dope growers give away £400,000 profits to poor, get 3 years

[seremtan]

A couple who ran a cannabis factory and spent their fortune on helping poor African families and charities have been jailed. Michael Foster, 62, and Susan Cooper, 63, made £400,000 by illegally growing hundreds of plants at their farmhouse home during a six-year operation. But instead of pocketing the money, they spent a large proportion of it on people in a Kenyan village - paying for life-saving surgery, computers for an eye hospital and schooling for poor children.

linkage

also, all rise for judge moron:

Jailing the couple, Judge Sean Morris told them... 'I am sure you were doing good things in Kenya with your drugs money, whether that was to appease your consciences I can only speculate.'

"appease their consciences" the war on drugs: lowering IQs everywhere

[Tsakali]

"drugs money"

[losCHUNK]

Lol fuck sake, was getting my hopes up when I seen this the other day too -

A six-year study of Britain's drug laws by leading scientists, police officers, academics and experts has concluded it is time to introduce decriminalisation.

The report by the UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC), an independent advisory body, says possession of small amounts of controlled drugs should no longer be a criminal offence and concludes the move will not lead to a significant increase in use.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012 ... ay-experts

[seremtan]

studies like that get published all the time, but nothing ever happens. governments are typically too cowardly to dissent from the daily mail reader view of drugs, even if that view happens to be monumentally retarded

[losCHUNK]

I think the only thing everyone can agree on is that money is being pissed away

[Eraser]

Lol fuck sake, was getting my hopes up when I seen this the other day too -

A six-year study of Britain's drug laws by leading scientists, police officers, academics and experts has concluded it is time to introduce decriminalisation.

The report by the UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC), an independent advisory body, says possession of small amounts of controlled drugs should no longer be a criminal offence and concludes the move will not lead to a significant increase in use.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012 ... ay-experts

Funny, here in the Netherlands we've been doing that for ages and now the (national) government is trying to be stricter about drugs again. I'm sure it's because of pressure from the EU. Especially the French despise our drugs policies here.

[Eraser]

linkage

In all honesty, if cannabis is illegal, feeding the poor with money you're making from it doesn't suddenly make it OK.
What if they were producing hard drugs? XTC? Cocaine? Heroin? Would that be OK as well? What if they had no problem selling it to children? Would that still be OK? Where do you draw the line? You see, a line must be drawn, and why not just draw it right on top of an existing one: the law.
It's really not that hard to understand.

[seremtan]

god i hope you're being sarcastic

[Eraser]

No I'm not.
Look, I don't think cannabis should be outlawed as it is in most countries, but I do think that in the end, even Robin Hood was just a common thief.

[Don Carlos]

Robin Hood was a thief, but made sure people being taken advantage were given what they were owed. No different from people campaigning for Fair Trade stuff in todays day and age, only they are doing it via legal means and there is a bigger public consciousness thanks to people like Mr Hood.

[shaft]

what the FUCK, Jerry

[Eraser]

Robin Hood was a thief, but made sure people being taken advantage were given what they were owed. No different from people campaigning for Fair Trade stuff in todays day and age, only they are doing it via legal means and there is a bigger public consciousness thanks to people like Mr Hood.

How is campaigning for Fair Trade products illegal?

Look, all I'm saying is that giving money to charity doesn't make the means of getting that money suddenly OK. Let me re-emphasize that this is a different discussion from whether or not cannabis should be outlawed, that's a whole different matter. It's just my opinion that if you are doing something that isn't allowed by the law, then that's illegal, no matter what you end up spending the earned money on.

[Don Carlos]

Read my post again sir

[Eraser]

Yeah ok so you say campaigning for fair trade is legal. But isn't that then where the comparison runs dry? What I was saying was that Robin Hood was a thief and if he were tried for theft, it would only be fair if he was found guilty. Your post doesn't seem to refute that point, so it's not exactly clear to me what you're trying to say.

I'm just of the opinion that it's not OK to commit a crime (against one group of people) to help a group of people in need. That's not how society should or does work.

[Don Carlos]

I am trying to say that sometimes a crime can be committed for the greater good irrespective of the way society see’s something.
Going through a red light is illegal but it is fine for the police/fire brigade/ambulances to do it because they are doing it because they will save lives/prevent people getting hurt.
They people are not selling hard drugs, they are in fact selling something naturally grown which is not the scourge of society. If they had been selling heroin then they deserve everything they get but selling weed really isn’t something bad. No worse than people legally selling tobacco and alcohol.

[MKJ]

now you're confusing the weed-debate with the lawbreaker-debate again.

[Ryoki]

Indeed. When i'm in trouble with the law i shall not be asking Donneh to represent me!

[Don Carlos]

Letter of the law says they have broken the law and should be punished. It is black and white. Eraser, I am sure you have downloaded TV shows or movies in a less than legal manner. You should also be punished.

He who casts the first stone and all that.

[Eraser]

Going through a red light is illegal but it is fine for the police/fire brigade/ambulances to do it because they are doing it because they will save lives/prevent people getting hurt.

Police jumping a red light isn't breaking the law. Special laws were put in place to allow the police to do that under certain circumstances. That's a different thing. You see, if these people feel they should be allowed to grow cannabis to feed the poor, then they should take that up with the appropriate government representative and go about it that way.

Eraser, I am sure you have downloaded TV shows or movies in a less than legal manner. You should also be punished.

For the sake of the discussion, lets assume that me downloading a movie is illegal (because under Dutch law, it isn't). But if it were, and things come down to it, then yes, I should be punished. I'm not going to go and say that downloading a movie is a-ok and the right thing to do. When I download a movie, I know the possible legal consequences of it and I make a choice about that.

If these weed growing people have the same attitude, then ok, let 'em face it like adults. But if they start arguing about being let go because they were helping the poor, then that's just a bullshit argument to me.

[Don Carlos]

OK, they did do something wrong in the eyes of the law and got punished. Fair enough. But the entire thing is a massive moral grey area for me personally.

[DTS]

Argueing about a Daily Mail article.

[Don Carlos]

I didn't even realise it was a Daily Fail article as I have not read it BUT that makes all things null and void in my eyes. Cancerous publication if ever there was one.

[Plan B]

Look eraser, just because something is against "the law" doesn't, by definition, make it wrong.
That's what I get from your posts, where you think "the law" is some kind of untouchable, undeniable truth.
You shouldn't blindly base your moral compass on how the current legislators decide to define right and wrong.

[Eraser]

I get you there, but you can't go do illegal things knowing full well what the consequences can be, and then when caught go all holier than thou by proclaiming you did it to help people.

And like I said before, if someone growing weed gets away with it like that, where do we draw the line of what's still morally acceptable to help someone?

[Plan B]

We draw the line where people are actually hurt.
Where was anyone actually hurt here?