A person in Oklahoma City who used a faux Amazon van to move pot has been sentenced to 9 years in federal jail, based on a press launch from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). And it’s a fantastic reminder that whereas monumental industries have sprung as much as promote hashish for leisure use in almost half of U.S. states, folks can nonetheless get severe jail time in the event that they’re caught with weed in the opposite half.
Brandon Ye, 43, used a van made to appear to be an Amazon supply car, selecting up vacuum-sealed packages of weed from licensed hashish rising services throughout Oklahoma, the place medical hashish is authorized however leisure use is just not. From there, Ye would transfer the packages to warehouses in Oklahoma earlier than they’d be transported out of state for sale, based on the DOJ.
Ye helped ship about 28 tons of weed out of Oklahoma earlier than being arrested in December 2022, based on the DOJ. Ye pleaded responsible to possessing pot with the intent to distribute the drug and to possessing a firearm whereas distributing the drug. Both of these issues are nonetheless unlawful beneath federal regulation, even supposing President Joe Biden is presently working to reclassify hashish from a Schedule I drug in the category of LSD and heroin to a Schedule III drug like ketamine.
Even after the DEA’s deliberate rescheduling, pot will nonetheless be thought-about a managed substance and it’s not clear how aggressively federal authorities will pursue interstate drug commerce just like the case that introduced Ye such a harsh sentence.
U.S. District Judge Scott L. Palk handed down Ye’s sentence on June 20, reportedly making a giant deal of the “vast amount of marijuana transported by Ye during his clandestine operation.” Notably, the DOJ by no means alleged that Ye dedicated any violent acts. He merely moved numerous weed round and carried a gun whereas doing it. Oklahoma gun legal guidelines permit for anybody over the age of 21 to hold a firearm with no allow, so the one purpose Ye was charged with carrying a gun was because of the truth he was additionally transporting hashish.
Today, Americans look again on the period of alcohol prohibition in the course of the Nineteen Twenties and giggle at how ridiculous it was for federal authorities to criminalize transferring alcohol, irrespective of how “vast” the quantity. With any luck, folks of the longer term will look again on 2024 with the identical perspective, given the truth that most Americans already consider in the entire decriminalization of weed.
As it stands at present, simply 10% of Americans consider weed shouldn’t be authorized in any method, based on Pew Research, with 59% saying it must be authorized for each medical and leisure use. But folks like Ye can nonetheless get locked up for almost a decade simply for transferring pot round.