...For example, when Florida pain patient Richard Paey was arrested for illegally obtaining painkillers containing oxycodone, prosecutors charged him with possessing more than 28 grams of the drug, which allowed them to charge him with trafficking instead of mere possession, despite the fact that by all accounts, Paey had obtained the pills solely to treat his own pain. But the pills Paey possessed were 98 percent acetaminophen, a legal, over-the-counter medication. Under Florida law, if the pill contains both legal and illegal substances, the state can charge you as if everything in the pill is illegal.
This is also true of non-prescription drugs. A hit of LSD dissolved in a sugar cube will weigh exponentially more than the same hit dissolved into blotter paper. But in most states, it’s the total weight that matters, not the weight of the actual LSD. (The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the policy.) The same is often true of cocaine. A pound of pure cocaine is obviously much more valuable and has the potential to get a lot more people high than a pound of a substance consisting of cornstarch and a small amount of cocaine. But many states treat them the same (though in some federal circuits, at least with cocaine, the two are now treated differently). In some states, whether or not you’ve just harvested your pot plants could determine whether you’re charged with a misdemeanor or a felony. Ironically, if the plant is unharvested, the police can charge you for the weight of the entire plant, while if you’ve just harvested, dried and sold the leaves, you’re less culpable.
What’s clear from all of this is that today’s drug laws were written in an era in which lawmakers were less concerned about rationality, harm prevention and punishment that is proportional to the alleged harm done. Rather, they wrote the laws in ways that give prosecutors the most power to put the most people in prison for as long as possible.
