83 Year Old Woman Pot Bust

Source: http://www.theadanews.com/local/x1535578482/83-year-old-grandma-arrested-in-pot-bust

Patsey Maxwell, an 83 year old grandma was busted with nearly 3 pounds of pot. She was busted in her home in Stonewall, my hometown, after an informant had bought off her multiple times. She's getting more pressure because they said she was dealing close (within 2,000 feet) to the school, but she actually she lived on the other side of town from the school. I guess since the town is so small it doesn't matter. As far as I know and heard she has been dealing for 50 years, giving her OG status, but i guess all it takes is a couple of mistakes and it call comes crashing down.

Oklahoma is in the middle of fighting the legalization of marijuana so I was really curious if previous crimes would be decriminalized and sentences reduced. Any thoughts OT?

The government doesn't want competition, they are the largest drug dealers in the world and sell them on the black market to fund illegal wars by arming rebels and militias. Of course this lady gets busted, cannabis solves problems that pharmaceuticals can treat for decades while earning hundreds of thousands from people. Justice is bought and paid for. They've got the illegal and the legal side of the market nearly monopolized, one more potential competitor gone.

My thoughts are to legalize it. How soon do you think Obama is going to go for decriminalization? After the midterms or will he bitch out and do it after he leaves office?

Well put man. Any thoughts on them saying she was dealing close to a school (2,000 feet) but actually lived on the other side of town and had a tight circle from who she dealt with, meaning she didn't deal to anyone directly at school as far as I know.

Uh, she got busted because she's an illegal drug dealer. What, are the police supposed to not bust her just because they don't agree with marijuana being illegal?

@MrGeezer: the police aren't the problem, the police did their job and nothing more. No judgement upon them. It's their bosses. The rule should be yes an old lady should be aloud to sell cannabis, it's a plant out of the ground and has been used for millenia without destroying a single culture or even ever killing a single person. It's more logical than any other drug; I mean take salvia, that one a logical person could see it being legally controlled because it poses significant harm even though it's out of the ground. Similar to ayahuasca, a culture of people running around on that would be a bad thing probably.

Amen, something has to change.

Uh, dude, one of the most common arguments for legalization of marijuana is that it can be regulated and taxed. That sort of doesn't apply to people running secret drug businesses from their living room, because then they aren't being regulated and they aren't being taxed. What this woman was doing would have been illegal regardless.

Yeah but is she really hurting anyone? I know what and how but I'm just not sure why she gets a max sentence and the hammer for dealing "close" to a school. She's been smoking for almost 70 years and dealing for almost 50. Why now? It also took 5 agencies to bring her down. Seriously?

@MrGeezer:

what horrible logic, she would obviously sell it legally if it was legal. How do you even come up with something like this and not see the logical fallacy?

lmfao...dude, as soon as this stuff is federally legal for recreational uses, every single mom&pop dealer like this is gonna get steamrolled by big business. For starters, when that day comes people like this lady are gonna be out of the game for good, because they won't be able to compete with big business legally OR illegally. After all, that's bullet point #4 on the marijuana advocate's checklist. Legalization is gonna put illegal drug dealers out of business. She's not gonna be selling it legally, she won't be selling it AT ALL. It takes all sorts of additional costs to run a legal business, things that people like this aren't having to deal with because they're doing it illegally. And on the off chance that she still continues to sell out of her home to her current customers, that'll still be illegal.

If anything it's a lot more expensive to run a black market business than a legitimate one. If I were ever to buy an ounce of weed it'd cost me over 200 dollars (of course I would never even think of doing this as that would be illegal), whereas I frequently purchase about an ounce and a half of tobacco for around 11 bucks, and that's in Taxachusetts. There's a lot of hidden costs associated with selling anything illegal due to the risk involved.

Exactly, which means that the suppliers (the ones with the REAL volume) switch over to legal operations. The middlemen (such as this lady) are fucked. She's buying the weed for less, but she's getting a LOT less each time she sells it, which means that in order for it to remain viable she has to substantially expand her operation. This means hiring actual employees, doing actual advertising, renting out actual business space and keeping things up to code, etc, etc.

I don't see what you're describing actually transpiring if weed were to be legal. There's a plethora of small businesses across the country that sell booze and/or tobacco, and much of the beer they sell is not from large corporations but from small craft breweries, all for a price cheaper relative to the cost of a comparable amount of weed or any other illegal narcotic. I personally can't even name one large corporate liquor store chain.

As long as everyone gets to grow their own stuff, let the chips fall where they may.

You're overlooking something here. A hell of a lot of those places actual MAKE the product themselves. This ensures that they can offer a product that is unique, that customers can't get anywhere else. The lady in the article wasn't growing weed, she was buying bricks of it and then reselling it. The product is not unique to her. Either the grower continues to sell it to SOMEONE (not her), or the grower shuts down and then she's still screwed because she lacks a product to sell.

And yes, there are small businesses, but even starting up a small business takes a lot more money than just selling some shit out of your living room. I mean...I could buy tobacco in bulk legally, but I'm gonna have a really hard time turning a profit on the stuff if my plan is to just mark up the price and then sell it out of my living room. Go ahead, try it. See how easy it is to follow that model and make it profitable (while still doing it legally). In order for it to be profitable you need a sizeable amount of startup money and enough income to operate the business. And that's hard as hell for people to do, even when we're talking about "small" businesses.

Again, the BIG criminals can probably afford to make the transition. As others said, there are costs associated with black market activity, and legalization can negate some of those costs. The thing is...that often only applies to the guys who are making BIG bucks. If you can afford to hire enforcers and couriers and teams of shady lawyers to cover up your illegal activity, then you're probably making enough money to make the transition to a legal operation. But this doesn't seem to be the case for this lady. From what I understand, she just buys the shit, then people show up at her place and buy it. She had bricks of it out in the open in her home. Either she lacked the means to protect herself (which means she probably lacks the means to start up a business) or she just skated on dumb luck until she got caught (which means she's probably too dumb to operate a competitive business). This woman wasn't offering a unique product, she was dumb enough to get caught in a really stupid way, she apparently lacked the means or intelligence to hire others to take the risk for her, and this is EXACTLY the kind of drug dealer who is gonna get royally fucked by legalization.

This is not even an anti-legalization argument. Legalize it, don't legalize it, I don't care. I'm just saying...pro-legalization advocates should be a bit more selective in choosing their battles. Don't make this out to be some poor granny who would have been an entrepreneuer if it wasn't for the big bad drug laws. If she lacked either the means or the foresight to avoid shitting where she eats, then she certainly lacks the means and foresight to start up a legitimate business, run it efficiently, and do it in a competitive manner. This is especially true when it wasn't even HER weed. She was just the middleman, which means that there's nothing she was selling that couldn't be gotten somewhere else. Don't get me wrong, OCCASIONALLY you'll see a story about some "broke" granny working in her house and taking the world by storm. But do you know what tends to be the case in such rare scenarios? That rags-to-riches story tends to be accompanied by the actual CREATION of a new product or idea (and even then, the "rags" part is often a lie since even good ideas often need good connections and hefty investments). If she had been a grower who came up with a unique strain, that would be different. But that aint the case.

I was at work so you beat me to that. Touche. A lot of land and plenty of green thumbs in Oklahoma.

@MrGeezer: All Marijuana sold legally in Colorado is tracked from planting to harvesting. This is what gets rid of big criminals. Everything you buy from a shop is grown in Colorado and HEAVILY tracked... ZERO Mexican garbage Marijuana is in our stores...

I don't see what that has to do with my post. If it's garbage that won't be approved for legal sale, then this lady is still fucked because she can't start up a legal operation on that shit. If it's marijuana that could potentially be diverted into a legal operation, then she's still fucked because the growers are gonna be too busy getting rich legally than wasting their time with 80 year old grannies selling the shit out of their living rooms without even being able to set up a viable business plan.

Either way, these kinds of dealers are royally screwed. I don't know where she's getting her weed, but as far as LEGALLY running a viable operation, this is the kind of drug dealer that's gonna get fucked by legalization.

What you said is exactly the point. If it's Mexican garbage that isn't gonna be legalized, then this lady is screwed. If she's getting weed that could somehow be transfered over into a legal operation, then she is STILL screwed.

Keep in mind...once marijuana gets legalized, then there's absolutely no justification for running an illegal operation. People like this have two choices. They can either go legal (which many of them lack the means to do). Or they can stay black market (after all, there are still black market cigarette operations). The point is, if legalization occurs and you somehow manage to keep profitting off of black market sales, then marijuana's legal status ceases to be a justification. If you continue to run illegal operations, then you can't blame that on the big bad government trampling on your freedoms. At that point, legalization isn't the issue. Instead, that drug dealer is just someone who's taking advantage of a black market.

It's cool when young people deal with pot. But as soon as an old person is seen doing it, it is headline news? The 60's were during the prime of her life when everybody smoked pot. So not surprising she is still dealing with it. Despite what you may have always thought, your grandparents were not raised in the dark ages.