a pretty penny off locking up non-violent drug offenders. Their trade organization listed liberalizing drug laws as a potential threat to their bottom line in their last annual report, so we can expect that they will fiercely lobby against anything happening at a federal level.
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  I feel like this situation is overstated a lot. Something like 8% of prisoners in the US are in privately run prisons, which could be a problem, but it's not the massive number that is often implied.
  - smtddr 12y ago
    That's still 8% too much. That still means there are millionaires out there lobbying to keep drug laws as is so they can keep filling their prisons. And the other 92% of prisons probably have a ton of people behind bars due to drug laws because of the 8% of prisons that lobby for & profit from them.
    - adventured 12y ago
      As though the 92% isn't attempting to hold onto its massive profit system. There's vastly more money flowing into pockets in the 92% than in the 8%, that's logically obvious. Jobs, graft, construction, maintenance, slave labor, etc. - huge sums of profit derived from the government prison system, far more than in the corporate system. As though the 92% of that equation is looking to give up its jobs and tax dollars. Because we just know how much the government likes to give up its spending.
  - munificent 12y ago
    > Something like 8% of prisoners in the US are in privately run prisons For the other 92%, how much work does that state-run prison contract out to private companies?
  - jdminhbg 12y ago
    People do often overestimate how many prisoners are in privately-run prisons, but at the same time, if the US suddenly had 10% fewer prisoners, those privately-run prisons would likely be the first to go. As far as lobbying, the other 92% of prisoners are guarded by very powerful public sector unions, whose incentives are the same.
  - king_jester 12y ago
    It's not just the privately run prison complexes, but also suppliers, consultancies, police equipment manufacturers, arms manufacturers, and so. That's the 'industrial' in prison industrial complex.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    That's true, but 8% of anything in the US is a lot. There's roughly 2.2 million prisoners so maybe 200k of them are held in private prisons. And as someone points out upthread, when you add in all that prison-building, the firms that deliver services tot he corrections market and so on, it adds up to a lot of economic activity.
    - vidarh 12y ago
      About 133,000 as of 2013. And two companies (CCA and GEO Group), both of whom are aggressively fighting for tougher laws as a matter of course have about 129,000 bed capacity.
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    It's absolutely massive when you consider that locking up humans in cages is perhaps not the sort of thing we ought to encourage by making the practice lucrative. The existence of even a single for-profit prison provides a perverse incentive to put the marginal criminal into a private, profit-generating cage rather than a public, tax-draining, politically-risky rehabilitation or diversion program. Furthermore, it is an invitation to corruption. Remember the judge that was sending juvenile defendants to a reform camp, often regardless of the merits of their cases, because he was getting kickbacks from the camp?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - CamperBob2 12y ago
    Something like 8% of prisoners in the US are in privately run prisons, which could be a problem, but it's not the massive number that is often implied. Quick, off the top of your head: do you have any idea just how many people are incarcerated in this country, in both absolute and per-capita terms, and how those figures compare to, say, every other country on Earth? 8% of the US prison population is a HELL of a lot of people.
- adventured 12y ago
  The government makes a lot more money locking people up than the private prison industry does. It's 11 times larger. That's a lot of tax money to roll around in, and generates a ton of profit in the form of slave labor manufacturing, graft, jobs that politicians use as platforms, labor unions that get kickbacks and get to dole out well paying jobs. What's the difference, when we're speaking of "profit" when it comes to whether the corporate prison generates a 7% margin, or whether that 7% goes to a union at a government prison? There is no real difference, it's just a matter of whose pocket the cash ends up in.
iwwr 12y ago
As with most politics, decisions aren't made by the people who actually incur the costs.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
TallGuyShort 12y ago
Exactly. That means there's a whole industry / sector of government trying to make it look like a lot of people should be prisoners to protect their jobs and expand their departments.
nate_meurer 12y ago
Yes, profitable. For example, prison guard unions lobby ferociously against relaxing drug laws, in order to protect prison guards' jobs and salaries: http://www.republicreport.org/2012/marijuana-lobby-illegal/ http://www.republicreport.org/2012/marijuana-lobby-illegal/ http://mic.com/articles/41531/union-of-the-snake-how-california-s-prison-guards-subvert-democracy http://mic.com/articles/41531/union-of-the-snake-how-califor... EDIT: Here's a cute quote from Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest for-profit prison companies: "any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them." [0] [0] - http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9NDE5MTEwfENoaWxkSUQ9NDMyMjg1fFR5cGU9MQ==&t=1 http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9N...
- refurb 12y ago
  It's true they have a financial incentive to maintain current drug laws, but those same incentives exist for many important roles. If someone comes up with a cure for cancer, a lot of oncologists are going to be out of a job. Does that mean that oncologists are actively suppressing cancer cures?
  - throwaway234 12y ago
    Many uninformed people honestly do believe that, yes.
  - nate_meurer 12y ago
    This might be the most useless analogy I have ever encountered. I'm sorry, I don't mean to attack you but I honestly have no idea what your point is. Corrections Corporation of America and other private prison companies openly fight efforts to relax drugs laws. Same for prison guard unions; In 2008 the CCPoA, California's largest prison guard union, was the most active opponent of Prop 5, which would have expanded treatment for non-violent drug offenders, and reduced criminal penalties for non-violent drug crimes [1]. As far as I know, oncologists are not fighting cancer research in order to protect their careers. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_5_%282008%29#Donors_to_no_on_5_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_5_%2820...

kemiller 12y ago

@metrix many prisons are run by for-profit companies. It costs the taxpayers a lot, but there is profit to be made, and some elected officials benefit at least indirectly. edit: awkward wording

mason240 12y ago
>many prisons are run by for-profit companies. Citation for the "Many"? Only about 5% of prisoners are in private prisons.
- Mikeb85 12y ago
  Given how many prisons are in the US, that probably still qualifies as 'many'...
- spacemanmatt 12y ago
  I've got 8.4% (2013 U.S. DOJ statistics) via WikiPedia
- trhway 12y ago
  if you add prison guards unions - which are formally non-profit, and that only means that they have no taxes to pay and they have nobody else to give the formal profit away, and as result they have all the money they collect to themselves - you'd get pretty much 100% of US prisons run by organizations with direct financial interests in growing the prisons in size and number.
  - mason240 12y ago
    By that logic, wouldn't every part of government with unions be "run by organizations with direct financial interests in growing...?" That seems like it would be a union problem and not a prison problem.
    - cloudwalking 12y ago
      Except in this case, peoples' freedoms are denied. Versus, say, waiting longer in line at the DMV.

showerst 12y ago

I think in DC the situation will be that private individuals can't sell it, but there will be licensed dispensaries. That's pending congressional approval though. (Really it's pending congress not striking it down, which they seem loathe to do except for one very zealous committee member without much power).

chimeracoder 12y ago
> I think in DC the situation will be that private individuals can't sell it, but there will be licensed dispensaries. No, the DC provision does not allow for licensed dispensaries for recreational use[0]. (Dispensaries for medical use have just begun opening under the medical law passed in 2011, but this is separate from the situation in Colorado post-Amendment 64). > That's pending congressional approval though. (Really it's pending congress not striking it down, which they seem loathe to do except for one very zealous committee member without much power). Do you have a source for this? Congress has struck down similar measures from DC in the past. [0] http://dcmj.org/ballot-initiative/ http://dcmj.org/ballot-initiative/
- showerst 12y ago
  Oops you're right, I thought the initiative had a provision for the dispensaries to sell to everyone, but that will have to happen in the city council. Grosso has a bill pending for it, but media doesn't seem to think the council is in a hurry; they'll at least wait out congress. I'm trying to track down my source for the approval, but the general thought seems to be that the republicans other than Andy Harris (aforementioned super opposed member) are less likely to start a fight where they're in the minority on a "state's rights" issue during what should be a quiet legislative session. Harris isn't a committee chair so he can't bring up the ban/amendment without help. I don't know the committee politics to well enough to know this is likely; but usually they sneak these things in as budget riders which takes the approval of the committee chair.