Marijuana Prohibition and Idaho's Prison-Industrial Complex

[damnedifIknow]

Josh Tewalt has a drug problem that led to several arrests. Like many others afflicted with that weakness, Tewalt eventually wound up in prison. Unlike most of them, however, he landed on the right side of the bars in the very lucrative position of Deputy Chief of Corrections for the State of Idaho.

Without the dubious benefit of a college degree or substantial experience in law enforcement apart from his own time in jail, Tewalt receives a base salary of at least $83,000 a year to manage the human inventory of Idaho’s prison-industrial complex.

Under Idaho’s state code, Tewalt’s repeated DUIs constituted an aggregate felony. Many – perhaps most – of the people whose lives he now controls committed offenses less serious than his. More than a few of them were convicted of felonies under Idaho’s pre-medieval laws against marijuana possession. The inmate population over which Tewalt presides may soon include desperate parents of children suffering from conditions for which non-intoxicating cannabis oil (CBD) is the only effective treatment."

* On April 16, Idaho Governor Butch Otter vetoed a measure (S1146a) that would not have decriminalized possession and use of CBD, but would have created an “affirmative defense” for those who obtain and use it for treatment of several medical conditions, including cancer, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and various kinds of seizure disorders. "

*Many, if not most, of the people consigned to live in Josh Tewalt’s domain are imprisoned because of vices, rather than crimes. But it’s difficult to imagine anything more vicious than Butch Otter’s willingness to imprison virtuous parents whose only “offense” is to use cannabis oil to treat their incurably sick children. "

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2015/04/protecting-vicious-punishing-virtuous.html

[Politicalboi]

1. Doesn't their religious laws cover MJ

Can't they say MJ is what they preach to and it's their religion? I thought that was one of the good things that came out of such lunacy.

[damnedifIknow]

2. Need to include this tawdry little fact

As Lieutenant Governor 23 years ago, Otter was arrested for a DUI, and served a year of probation as a result. When stopped by a Meridian police officer, Otter initially said that his vehicle swerved because of a knee injury. He later explained to a jury that he failed a field sobriety test because, in his hunger following an eight-mile run, he had soaked chewing tobacco in Jack Daniels – an explanation that actually enhances, rather than diminishes, concerns about potential issues of addiction.

Otter has plenty of company in the Olympian realm in which dwells Idaho’s political elite. This includes Deputy Corrections Director Josh Tewalt, who will be the custodial master of any Idaho residents who seek effective medical treatment with CBD in defiance of what Otter and his ilk insist on calling the “law.”

In 1999, less than two years after graduating from High School, Tewalt was hired as a staffer by Governor Dirk Kempthorne. Two years later he was employed by then-Representative Butch Otter. While on Otter’s staff Tewalt was arrested for DUI. "