Richard Paey granted full pardon by Florida Governor Crist

Last December I appealed to readers to call former Florida Jeb Bush to commute the sentence of Richard Paey.

Today Bush's Republican successor, Governor Charlie Crist, after hearing argument from Paey's outstanding attorney, John P. Flannery, II, moved to grant Paey a full pardon, and his cabinet adopted the motion. Paey should be released from prison today.

Crist extended the usual five minutes for such argument to thirty minutes, and took an extraordinary step to grant a full pardon. Crist was a leading anti-crime State Senator and later Florida Attorney General.

I encourage you to call (850) 488-7146 or write Governor Crist to commend him!
Office of Governor Charlie Crist
State of Florida
PL-05 The Capitol
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001

I sent this email to Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com

Dear Governor Crist:

Your motion this morning to grant a full pardon to Richard Paey was the most heartening act by a public official that I can think of in many years.

It seemed to me that it was completely consistent with your pledge and philosophy published on your website.

It should not be remarkable that you took this step -- given the facts, but it is remarkable.

I am tremendously impressed by your leadership on this.

Bravo!

With very best wishes,
Eric E. Sterling

Tags: Charlie Crist, Richard Paey, pain patients, drugs, pardon

Sphere: Related Content

Is U.S. Senator Larry Craig guilty?

According to USA Today,

[U.S. Senator Larry] Craig [R-ID] said in his statement that he regrets his guilty plea.

"I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter," he said. "In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously."

The Senator's website has this statement:

I did nothing wrong at the Minneapolis airport. I regret my decision to plead guilty and the sadness that decision has brought to my wife, family, friends, staff, and fellow Idahoans. For that I apologize.

"In June, I overreacted and made a poor decision. While I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct at the Minneapolis airport or anywhere else, I chose to plead guilty to a lesser charge in the hope of making it go away. I did not seek any counsel, either from an attorney, staff, friends, or family. That was a mistake, and I deeply regret it. Because of that, I have now retained counsel and I am asking my counsel to review this matter and to advise me on how to proceed.

"For a moment, I want to put my state of mind into context on June 11. For 8 months leading up to June, my family and I had been relentlessly and viciously harassed by the Idaho Statesman. If you’ve seen today’s paper, you know why. Let me be clear: I am not gay and never have been.

Do innocent people plead guilty "to handle [the] matter ...quickly and expeditiously"? You better believe it.

If you were a leading conservative U.S. Senator and you could plead guilty to disorder conduct or a sex offense, which would you do? What, you really want a trial in open court in which the police officer who does these undercover stings in the men's room for a living takes the stand and your counsel is going to cross-examine him to trip him up? Roll the dice on the guilty plea and that you won't get found out?

Sadly, this often happens. Then again, the Senator may be guilty, and is still lying.

Sphere: Related Content

What causes 1.6 to 3.8 million head injuries per year?

Sports!

According to the CDC, as reported by the San Jose Mercury News, sports like football result in 1.6 to 3.8 million head injuries like concussions each year, but the CDC spokesperson notes that this is almost certainly an undercount. "The consequences can be profound."

Mark Kleiman at The Reality-Based Community pointed this out
and noted that

if high-school football were a drug, it would be in Schedule I. NIDA has spent approximately a gazillion dollars looking for evidence of lasting cognitive deficits from pot-smoking, and found nothing nearly as clear-cut as the risks associated with concussion, which is a fairly routine risk of playing football under current rules.

Sphere: Related Content

Washington Post Outlook section -- "The Lost War"

The Washington Post editors have not tolerated much criticism of the basics of American drug policy. Historically their op-ed page has welcomed defenses of status quo strategy by Joseph Califano (former counsel for the paper), George Will, and government officials. Almost the only criticism of the status quo can be found in occasional letters to the editor.

But on Sunday, the Outlook section published on its front page a very powerful analysis by Misha Glenny of the global criminal organizations that threaten legitimate governments everywhere, and the Afghan government in particular. This tracks some of the analysis that can be found at StopFundingTerrorists.com and is a theme of Arnold Trebach's new book, Fatal Distraction: The War on Drug in the Age of Islamic Terror.

Misha Glenny is a former BBC correspondent and the author of "McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Underworld," to be published next year.

What is unique in Glenny's report -- as far as it being on the Post op-ed page -- is that it highlights the prohibition character of drug policy as an advantage to criminals and terrorists, and a handicap for the rest of us.

He concludes:

In Washington, the war on drugs has been a third-rail issue since its inauguration. It's obvious why -- telling people that their kids can do drugs is the kiss of death at the ballot box. But that was before 9/11. Now the drug war is undermining Western security throughout the world. In one particularly revealing conversation, a senior official at the British Foreign Office told me, "I often think we will look back at the War on Drugs in a hundred years' time and tell the tale of 'The Emperor's New Clothes.' This is so stupid."

How right he is.

Tags: war on drugs, drug prohibition, global crime, terrorism, political third rail

Sphere: Related Content

17-year old overdoses on caffeine -- where's the outrage?

The BBC reports on the overdose on caffeine that sent 17-year old Jasmine Willis to the hospital last week in County Durham, England. She drank 7 double espressos.

"I was burning up and hyperventilating.

"I was having palpitations, my heart was beating so fast and I thought I was going into shock," she said.

She said that she was still experiencing side effects days later.

Fortunately Jasmine survived. But if she had perished, should that tragedy have warranted changing the law regarding caffeine?

"If we can save just one child from this terrifying experience, this one law would be worth it!" Isn't that the standard for deciding whether to make it a felony to recklessly leave caffeine products in the proximity of persons underage?

Well, OF COURSE NOT. The "save just one life" rationale is a powerful emotional but intellectually bogus argument. It arises only after an activity has been stripped of normality. Even as global levels of "caffeinization"grow, we are nowhere near a reaction that will demonize use of caffeine.

But other activities have been moved into that category. Cigarette smoking is probably the best example of this transformation. You can still find seats on airplanes with ashtrays built into the armrests. Only a few decades ago, children made ashtrays in their first pottery classes. Smoking was permissible in college classrooms. It is hard for Americans to recall the ubiquity of cigarette smoking only 40 years ago.

Noting this transformation is not a defense of cigarette smoking. I do not like the smell of tobacco smoke, and I consider smoking indoors in the presence of unconsenting others a grave breach of etiquette. It is the process of this profound social change that I am noting. Thus we move the behavior from being unobjectionable to objectionable, laying the groundwork for criminalization.

In California, for example, not only is it a misdemeanor to distribute cigarettes to a person under 18, it is illegal to distribute cigarettes other than in sealed packages of 20. It is illegal to rent videos that include advertisements for cigarettes (or alcohol products).

And yet, caffeine products are marketed without being mentioned on ingredient labels, without warning labels that caffeine is addictive or that consumption of caffeine carries a risk of overdose.

Tags: coffee, caffeine overdose, warning labels

Sphere: Related Content