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RE: Prop 64 passes Colorado election
Wish I wasn't on vacation when this was such a hot post-election day topic.
Marijuana has had a profound effect on my family.
I don't smoke (cigs or pot) and I don't drink and thru my ADHD son's Wheeling high school days my wife & I had many battles with our son who grasped the easy-to-get in high school pot concept and made it his goal in life to make it legal instead of much more valuable goals that his "gifted mind child" would have granted successfully.
The truth came out after college that the reason he chose a biology degree was so he could be a great botanist and farm the best Pot he could and live happily ever after in Colorado. He is now 24 and has paid an enormous price for his Pot mistakes.
He was arrested in his dorm freshman year by Campus Police for smoking with his girlfriend (whose father was a probation officer so she wasn't charged) My son was on probation for 2 years and paid a small fine and the lawyer only cost $250 and after 2 years we paid a fee to have that arrest expunged from his record.
A year later his steady girlfriend had just dumped him and he was driving back to start his senior year in college with a lot on his mind upsetting him and had 33 ounces of pot in his car that he got from a friend back here in Wheeling. On I-55 near the end of his 5 hour drive he got ticked at a truck driver who was blocking the road driving along side another truck at 52 MPH in a 70 MPH zone and after about 5 minutes he got past him and flashed him the finger which he then shaped his hand as a gun which the trucker must have thought was real because he radioed the police. A cop pulled him over and searched the car and found the 33 grams of pot (30 grams is a felony) and he was tested with pot in his system. He was told if he agrees to the blood test he'd only lose his license for 6 months instead of a year. He spent the night in a rural very conservative hicktown jail and had his car impounded. We bailed him out for $3500 (of which he paid 2500) and the $250 lawyer we had used previously referred us to a different attorney that supposedly was friends with the state's attorney that would be prosecuting the case. He wanted a $4000 fee which my wife agreed to but I wanted to use the free public defender. The States attorney found out about his prior pot arrest even though we paid to have it expunged. His license was revoked the day after Christmas 2009 and after all the continuations, "discoveries" and attemped plea bargains we finally accepted a not so great deal in late April 2010 of losing his license for another full year, 2 years probation, not able to leave the state unless granted by a probation officer, additional fines beyond the $3500 bail money that they kept, 4 grand to the worthless attorney and 4 weekends of jail time in their hicktown Jail. The only thing the lawyer got for him was a reduction of Jail time from 21 days to 8 separated weekend days and for it to be a misdemeaner and not appear as a felony on his record. On April 19, 2013 he will finally be probation free.
I am in favor of the legalization of Marijuana. Parents have little control over what their child finds as something that will get them thru difficult times by feeling good. It seems Pot helped him better than Ridalin or other legal ADHD drugs. Pot being illegal cost our family nearly $10,000 and extreme stress that my son had to go thru with a record that an employer can find out about rather easily. Glad it's almost all behind us. Sorry for the length of this story.
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