The short answer: YES.
Finally - someone who sees the fork in the road and has the stones to make a decision! (Although, you do realize it was a 50-50 shot - no?)
Let's get down to the particulars. It's vitally important because the existence of the entire Liberteen agenda hinges on it.
You say that people HAVE BEEN IMPRISONED for smoking pot. That brings up some very obvious questions. 1) What were they charged with? 2) How many people are there behind bars for the very same thing? 3) Can you name one?
Short answers will do...
You sure poked a touchy libertarian nerve.
The Liberteens have no idea what's comin'.
Please leave me in my revelry...
166 posted on 9/21/02 11:36 PM Eastern by Libloather
I was loath to take on this assignment, because it involved research that you should be doing, if in fact you really wanted to find the answers. But because this isn't really a quest for knowledge on your part (rather, it's an exercise in rhetoric), I realized that if any empirical data were to be brought to the table, it would have to be brought by me.
The most cursory of internet searches yielded the following information from the San Juan County Superior Court log archives:
San Juan County Superior Court February 12, 2001 Judge Vickie Churchill presiding
Kelly Elizabeth Nixon, 39, Orcas Island, was sentenced to four months on a delivery of marijuana charge and three months on a possession of marijuana charge. She may work on the county work crew after completing three months jail time.
The online source for that information is here.
So there you have it... Kelly Elizabeth Nixon was sentenced to three months of jail time for possession of marijuana (in addition to other sentences for other charges), as of September 12, 2001. To be fair, this sentence was imposed for "possession" of pot, not "smoking pot."
As for the answers to your questions, they would be 1) According to the website, "...a possession of marijuana charge," 2) who knows? And 3) Kelly Elizabeth Nixon.
If you'd like a better example, I'm certain I could find you one. There are plenty out there.
And as for your assertion that "...the entire Liberteen [sic] agenda hinges on..." this question, said assertion reveals three things about you:
1. You have no understanding of the basis of Libertarian principles,
2. You may be expressing yourself in reaction to self-proclaimed Libertarians who themselves have no understanding of the basis of Libertarian principles, and
3. You are not in the least bit curious as to what those actual principles are.
In short, you are attempting to use a straw-man argument to discredit opponents for whom you have no respect. Is your time truly so abundant as to be so poorly spent?