Aaron Malin interviewed Jeff Mizanskey, who is serving a life sentence for marijuana. He “is the only person in Missouri sentenced to die behind bars for marijuana, a victim of the state’s rather unique three strikes law”:
I asked Jeff about his future. He told me calmly that all of his appeal options have been exhausted. Unless the Governor of Missouri grants Jeff clemency and sets him free, he will likely die there. He will never know his grandchildren, or his great-grandchild on the way, outside the walls of the sprawling Jefferson City Correctional Center.
As I drove away from the prison, down the very visibly marked No More Victims Road, I thought about the man, and the horribly cruel irony, that I was leaving behind. Unless the Governor of Missouri intervenes and grants clemency, Jeff will die behind bars at 8200 No More Victims Road, having never victimized anyone in his life.
Jacob Sullum reflects on Mizanskey’s case. And he spotlights other perverse consequences of our draconian marijuana laws:
In 2004, according to a 2007 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, marijuana convictions accounted for 12.7 percent of drug offenders in state prisons and 12.4 percent of drug offenders in federal prisons. Applying those percentages to the drug offender numbers for 2011 (225,200 state, 94,600 federal) suggests that roughly 40,000 people are serving time in state and federal prisons for marijuana offenses. That number does not include people serving shorter sentences in local jails, where a total of about 182,000 drug offenders were confined in 2011. Nor does it include the vast majority of the 758,000 people arrested for marijuana offenses that year. Nearly nine out of 10 marijuana arrests are for simple possession, a charge that typically does not result in a jail or prison sentence.
The fact that most people arrested on marijuana charges do not spend much time behind bars does not mean they are not punished. In addition to the humiliation, inconvenience, and expense directly related to their arrest and prosecution, they can suffer lasting ancillary penalties, including disruption of their educations, loss of their professional licenses, and impairment of their employment prospects.
