Reply ID: qe4x

Hi Jamie,

I hear what you're saying about drugs. But what bout the financial costs to society? How would we mitigate them? Then there are the physiological costs of dependent children. In this country, we would have to reorganize most of the state and federal gov't (something I'm for anyway). I guess the point I'm trying to make is that drug abuse never just damages oneself.

In this country, there is far too much waste, bureaucracy and corruption in government to regulate all drug use. I can give plenty of examples for the Department of Correction her in Connecticut. I've even suggested to the governor to introduce a bill that mimics the Federal False Claims Act which has the ability to stop certain types of fraud and encourages those who spot it to report it by allowing a steep financial award. One woman was fired from her job after trying to put a stop to a practice that could have harmed many people. She filed what's called a Qui Tam and was awarded $100 million (1/3 of what the gov't collected).

With regards to my innocence, think of it like this: the Feds estimate that 8% of all prisoners are locked up for something they didn't do (The Innocence Project believes this figure to be about 25%). But using the gov'ts own stats, that would be about 8 people in each housing unit within every prison. Here in Connecticut, there are about 17 prisons, New York has about 80. And that's just 2 states! Remember, most prisoners don't claim to be innocent.

I want you to be free to ask me anything you like. It doesn't have to be about my case or even about prison. I could answer questions about other cases, politics, the economy, family life, other prisoners, the sadistic behavior of staff here, or anything else.

I became aware of this program through an ad in a publication I received. I'm not sure which one it was several years ago.

Respectfully,
Rich