The War on Drugs: A Success Story

©2007 Danny McGee. Some rights reserved.

In mid June of this year, as a result of a routine traffic stop, a young man was found to be in possession of a small amount of marijuana, issued a misdemeanor citation, and sent on his way. He had no idea how much this was going to affect his life from that moment on.

He was a promising young individual. He had a clean record, never having been convicted of a crime, and he always had great respect for the law and the legal system. He always got good grades in school. In December of 2006, he applied and was accepted for a position at a Walgreens in the small, mostly senior-residence town of Mount Dora.

He had just moved to the area with his parents (who appeared to have a disdain for staying in any one area longer than a year), and thus didn't know many people in the area. So when a group of his young coworkers extended him the hand of friendship, he was glad to take it, despite not having a whole lot in common with the group. Unlike his friends, for example, he didn't much like to drink. They did introduce him to something he came to rather enjoy, however: Smoking weed.

He never smoked in excess, and never very often, but every now and then, with the right group of friends or sometimes just to bring a peaceful end to an eventful day, he enjoyed lighting up his pipe, taking a few puffs, and enjoying the relaxing, intoxicating sensation it offered him. One day, he decided to bring the remainder of his stash to what had become a weekly ritual for him and his friends. They all met at a friend's house, he and a few others smoked a little, and when everyone had gotten there, they carpooled to Independent Bar, a popular night club in downtown Orlando (making certain, of course, that one of the sober individuals was behind the wheel).

At the end of the night, many sobering hours later, the group drove back to their friend's house to collect their respective vehicles and make the trip back home. It was halfway through this trip for our young hero, that he was pulled over by a highway patrol officer for exceeding the speed limit. The officer asked if the driver would mind him searching the vehicle. The driver skillfully parroted the line he'd been taught would easily get him out of a question like that: "I'm sorry, officer, but I don't consent to searches."

The officer used the predictable fear tactics to get the driver to comply, threatening to call in a K9 unit which, if alerted by the smell of narcotics, would authorize the officers to "tear the entire vehicle apart." The driver told him he was free to do that, if he felt that was necessary. The officer then employed a tactic to which the young man was more vulnerable.

You see, perhaps the one major flaw this young man had was that he wasn't the best driver in the world. It wasn't that he was reckless, he just occasionally got nervous behind the wheel, made a wrong decision, and mistakes happened. Two of those mistakes had resulted in minor accidents, for which he had been determined to be at fault. By Florida's "point system," if he had another at-fault accident or was convicted of a moving violation in the next year, his license would be suspended for 30 days. And now he was facing a speeding ticket. Not only that, but the officer had determined that the young man's brake lights were out (something the driver was unaware of), and additionally, he had not updated the address on his driver's license since his last move (something which could also earn him a ticket). Faced with three fines he would not be able to pay, and a suspension of his driver's license, and with the officer's soothing promise that he would just receive a citation and no arrest needed to be made, he made the decision to hand over the 1/8th of an ounce which was in the vehicle, in lieu of the traffic citations.

So he paid his fine, he completed his 4-hour drug course, he passed his drug screen, and went on with his life. He decided to quit smoking weed, despite his enjoyment for it, because he felt it wasn't worth the legal risk, and because it was, perhaps, partially to blame for distracting him from his eventual goal of enrolling in college to pursue the career of his choice.

Shortly thereafter, with the stress level at work ever increasing since his recent promotion to a lower management position, and with the pay ($8.70 an hour) not increasing to a point which justified the extra work load, he talked to his manager to find a resolution. After asking if his schedule could be shifted to non-peak hours (it couldn't), or if a part-time employee looking for an increase in hours could be scheduled to work with him during the peak hours to help with the workload (he couldn't), he put in his three-week notice and started looking for other work opportunities.

He didn't think it would be difficult to find a job with his customer service and technical experience, but for some reason he just wasn't getting called back for any of the applications he was putting in. Eventually he landed a couple interviews, and these experiences verified why it was that every employer he could think of was seemingly ignoring him: That nasty misdemeanor charge.

From Olive Garden, to Universal Studios, to Smith & Nephew, and even back to Walgreens, it seemed that no one would touch him. Why? Because a few months prior, he liked to smoke a little weed every once in a while, and eventually he got caught for it. Both of the interviewers actually liked him quite a bit, and one of them even offered him the job he sought, so long as corporate would okay him despite the charge. They didn't. It seemed that every employer in the job market had a "policy" which excluded him from employment because of the charge.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, this individual is me. I've been offered sincere apologies, told to come back in a couple years if I'm still interested in employment, offered best wishes.... That's all well and good, but I'm running out of options, and I literally have no more time to keep sending in applications and resumes and waiting for responses. I have nowhere to go. I was forced to move back in with my parents while pursuing this last set of opportunities, but they've recently retired and moved to a seniors-only mobile home park with a two-week visitation limit, and I'm already well past my welcome, so it's only a matter of time before management kicks me out. My parents are collecting social security now and don't have the funds to support me financially. What the hell am I supposed to do? I'm about to be homeless as well as unemployed and I have no idea how I'm going to change that.

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