MISDEMEANOR

If I am convicted of a misdemeanor marijuana charge I will not be able to
get a job at Wal-Mart and that is just one of many places. I know this
because I applied there last week and on the application it asks the
question: Have you been convicted of a marijuana offense in the past seven
years? With today's climate of mistrust companies run background checks for
even the most menial of jobs and lying is pointless. They will check and
although they say that a conviction will not necessarily bar you from
employment chances are they will pass you over again and again for someone
who does not have a criminal record.

If I can't get a job then at some point I will have to get food stamps
and/or other government assistance which will cost the taxpayers of Alabama
money. This is unfair to the taxpayers of this or any other state. I wasn't
costing them a dime before the police busted in and declared that I am a
criminal. I am not a criminal. I am a wife and mother.

In Alabama the first time you are caught it is a misdemeanor but if you are
ever caught again it is an automatic felony which means prison time and
more money from the taxpayers to house me and feed me and provide medical
care for me and so on. If I am sent to jail my children will be without one
of their parents which is so wrong. We are one of the few two parent homes
around these days. My husband and I have been married for 12 years. To rip
away a mother from her kids all for a joint is more than TOTALLY UNAMERICAN
it is downright INHUMAN. There is no justice to be found in that brand of
punishment.

All of this begs the question ... How does this help anyone? It doesn't
help me (not that I need help) and it doesn't help the average Joe whose
tax dollars are going to pay for me to be incarcerated for a choice that
the government has made a crime. All it does is hold people down and make
them helpless and dependent on the system when they were not before.

Loretta Nall Alexander City