How a Missouri 'pothead' became poster boy for compassion on drugs - CSMonitor.com

How a Missouri 'pothead' became poster boy for compassion on drugs - CSMonitor.com: ATLANTA — Back in the day, Jeff Mizanskey was a bit of a pothead, at least that’s how the police in Sedalia, Mo., knew him. The third time Mr. Mizanskey got busted for weed – during a 1993 sting at a Super 8 motel – he lost his case at trial and received a mind-boggling punishment: Life in prison, with no chance of getting out.



In Georgia, Gov. Nathan Deal signed a limited medical marijuana bill that would allow people with a specific set of ailments to receive non-psychoactive marijuana oil. Gov. Deal has also led a major criminal justice reform system aimed at giving judges more leeway to allow nonviolent drug offenders to get treatment rather than automatically send them to jail.



And in a widely circulated column in the Dallas Morning News, Republican state representative David Simpson recently used Scripture to argue for prohibition repeal in the Lone Star State.



“Should we be concerned for our friends and neighbors who abuse a substance or activity?” Mr. Simpson wrote. “Yes, we should help them through sincere and voluntary engagement, but not with force and violence.”



To be sure, Mizanskey, to some, remains a hazard to society, who deserves to die behind bars. For one, Jeff Mittelhauser, who prosecuted the case, told the Riverfront Times he didn’t think the sentence was too excessive.



About 80 percent of the 3,200 nonviolent offenders serving life sentences in the US are in prison on drug offenses, and 27 percent of all prisoners in the US are behind bars for marijuana offenses, according to an ACLU report. The US Sentencing Commission has reported that convicted drug traffickers spend an average of 34 months in prison.



“While prohibitionists like to claim that advocates only care about getting high or are all about making money with a new industry, the case of Jeff Mizanskey demonstrates … the compassion at the heart of our fight,” writes legalization advocate Anthony Johnson on marijuanapolitics.com



Mizanskey’s case had been largely forgotten except by his family when the Riverfront Times in 2013 did a long story about the construction worker, detailing his recreational use of marijuana and his occasional small-time sales to support his own habit.



That attitude shift has begun to dovetail with strained prison budgets to force the issue in front of governors and lawmakers.