The weed push is on

[MichaelJoeWilliamson]

Originally Posted by exiledgator

Question: does anyone know the % of FB arrests v % of student arrests v % of non student resident arrests? Is it possible that they aren't targeted at all, it's just perception?

I doubt is is significantly different. Football player arrests get in the news. The ordinary student arrest does not.

Every fan base accuses local police of targeting football players.

[wgbgator]

Originally Posted by MichaelJoeWilliamson

I doubt is is significantly different. Football player arrests get in the news. The ordinary student arrest does not.

Every fan base accuses local police of targeting football players.

This seems reasonable, yet I hear of FB players getting arrested for throwing cups/sandwiches or other really seemingly mundane things, and I think there's no way I get arrested for that in the same situation.

[Itssaul]

Originally Posted by MichaelJoeWilliamson

I doubt is is significantly different. Football player arrests get in the news. The ordinary student arrest does not.

Every fan base accuses local police of targeting football players.

Not completely true, almost every time a student will get a slap on the hand, fines, and a talking to. Players always seem to end up in cuffs. :/

[exiledgator]

Seems like a great study for a criminal justice major to undertake.

Look at the delta for % of arrests, then look at delta of sentences handed down.

[wgbgator]

Originally Posted by Itssaul

Not completely true, almost every time a student will get a slap on the hand, fines, and a talking to. Players always seem to end up in cuffs. :/

If this is true, I wonder how much of this is due to "fear." I mean, I'd have to say I'm far less intimidating than a 6'5'' 260 pound man on a strenuous strength training program.

[wygator]

Where's Teddy Dupay when you need him?

For the past year Dupay has focused on a rather different pursuit: the building of something called S'Boalnation, a company he started in September 2009, after noticing that one of the most frequently asked questions posted on Barack Obama's change.gov website concerned the then president-elect's plans regarding the prohibition of cannabis.

Dupay, who insists that he has not smoked marijuana "in years," speaks passionately about the usefulness of what he calls a "magical substance," whose recreational use could be regulated, and taxed, by the government and that could also be used as a medicine, a food, an alternative energy source—even a building material. "If the grid were shut down, there's only one thing that could allow us to maintain the lifestyle we have, and that would be the hemp plant," he says with the conviction of a preacher.

si

[MastaG8r]

Not to sidetrack the weed thread, but some of us have short attention spans...

Somebody said fans of every school complain about cops targeting players... I don't know about that. We've had an unusually high number of arrests in recent years which we've obviously taken grief about from rival fans. But I don't think our players are more criminally-inclined than anyone else's. If you look at what they've been arrested for, a lot of it is for the kind of stuff that players at all schools get into all the time. They just don't get arrested for it as often as ours do. So much of it is relatively minor mischief. Cops have discretion to give warnings in situations like that and they ought to exercise it.

I wonder...has there ever been an incident where UPD or GPD got in trouble for letting a player get away with something? None that I recall but if so maybe that spooked them and now they've gone overboard in the opposite direction.

[baygator1]

Law enforcement and corrections unions....

[LabraGator]

Originally Posted by MichaelJoeWilliamson

And what would those SWAT teams have to do if they weren't busy serving no knock warrants for minor amounts of pot?

They could join the rest of their buddies in the funds raising business.

[jmoliver]

Law Enforcement can not afford to have pot legalized. System needs the dollars the fines provide to support the salaries, pensions and infrastructure. Not to mention the alcohol lobby.

[tegator80]

Originally Posted by jmoliver

Law Enforcement can not afford to have pot legalized. System needs the dollars the fines provide to support the salaries, pensions and infrastructure. Not to mention the alcohol lobby.

Sort of like the national sales tax taking away the IRS and accounting firms. Hard to make real changes when there is money to be made. As as aside, this sort of thing was (and maybe still is) argued about state run lotteries. It isn't that gambling is an immoral activity but that once you get hooked on the revenue and the revenue projections are not being met for whatever reason, do you then advertise to get people to play? THAT isn't the role of government - to get people to gamble for the good of the state's revenue - it is despicable.

[Minister_of_Information]

The criminalization of weed is in a long slow slide to oblivion. The next phase should be jury education. If juries uniformly refuse to convict "guilty" MJ dealers / users, the whole house of cards collapses.

[MichaelJoeWilliamson]

This is always a favorite

[DieAGator]

Originally Posted by jmoliver

Law Enforcement can not afford to have pot legalized. System needs the dollars the fines provide to support the salaries, pensions and infrastructure. Not to mention the alcohol lobby.

Therein lay the same framework that provokes irrational injustice. I have read that ten percent of prisoners in Florida are there in part because of harmless possession. Those dollars appropriated by law keep a lot of people employed. Eliminate unjust MJ laws and fewer people are employed, or have to take pay cuts. That doesn't appeal to law enforcement and politicians so they continue imprison people for no good reason. Once you figure out the "game" they are playing with people's freedom you realize how incredibly immoral we are. Marijuana incarceration injustice makes Guantanamo seem like a nit.

By the way, the same problem we have with marijuana laws being used to prop up the economy- at no value to the general public- is the same problem we have with our budget deficits generally. We're employing people on money the government has confiscate and allocated to create jobs that shouldn't exist and could live without. THAT imo is why the government won't tackle deficit spending.

[Itssaul]

If the government can't afford to legalize weed, then either downsize or refocus into useful areas.

[Gatormb]

My attorney's son has a grow house in Michigan. Local (Sarasota) investors have put in $250,000 with another $200k coming. Appears they are cashing in on medical MJ bigtime.

[orangeblueorangeblue]

That's pretty risky. The DEA could raid and shut it down on a whim.