cannabisnews.com: Pot Using Ga. Quadriplegic Gets Prison Term





Pot Using Ga. Quadriplegic Gets Prison Term
Posted by FoM on February 19, 2000 at 20:47:58 PT
The Associated Press 
Source: Arizona Daily Star
 A quadriplegic who says he uses marijuana for medical reasons has been sentenced to seven years in prison - where he will cost taxpayers five times as much as an average inmate - after being accused of selling the drug out of his home. Louis E. Covar Jr., 51, who uses a wheelchair and can't control his muscles beneath his shoulders, was convicted of marijuana possession last March in Augusta. 
The judge gave him seven years of probation, telling Covar that if he was to continue using the drug, to keep it to himself. The same judge, J. Carlisle Overstreet, revoked the probation and sent Covar to prison Thursday after police testified that Covar was selling the drug. Overstreet said he took the costs of jailing Covar into consideration but felt he had no choice. According to the Department of Corrections, the special care Covar will need will cost $258.33 a day - or more than $660,000 if he serves his full seven years. A typical prisoner costs taxpayers $47.63 per day. (His case is similar to that of Deborah Lynn Quinn, a 39-year-old Kingman woman born with no arms and only a partial leg, who is imprisoned in Tucson for violating probation in a marijuana case. Her care is costing $345 a day, nearly seven times the cost of incarcerating an average inmate.) ``Throwing a quadriplegic into a prison cell is asinine and shows the idiocy of our drug policy,'' said Keith Stroup, executive director of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws. Covar, who has been paralyzed since breaking his neck in a diving accident on July 4, 1967, says marijuana is the only thing that will relieve the pain from muscle spasms in his neck. ATLANTA (AP) Published: Saturday, 19 February 2000The Arizona Daily Star OnlineRelated Articles & Web Site:NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/Judge Imprisons Quadriplegic Man http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4762.shtmlHandicapped Woman Center of Prison Flaphttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4735.shtmlSeverely Disabled Offender To Do Prison Timehttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4683.shtml
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