This morning at 5:45 your door came down with a bang. Several hours later, as the paramilitary police tac squad hauled away you and your crop, someone showed you a search warrant.
You called your lawyer, and he told you s/he told you $10,000 up front ("clean money" only) and that the government was asking that you be held on $100,000 bail. S/he also told you that the 425 small plants you had in your sea of green were good for a minimum of 60 months in prison, and that your beautiful family, your excellent work history, and even your serious drug problem that forced you to do all this would not make it less.
S/he also told you that if you didn't plead guilty right now, the government will add another charge for the deer rifle they found in your closet. No big deal? Under federal law, a weapon possessed, even "lawfully", while committing a drug "trafficking" crime adds a MANDATORY five years to every sentence.
You then called your wife. It took her five minutes to stop sobbing. You thought she'd recovered from seeing you taken away in handcuffs, from watching the children as they watched you leave, and from burying the family dog that the police had shot. She had. It's worse than that. She's sitting on the bare floor in the middle of an empty house, crying with the kids. Right after you left the police backed a moving van up to the house and emptied it. Rugs off the floor, pictures off the walls, right down to the socks and the underwear. It was, they stated, all the proceeds of crime.
That's what's happening. The Federal Government and all the local governments have decided to make a show of stopping drugs, while they're looting the victims, destroying their families, and exploiting their free prison labor. You're better off trying robbery. Under the Federal guidelines, a robbery of up to $50,000 gets you no more time than your 425 small plants. Welcome to the wonders of the war on drugs.
