Oklahoman Legislators Pass Harsh Hashish Law

[RidgeHunter]

http://www.newson6.com/story/14549290/oklahoma-legislators-pass-harsh-hashish-law

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- With a decimated state budget and spending on state prisons approaching nearly a half-billion dollars each year, legislative leaders in Oklahoma are pushing for changes to the state's criminal sentencing policies to keep more nonviolent criminals out of the state's overcrowded prisons.

But while Republican leaders are pushing for these sentencing changes on one hand, they also are continuing to endorse harsher penalties for drug crimes and other nonviolent offenses.

Last week, on the same day the Oklahoma Senate approved a proposal by House Speaker Kris Steele, R-Shawnee, to increase the use of electronic monitoring and community sentencing for low-risk offenders as a way to reduce Oklahoma's prison population, it overwhelmingly approved a measure that would authorize penalties of up to life in prison for a first offense of converting marijuana into hashish. Republican Gov. Mary Fallin signed the bill on Friday.

"The irony is Shakespearean," said state Sen. Andrew Rice, D-Oklahoma City, who said he inadvertently voted in favor of the hashish bill. "I think it just shows how far we have to go with cultural attitudes in the state among prosecutors and others that, although we've taken a couple of good baby steps, here we're doing something that's directly opposed to that."

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs requested the bill to crack down on hashish, even though the agency's spokesman, Mark Woodward, acknowledged Oklahoma has seen only about a dozen cases of manufacturing hashish in the last decade.

"It's very rare," Woodward said. "But on those rare occasions, we want to be able to treat them with very severe penalties.

"Hopefully it will be a deterrent to people, because they'll know our state takes it very seriously."

Lawmakers, meanwhile, acknowledge that while they're working on ways to reduce Oklahoma's incarceration rate, which routinely ranks in the top five nationally, the political implications of voting against tougher criminal penalties are dangerous. Political opponents from both sides may target an incumbent with a "soft-on-crime" label for casting a vote against harsher penalties, said state Sen. Richard Lerblance, D-Hartshorne.

"It's just the mindset up here, and it's been beaten into these new senators and representatives that you cannot be soft on crime," said Lerblance, one of only two senators to oppose the hashish bill. "It was the same way when the Democrats were in control.

"We just want to lock them up and throw away the key."

Adding to the problem, said Chad Moody, a criminal defense attorney in Oklahoma City, is a general sense among Oklahomans that lawbreakers must be punished.

"Our criminal justice system isn't there so much to deal with a particular criminal justice problem, but to reaffirm societal and cultural values," Moody said. "And a big value of this culture is obedience to the law. As a consequence, the way we show that is a strong cultural value is we punish the crap out of anybody that breaks the law, no matter how senseless it might be."

Oklahoma's prison population has grown from 22,600 in 2000 to nearly 26,000 now and the budget from $366 million to $483 million last year. More than half of Oklahoma's inmates are in prison for nonviolent offenses.

Steele, a soft-spoken minister and the new leader in the House, is hoping to change how Oklahoma punishes lawbreakers. His bill this year would divert low-risk criminals to community sentencing and electronic monitoring programs and limit the governor's role in the parole process -- all steps designed to ease overcrowding in state prisons.

But Steele said he wants to go even further next year and look to revamp Oklahoma's entire criminal sentencing code to ensure that criminal penalties on the statute books in Oklahoma are appropriate and based on recognized best practices. Steele said he is working with the Council of State Governments, a nonpartisan policy and research group, with a goal of analyzing Oklahoma's sentencing practices.

"The thought is that we will continue to have a comprehensive look at how other states are handling nonviolent crimes and what would be appropriate in the state of Oklahoma," Steele said. "I believe historically, the solution has been to add to the penalties and incarceration time for all crimes.

"I think that we're beginning to have a very serious discussion on how the state of Oklahoma can be both smart and tough on crime."

Grrrr..tough on crime. Grrrr. Let's go for that number one spot, just being in the top five is not good enough for me!

I can't count the number of things wrong with this story. From politicians openly admitting they'd rather do what's politically expedient than what's right...to my personal favorite...the senator speaking in opposition to this bill who says he "inadvertently voted in favor of it". What? You inadvertently voted in favor of it? What? The irony is Shakespearean? You're telling me, Mr. Rice. I had to check and make sure I wasn't reading The Onion after that line.

 

[ignerntbend]

I agree with this law. Everybody knows you can't get good hash anymore.
Put those scammers in jail, and throw away the key.

Man.

 

[Spec ops Grunt]

Damnation to this current Government.



Also, Rice needs to just retire after that trainwreck of a statement.

 

[GlockedandLoaded]

 

[ignerntbend]

Oh please. You have the lowest sort of fly-by-night operators setting up in the hashish business, and I assure you that they don't know what they're doing. You libertarians may want market forces to sort it out, but I'm a big government guy.

 

[HVYCHVY]

Wow, I didn't know you could get hash in Oklahoma. I must be hanging out with the wrong folks. j/k

 

[RidgeHunter]

Also, Rice needs to just retire after that trainwreck of a statement.

But the irony is Shakespearean.

I know I always enjoy having irony defined for me by a man who inadvertently voted for a bill he calls "a step backwards".

I'm just so relieved our legislators are hard at work voting on draconian punishments for non-existent offenders. To paraphrase another great mind of 21st century Oklahoma politics...I believe hashish is one of the greatest threats facing Oklahoma today. Right behind homosecksools and brown people.

 

[ignerntbend]

It's about quality control. It's about the consumer saying he won't be ripped off anymore.
The little guy standing up proud and firm against BIG HASH.

 

[ouhunter]

I agree with the law and IMO the one's with leg monitors should be like those electric dog shockers so if they go pass there limit they get zapped!!LOL

 

[ignerntbend]

I say we hang them bottom side upwards and pour molten lead down their fundaments!
Then they'd know.