If you are convicted of a felony drug charge, kill yourself.

Unless of course you are rich or have a rich family that will help you. It has been almost 7 years since I was convicted of drug possession and do not let them bullshit you, they should have just executed me.

People tell you just quit drugs and everything will get better, you can change your life; it does not get better and you are now locked out of the workforce. No matter how much you learn, study, and change your life, in the end it is for naught. Being convicted of a drug felony ruined my paramedic career so I taught myself computer programming. I have interviewed at Spartan stadium for IBM, built 11 applications for Microsoft as an independent developer, which has my phone ringing off the hook with jobs I will never get. I was hired three times this year at positions that all paid more than twenty dollars an hour plus benefits yet every time I received the email – “Unfortunately due to your background we are unable to move further. Thank you and good luck in your job search”. It doesn't matter that I haven’t had so much as a parking ticket since then, once you are labeled a “felon” you are finished. I am unemployable for possessing a drug the last two presidents have done, cocaine. I tried it again five years ago and did not like it and don’t see why I even did it but it does not matter I have been labeled a felon and therefore I am unemployable. You are not only unemployable but you do not qualify for anything anymore- food stamps or any other welfare benefit is cut off. You can’t even get college loans anymore. You are more discriminated against than a rapist or murderers, at least they get food benefits and qualify for federal student loans.

 If not for my family, I would be living on the streets since NOBODY is willing to give me a chance once my background comes back. I have never hurt, stole, robbed, or even caused another person any pain yet I am locked out of the workforce. I have woke up every day for the last month and wondered what is the point of living anymore?

Here is a question for all those involved with the criminal “justice” system;

What incentive does one have to stay off drugs and not commit another “crime”? If one is refused work, all safety nets are cut and one is barred from any chance of becoming a productive member of society, besides prison what incentive does one have to change. The criminal justice system not only crushes the drug users chances of making a living they also harm everyone from the users family to the city and state they live in by loss of taxes, adding to the able bodied but unemployed numbers, and so on. Instead of admitting capitalism is not working they give people who make a personal choice labels such as “felon” so they can blame victims instead of a broken and corrupt system. I owe child support and am threatened with jail time, that and jail time for fines from receiving the drug possession yet because I have a felony I am barred from employment so I am unable to pay of any of it. It does not even make sense.

 A person who does drugs usually messes up their life enough only to have the state come in and make it infinitely worse. Companies that refuse to employ people convicted of victim-less crimes should be ashamed of themselves. Most people with felony drug crimes blame themselves and don’t say anything just let the state walk all over them. I am done with that way of thinking. 7 years ago, I took my money and bought a small amount of drugs for me to use. Get over it! I do not use now and don’t plan on it again so stop refusing me a way to make a living. Take your fucking boot off my neck and let me make a living, support my child, and pay taxes to my state. I live in Michigan, which could defiantly use the money. Tens of billions is lost each year by states if not more because they label people felons for victim-less crimes. When Obama did cocaine it was youthful indiscretion when I do it, I am sentenced to a life of poverty and misery.

I know I sound bitter but if you spent all the time and energy, I have learning and studying only to be cast out of society, you would be too. We have a two tiered justice system one for the poor and one for the rich. I possess a small amount of cocaine and am barred from employment for life while a rich kid gets probation for getting blind drunk then gets in his daddy’s f-350 and kills four people plus paralyzes his friend. This is the country we live in.

Another depressing year

I truly hope our situation gets better. A question will be how did you make it through or hide out during the first two decades of the two thousands. Congress has a six percent approval rating; you could shed genital warts in a kinder light. Maybe it is just my geographical location; maybe things are different around the country. I know the situation is not better in Las Vegas, so I am sure it is like this everywhere. Are you sick of it? The greed, the selfishness, the “I got mine close the door” attitude, it just makes you want to close your door (if you have one) and pretend you’re in a different time or place. That somehow the world really is not like this, people cannot be this callous.  Maybe I’m naïve but I think people are better than the sum of their representation and right about now it would take a revolution to change things. The wealth grabbers have been at this since 1970, pushing the taxes on the working classes while lowering or eliminating it altogether for them and their corporations. They socialize the risk and privatize the gains. The wealthy want to cut existing safety nets, take peoples pensions yet get billions in substitutes. They say they hate government only they do not. They love government when it is protecting them from the “great beast”, the “useless eaters” or enforcing their patent laws and forcibly removing protesters from their environmentally destructive “work” sites. Most days I do not want to get out of bed anymore, the world has become too cold and cruel. People don’t care about people anymore. I still wake up with the hope, the hope that one day people will come together to stop this before we reach a full on totalitarian police state. A day everybody walks out of their jobs and says, we are done until things change. It is just a fantasy but that’s all I have left anymore.