Posted by izybx:

Posted by BigSm00th:

"butas far as other drugs like crack and heroin, I think the laws are right where they should be. What bull**** collars like criminal trespass and cpcs7 (narcotics possession) accomplish cant be defined in statistics. If a crackhead spends the night in jail thats one less person who wakes up in the morning to find their car windows smashed. Thats one less crackhead getting high in a stairwell of a housing development, leaving a nice pile of human feces for the residents the next day. That could be a burglary, a rape, or even a murder that was never allowed to take place. I think that many of the proponents of legalizing drugs dont have to deal with the crackheads and dopefiends that lower the quality of life in poorer neighborhoods." I mean, i agree with you, and I think if a crackhead messes up your stuff he should have to go to jail, but giving him a mandatory 3 year sentence b/c of possession is overkill. if a guy gets drunk and breaks your window he'll get a disorderly conduct? some sort of misdemeanor, he won't go to jail for 3 years minimum b/c he was drinking. i just think the mandatory minimum sentence concept must be looked at, as it puts an inordinate amount of ppl in jail for being drug addicts. if a guy routinely gets drunk and breaks things, he won't get jail time but they'll make him attend AA classes and the like, why is it different for drug addicts? ($$$)

When I am referring to "possession", I mean people who are arrested with a couple bags of crack or dope on them. This Criminal possession of a controlled substance in the 7th degree. When a dealer is arrested with 30 bags of crack on him he is charged with the higher possession charge, CPCS 5th degree or CPCS 3rd degree, both of which are felonies. In reality, unless the dealer is a repeat offender he is almost always offered a plea to reduce the charges to a misdemeanor and rehab instead of jail time. This is why you sometimes see 18 year old kids running around with ID cards for drug treatment programs. So in New York the laws really arent that draconian, in fact I really wish they were tougher.

A user will NEVER have 30 bags of crack on them. The habits are so overwhelming that they would sit somewhere and smoke until it is all gone. When someone is on the street with 20-30 bags they are hustling. And quite frankly it sucks to put a lot of time and effort in arresting a drug dealer and then seeing him released days later after a BS plea. The MAX sentence for a misdemeanor by the way is one year in jail. So for lower charges these guys are usually out the next day.

Im do believe that twe should legalize and tax marijuana. I dont agree that the government has the right to tell you that you cant use a recreational drug that at worst will make you lazy and cuase lung damage. Im not saying to anybody that weed is good for you at all, I just think that you should have the right to use if you want to.

That right there is the solution to alot of problems. You want to lower gas prices, eliminate the gas taxes, legalize weed and then tax it like you do cigarettes. We could probably raise $10-$20 billion a year for other programs if we taxed weed.

Posted by TheGame:

Posted by playa2:

Are you comparing Howard to Conseco and the steroids issue in baseball ?

Steriods is a different issue because that goes to whether the players are having an unfair advantage during the games and whether records are truly being broken in a manner that does not destroy the integrity of the game. Smoking weed IMO is totally unrelated to the game of basketball, so really he just put the issue out there for no real purpose. He obviously does not think that smoking weed is wrong, so why bring it up and force Stern to have to do something about it.

Posted by kip3f:

Posted by knicksbabyyeah:

Posted by franco12:

Posted by BRIGGS:

Posted by Bobby:

Most of the players in the league use marijuana and I have and do partake in smoking weed in the offseason sometimes," Howard told The Michael Irvin Show on the local ESPN affiliate. "I mean, that's my personal choice and my personal opinion, but I don't think that's stopping me from doing my job."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/basketball/nba/04/25/howard.marijuana.ap/index.html?eref=si_nba

If baseball is scrutinized for Steroids--my bet is that this is going to result in a massive investigation with Congress getting involved. You can't have a prominent player admit to using illegal drugs and also implicate most of the league and think nothing will come of it.

DUDE!

What does mines say!?!

SWEET! How about mine?