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Photos: Bob Shell
Posted on July 8, 2012 by Bob Shell
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………..If you’ll look at page 48 of the July/August issue of Playboy magazine you’ll see part of a letter I wrote to them about the idiocy of the US’s current policy on drugs. The original letter, of course, was longer, but they used one of the more important paragraphs. I’m sorry they couldn’t use the whole letter, but from being in the magazine business I fully understand space limitations. My point was that it makes no sense to lock someone up for twenty years at massive expense to the governments for simple possession of two pills. Ten years per OxyContin pill is ridiculous overkill, and an unsustainable burden to the taxpayers.
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Marion
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It’s time for us to come to our senses and realize that the “war on drugs” was lost a long time ago, and no matter how many people we lock up it’s not going to change that simple fact. It’s time to begin to see this as a medical and social problem, not a criminal problem. Locking up nonviolent drug abusers with violent hardened criminals, as the current system is doing, is just creating schools for crime where impressionable, mostly young, people are immersed in the lifestyle and philosophy of professional criminals. No wonder so many come back to prison after release, when they receive no treatment for the underlying problem – the sheer hopelessness of their lives.
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Please post the above in my Letters From Prison. I’ve become very passionate about this problem, even though it doesn’t directly impact me. No one has ever accused me of being a drug user.
Copyright 2012
To Be Continued……….
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About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Center, Pocahontas, Virginia for involuntary manslaughter for the death of one of his models, Marion Franklin. He is currently working on his appeal.
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Editor’s Note: To read more letters from prison by Bob Shell, go to the search bar at the top of the page: enter name and click the green icon. To learn more about the case log on to www.BobShellTruth.com.
