If I asked you what “crime” got the higher fine in the UK, a parking ticket or possession of Cocaine or heroin, what would be your answer? The drugs? Guess again
According to this article in the Telegraph, drug users caught in the act pay half as much as drivers overstaying their meter. (Crack cocaine, $65 – Parking Ticket, $100)
Of course here in the colonies where we have no clue, drug fines start at $2500 to $1,000,000 and most carry a prison term. So what does that say about the UK?
From my point of view it’s the nanny state run amok. Poor, poor downtrodden drug abusers. We need to nurture them and help them and make them see the errors of their ways. However if you over stay your parking, then dammit its up the river, take your car, and open your pocketbook, you seasoned criminal.
The fines for drug use and sale are simply a cost of doing business in the UK. Read the article. This scourge on our inner cities and on our middle class ‘burbs” is “ticket time.” And it turns out the fines have been going down. Of course parking fines are going up.
We aren’t talking a joint found in someone’s wallet, we are talking crack and China White. Well this is the country that put a man in jail for shooting a criminal in his house who was threatening to do bodily harm to his wife.
Sigh
JVH
One Response
This is off the government’s web-site:
Class A Ecstasy, LSD, heroin, cocaine, crack, magic mushrooms, amphetamines (if prepared for injection). Possession: Up to seven years in prison or an unlimited fine or both. Dealing: Up to life in prison or an unlimited fine or both.
Class B Amphetamines, Cannabis, Methylphenidate (Ritalin), Pholcodine. Possession: Up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine or both. Dealing: Up to 14 years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.
Class C Tranquilisers, some painkillers, Gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), Ketamine. Possession: Up to two years in prison or an unlimited fine or both. Dealing: Up to 14 years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.
I think that you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers. For a short time we did have a situation where someone found with Cannabis for personal use had it seized and may have got an £80 ticket for a second offence. Didn’t work and we went back to the above.