cannabisnews.com: Victim of the WOD's Letter to Oprah!





Victim of the WOD's Letter to Oprah!
Posted by FoM on January 29, 1999 at 12:27:43 PT
My Friends Personal Letter to Oprah!
My letter to Oprah......... Dear Oprah, I would love to see your show done on a subject that I personally deal with on a daily basis. "The problems with the War on Drugs," and the devastation that it causes families. 
 I personally was a court reporter for 10 years and my husband was a WV coal miner for 20 years. I was recently busted for giving a man 3 grams of marijuana and my husband for 6 grams. The man was wired. The problem is that we didn't sell marijuana. This man was a friend of ours and we had known him at least 20 years. He was a big drinker and had been busted for drinking and driving twice. He came to us and said that he had been having problems with drinking and the law and wanted to stop drinking and could we help him out by getting him some pot to smoke. Well, him being a friend and knowing that we had smoked for over 27 years, we said yes, unknowingly to us he was just trying to get out of going to jail for 6 months. So the police got a search warrant on his testimony and came into our home and found about 3 or 4 grams of pot ( our smoke) they found no evidence of distributing and was very disappointed. So they offered us the same deal, help them bust someone and walk. Well, we were children of the late 60's and 70's and believe in loyalty and believe that snitching is close to committing a type of treason against someone who had enough faith in us to help us out, so we didn't do it. The cops got mad because we wouldn't play their game. We were charged with "Delivery of a controlled substance" which in the State of West Virginia is a felony. We did a plea bargain and I ended up with simple possession and spent 1 month in jail and 2 months on home confinement and got 250 hours of community service and 2 years of supervised probation. My husband is in jail now for 4 months, he was given a 1 to 5 year sentence and required to do 4 months and 5 years of probation and 650 hours of community service. He was disabled in 1994 in a coal mining accident and has had 4 surgeries and will face more before his life is over. But they have him in jail working and will not give him his pain medication. I lost my career. We have two teenage children, my son is 18 and graduates this year and is receiving a scholarship to college and my daughter is 16 and has plans of going on to school after high school. I mean we are good parents and have never felt that marijuana should be illegal. We do not do hard drugs and do not drink, especially. I was the child of an alcoholic father, so I was turned against drinking at a young age. So, 9 grams of marijuana has totally destroyed our lives and the lives of our children. I still believe that marijuana is not the problem, that the war waged on marijuana by the government causes more harm to families than the marijuana ever could. This is an issue that needs to be dealt with and not by the government funding more task forces to arrest people and lock them up but, by education and rehabilitation. Our children are doing OK, because we have educated them about the truth and not let the government feed them the lies they have fed everyone for about 50 years. We have never stolen, killed, hurt, raped or held a gun to anyone's head. We have always been kind private about our lives until this happened. Now, at the ages of 42 and 44 our lives have been devastated. We have been fined, piss tested and humiliated totally. I was drug into a court room with hand cuffs and shackles like I had killed someone. I understand anyone who doesn't smoke and I don't think marijuana is for everyone, but if it is your thing then who is the government to say what dead plants I can smoke or consume? Is this really fair? Oprah, you may not believe in drugs or marijuana, but surely you can see that it is not the killer weed that they try to make it out to be. You are a very powerful woman and I know that people listen to you and you don't have to be on one side or the other just bring this to the attention of your viewers and let them make up their own minds as to how far they will go with this war on drugs. The government will take normal people and turn them into criminals over a little marijuana. We were no different than anyone else till now. We do not take valium, prosaic, zoloft or any other drugs (legal). I don't believe in them, but I don't think they should be illegal. This is America and we should have our choices, shouldn't we? And snitching should be as much a crime as anything else. To threaten people with prison if they don't implicate someone else in crime is such a draconian messier. Back in the 1600's they had such tactics too, and the law was repealed in the 1700's because of innocent people being hanged and falsely accused of crime. People actually made careers out of turning in innocent people. Why would we go back to such things is beyond me. People respect you and so do I. Please find it in your heart to do a show about this subject. And if you do, I would be glad to help. 
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Comment #2 posted by hicks on October 04, 2000 at 01:50:09 PT
OPRAH
Oprah: former crackhead, 'nuff said
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Comment #1 posted by CRYSTAL ANSTEY on January 30, 1999 at 09:35:56 PT:
oprah is a general
i feel empathy towards the writer of the letter. but we must realize that oprah is a general in this war on drugs. i too feel that the american government is using much propoganda. it is wrong. but there it is. america is the home of the hypocrite.
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