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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35484 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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Texas(one of the few states where the only legal marijuana use is for terminal medical cases and which means exactly that) has already said that it isn't going to start wiping marijuana convictions. In most other red states, marijuana convictions are a pretty strong filter for "too stoned out to lie to a doctor for 15 minutes to get a prescription", but Texas is still strict about allowing only terminal disease patients access to medical marijuana.

I mean, my two cents is that nonviolent drug offenders should have their records wiped clean after they get out of prison. I think that to the extent that this is doing that, it's basically good, but that to the extent it's releasing actual criminals from prison, it's basically bad. And I would have to actually look at the data to see to what extent this is which- my priors being that almost everyone who actually serves in a federal prison for drug possession is actually a dealer who took a plea bargain, but there's probably some people who pulled a Brittany Griner and have it on their record.

I mean, my two cents is that nonviolent drug offenders should have their records wiped clean after they get out of prison.

This actually is doable in a lot of states You do have to clear the additional hurdle of "being able to hire a lawyer and accomplish paperwork", which is a sort of filter for a minimal degree of functionality.

It seems like not being able to get a free or reduced cost lawyer for that purpose is probably an edge case, so it's a pure functionality filter, which is good.

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