This entire section seemed to have a bias in favor of marijuana and its users. Drug dealers and big scheme growers were portrayed as harmless midwestern type men. Just average farmers and people. Not criminals. I thought this was a little weird because I normally picture big time drug dealers as criminals and crazies. no offense. But Schlosser deals with the large scheme that got taken down by making it seem like less of a criminal offense, but as more of an unfortunate situation. The people involved were innocent victims who were hardly aware of the crimes. This is something I didn't quite agree with. Yes, the DEA should spend more time busting meth labs and crack dens instead of seeking out weed farms in corn fields. But the men involved in the operation should have expected punishments. Yes, the punishments are much too severe for weed (death sentences! no parole! life in maximum security!), but those guys in the business should have been aware of the risk.
In other news, the stories about small time drug users were very agreeable because Schlosser explored how average people are facing ridiculous sentences for things such as 1.6grams of weed in a fat joint. It's costing normal people copious amounts of money and time (and sometimes jail sentences) just for smoking/possessing very minute amounts of drugs. I believe there was one instance in the book where a man was charged more harshly for pot than a person caught with cocaine would have been. This is no way to handle marijuana use! Schlosser does a good job of pointing out how stupid some of the laws regarding weed are and how harmless it is and how harmless most of its users are without being really forward and saying, "I support recreational use of marijuana." He puts the facts out there, mostly facts about overly strict punishments etc, and shows the reader versus telling the reader.
From what I can tell from this brief summary of the first section, I can agree with what Schlosser is saying about the use of Marijuanna in our society. I personally believe that Marijuanna is no worse than alcohol or tabacco and therefore support the federalization of it and its medical uses. I am shocked to hear that Marijuanna can get a larger sentance than cocaine, that is ridiculous. The way you have described the book it sounds very intriguing and from what I can tell I may want to pick up this book.
ReplyDeletewhile the book did not talk much about legalization and medical use, it did have tons and tons more cases about overly harsh sentences and a lot of background on the policies that have been made and how unfair they are. If that's something you'd like to read up on I'd say read the first and last section of the book.
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