Texas at its stupidest

I am sure that the legislators in Texas know that needle exchanges are much safer for drug addicts and for the public, but they’d rather act all judgmental towards addicts and the people who live near them. Sometimes I hate Texas! What is it like to live in a state that cares about the people?

Texas’ 1st needle-exchange program foiled by legal opinion

from HoustonChronicle

Bexar County officials will not move forward with what would have been the first legally sanctioned syringe-exchange program for drug addicts in Texas.

SAN ANTONIO — In the wake of a long-awaited opinion issued Monday by Attorney General Greg Abbott, Bexar County officials will not move forward with what would have been the first legally sanctioned syringe-exchange program for drug addicts in Texas.

The opinion essentially supports the view of District Attorney Susan Reed, who argued that the bill creating the local pilot program didn’t trump state drug laws and would leave county workers open to prosecution. The opinion left such prosecution to Reed’s discretion.

“We were hoping the attorney general would see the value of operating the sterile needle exchange in toto, which included the distribution of sterile needles,” said Aurora Sanchez, who as the county’s executive director of community and development programs is overseeing the pilot program. “But since it doesn’t do that, it appears to me we have to wait until the legislation is changed in 2009.”

Here is more from the article:

“Based on the previous approach she’s taken, I expect her to say she’s going to exercise her discretion to prosecute these wholly good-hearted people. That’s an unfortunate result,” said Neel Lane, an attorney with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, which is representing the coalition at no cost.

“I think that the attorney general has reached an absurd conclusion that, in passing a law creating and funding a pilot needle exchange program, that the Legislature may nevertheless intended to prosecute those who carried out the program it funded,” Lane continued. “The practical effect of the opinion is to tell the Bexar County DA that she has the discretion to veto laws passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Perry.”

And this really helpful part! ***sarcasm***

Sanchez said the county would continue to provide educational materials to addicts to prevent the spread of disease.

 

Babies in prison

 

Victoria Jaramillo, 40, holding her 3-month-old daughter, Frida, at Santa Martha Acatitla, a women’s prison in Mexico City. (Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times)

My mom is in prison and has been for more than years. I have thought a lot about what it would be like if she had never been arrested and how different my life would be if she was out and if she was still my guardian. (My life is WAY WAY better now! I wish she could be in a hospital or a drug rehab, but not here in my house.)

But until I read the article below, I never thought of what it would be like to be in prison with her. (I don’t even like going for an hour to visit.)  The kids in the article are a lot younger than I was when my mom was arrested, and the prison they’re talking about is in Mexico and not in the U.S., but still it has me thinking.

Behind prison bars, toddlers serve time with mom

By James C. Mckinley Jr. MEXICO CITY:
Beyond the high concrete walls and menacing guard towers of the Santa Martha Acatitla prison, past the barbed wire, past the iron gates, past the armed guards in black commando garb, sits a nursery school with brightly painted walls, piles of toys and a jungle gym.

Fifty-three children under the age of 6 live inside the prison with their mothers, who are serving sentences for crimes from drug dealing to kidnapping to homicide. Mothers dressed in prison blue, many with tattoos, carry babies on their hips around the exercise yard. Others lead toddlers and kindergartners by the hand, play with them in the dust or bounce them on their knees on prison benches.

 

On the one hand, maybe these moms learn to be better parents than my mother was, and maybe there’s less abuse when there are guards and other people around. Also, I am glad the children there have toys to play with and a nursery school. On the other hand, they don’t have any freedom. What an experience!

 

Scooter Libby and JUSTICE

Dear President Bush,

Why do you think that Scooter Libby’s sentence needs to be commuted? Why is it you opinion that a man who outed a CIA agent, lied to the FBI, and got convicted for obstruction of justice should serve no jail time?

“I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive,” Bush’s statement said. “Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

My mom is an addict and she sold drugs. She is in a Texas prison for up to nine years, and her crimes

• did not hurt the CIA,

• did not hurt the search for WMD

• did not damage a CIA front company

• did not waste FBI time or money.

She sold drugs. Why does she get 9 years and Scooter gets zero?

—Freckles Cassie