Recent Broward Law Blog Features

Monday, March 9, 2009

I Am Patient Number 380206011


Over the weekend the National Organization to Reform the Marijuana Laws had its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., and I was re-elected to the Board of Directors, a position I have held for over ten years.


It is my feeling that the marijuana laws of the United States are inconsistent and unjust and I have never hesitated expressing that conviction. But since this is a Law Blog representing the diversity of legal thought and ideas in our community and around the country, I have pretty much allowed those ideological convictions for drug law reform to be expressed on my personal blog site, The Kent Vent.


A piece I did this weekend has been taking off, with New Times picking it up as well as the main NORML blog, and a few other legal websites. Over the years, I have learned that when you tell personal stories, people relate to the reality, as compared to distant polemics.


What follows then is my link to the story 'I Am Patient Number 380206011':



Got the idea for the title from Les Mis, you know when Jean Valjean, released from parole after ten years, and now the Mayor of the town, is uncovered by Lieutenant Jabert, and has to admit to being prisoner number 24601.


I can't think of a Broadway play I have seen more than Les Mis, and how many spectacular songs penetrate the production. Very excited to see that one of its best actors, Dudu Fisher, will be performing here at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts on March 25. That is a show I will not miss.

Eventually, in Les Mis, the students, the protestors, the anarchists, Jean Valjean, are all acquitted. The justness of their cause is celebrated. So too will it one day be so for the prisoners of pot laws, who have spent decades fighting for justice, demeaned and disgraced by cowardly politicians who have succumbed to the politics of ignorance, expedience and indifference.

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