Slashdot Mirror
Running a Website from Your Prison Cell
Eh-Wire writes "Although prisoners Internet access is highly restricted, this hasn't prevented many inmates from getting around the restrictions with the judicious use of phone and snail-mail privileges to network with friends, relatives, activists, and associates to provide content to their websites. Some use their websites to badger witnesses and prosecuters, while others plead their case or phish for pen-pals. Some have successfully challenged their convictions through their websites, which complicates efforts by authorities to silence them. Websites domiciled outside of the respective jurisdictions further complicate the issue. Yahoo News has additional commentary on this controversial subject."
Why shouldn't they be allowed ot have their websites maintained in some fasion? They should be allowed to vote as citizens of a free country, so why can't they let their freedom of speech ring on the Internet, given the assumption that this would not comprimise safety or order?
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...I guess to any slashdotter, NO Internet access would be cruel and unusual punishment.
just because they can make content for a website doesn't mean that anyones going to go to it. How many of these prisoner websites are only visited by relatives curious about how they are fairing?
Update Watch - Automatic software update notification
Why wasn't this headed "Your Rights Online"?
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
All I know is that if i were them I would DOWNLOAD EVERYTHING...
;)
What's the worse the could do to me?
Keith Maydak in for a telephone scam is here.
... thanks, google:)
Juan Melendez is here
Dont make a better sig, you insensitive clod!
What's the worst they could do to my neighbor?
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
A historian named Herodotus tells of a thief who was to be executed. As he was taken away he made a bargain with the king: in one year he would teach the king's favorite horse to surf the internet. The other prisoners watched the thief explaining FireFox to the horse and laughed. "You will not succeed," they told him. "No one can."
To which the thief replied, "I have a year, and who knows what might happen in that time. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die. And perhaps the horse will learn to post on Slashdot.
Yet again, Slashdot gets my hopes up with a headline that looks like it'll be a "how-to" article.
How does one "what they should be allowed to do" support another "what they should also be allowed to do"? Your logic is not circular, but non-existent. Support your propositions with reasons, not other propositions.
Never been to jail have you? I did a weekend for something stupid, in an "easy" jail, Dewey County South Dakota, one other fella in there and me. It's not that fun when its just two of you watching HBO. The novelty wears off really, really, really fast.
u th _Dakota
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_County%2C_So
...pack a' smokes for a mod point.
As soon as someone is convicted of a felony, they lose the right to vote, the freedom of speech, the freedom of association, all of them are gone. Jails only have 3 obligations by law. #1, they must feed you. #2, they must house you. #3, they must try and protect you from other inmates.
Sometimes jails have a hard time with #3.
Honestly, do you think an inmate should vote? Hell, they might elect the green party candidate. They have all day to read the papers. They might form an opinion.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Criminals of society being allowed to sit in a dark room on the internet all day, 365 days a year, while the rest of the world goes on around them!!!!??!?
Thats not how I'd describe criminals in prison... its how I'd describe Slashdot readers.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Why not restrict AC posts for 2 minutes after the article first becomes public? This would avoid a great deal of the 'Frist Post' syndrome.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I have more than a passing famaliarity with the Michael Ross case. I waited up during January with the Rev Kobutsu Malone of the Engaged Zen Foundation (www.engaged-zen.org) waiting for the State of Connecticut to assist Mr Ross in suicide. Perhaps the death penalty may benifit someone, but in the case of Michael Ross the only person benifitting from his death is Michael Ross. Execution does not deterrance make, every criminal when they commit a crime believe they will get away with it, the punishment is no deterrant, that is why we have a criminal corrections system not a criminal punishment system. How do we treat this system? Very few believe in active correction, and the private companies running the prisons profit from keeping people in jail. Due to the nature of the system Michael Ross has decided it is better to die than to continue in this system. Perhaps considering this system it would be better that Mr Ross stuck around for awhile to share it.
Inmate 00343: "Can you turn around, HUH?"
Inmate 87632: "It ain't my fault the room is 8 feet by 6 feet"
Inmate 00343: "Just look at the wall, will ya"
Inmate 87632: "Okay"
Inmate 00343: *whispers* "Oh yeah, that's what I was looking for, nice big tits"
Inmate 87632: *peaks over his shoulder at the laptop screen*
Inmate 00343: "HEY, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT WET STUFF ON THE BACK OF MY NECK???"
Inmate 87632: *shrugs shoulders* "I think a bird crapped on you"
Seriously, what do inmates need computers for. You know they are just going to make knives with the RAM DIMMS.
Inmate 00343: *boots the laptop*
Inmate 87632: "You looking for porn again?"
Inmate 00343: "No, just going to read sla... HEY, the BIOS test only shows 128 megs, we had 256 megs"
Inmate 87632: *starts sweating* "What do you mean, it was always 128, you know how slow the laptop is"
Man, I love the adventures of Inmate 00343!!
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Prisoners should be glad they stay alive. They are scum and worthy of a bullet to the back of the head, never mind the pleasantries of prison buggery. And to host a web site? For their own defense? Surely that's constitutional excess.
What I think should be done is that they should be taken out to the desert. Just as you say. Make them exercise, drink water, and eat cold meals. Major felons should be forced to build tent cities, and then tear them down. Then we make them eat a cold meal again! And finally, more buggery.
Harsh? Probably. But when I see common criminals roaming free, I think: Damn, that's a fiiiine suit!!!
Heh.
That someone modded you funny for this shows that people are rather ignorant of what goes on in this country.
I say lets bake the fuckers. Lets set up tents in the hot Arizona sun, lets put up tents, lets make the inmates wear pink uniforms, and lets feed them hotdogs made with green dye. Lets stick black gang members with white supremasists in the same tent.
When I see people propose stuff like this, I'm just so glad that we have DNA testing that works every time and we have District Attorneys in charge that are always quick to make sure justice is served.
At least our country still has a few good citizens that still care and want to keep our justice system honest.
When you suggest torturing inmates remember that in a year it could be you standing there in those tents. It may be "good enough for our troops in Iraq", but every single person there made the choice to join the army.
Can you say the same for our justice system?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Consider for a moment what a prison system does:
Brings criminals together
Forces criminals to learn discipline, but particularly respect for more powerful criminals. By the time most inmates get out of prison, they will be affiliated with one or more criminal organizations mostly due to the fact that such affiliations are more or less required in prison to guarantee survival.
What do you think the ciminals talk about in a prison? How to evade the law, get out of trouble, do bigger jobs and scams, etc.. etc.. These topics are raised to an artform in such an environment
by virtue of the fact that so many criminals have been brought together, the best methods for breaking and evading the law for profit are naturally present in the minds of those that share a single location. Over time, the best methods are distilled into the common knowledge-pool inside the walls of the institution. In effect, this makes a prison much like a University, where the best ideas naturally distill out of the population of students and researchers. Only, in this case, we are dealing with socially destructive concepts.
So consider what we are doing when we put a convict into a prison:
We are paying tax dollars to educate the convict on sophisticated, state-of-the-art means to evade and break the law
We are hardening the criminal, training him and toughening him up
We are putting the criminal in a place where he can be recruited by crime syndicates and organizations
A prison is a quite ridiculous way to punish, because it punishes the system exponentially more than it punishes the criminal.
Modern prison systems are directly responsible for the nature and degree of organized crime and as an indirect result, corruption in the modern world (because the power that organize crime wields is generally directed towards the foundations of the system).
Now you want to give them websites? Hmph!
Seriously, though, the system needs to change. Putting criminals together is the worst possible thing for society. It would be much, much better to keep them in strict isolation or have some means of making sure that the influences around them are positive rather than negative.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
It's also funny how this reasoning causes people to lose ALL compassion, even with the very real possibility that someone is wrongfully convicted and thereby stripped of his rights.
Just as you have one extreme that says "prisoners should not be treated even the least bit bad", you have the other extreme that says "prisoners are all scum, and should live in the shittiest possible conditions". When, in reality, the correct idea is closer to the middle, moderate position.
(Not original poster)
Yes, the system doesn't work, but that doesn't mean we should treat them like animals - not everyone in prison is a rapist or murderer. The purpose of prison is to punish people for what they have done and integrate them back into society. The fact that hard-working people pay for it seriously sucks, but the alternative to that is to kill them all, which isn't exactly a brilliant solution either.
Personally, I think that community service is one of the better options, and should be used as often as possible.
It seems like an important part of a legal system in a democracy that prisoners can get their side of the story out. That's both to ensure that the prison system itself is run well and to help reverse wrongful convictions.
If and when a prisoner abuses the right in order to commit further crimes, only then should his ability to publish be restricted. But he shouldn't be restricted merely because what he says is uncomfortable for prison authorities. He also shouldn't be restricted merely if he is (thought to be) lying, as long as it doesn't rise to the level of defamation.
These cons are there to serve a debt owed to society, not enjoy a free ride at our expense! no more internet use, spousal vists, gym equipment,tv, etc enough is enough. they should be out to work 8 - 10 hrs daily doing something for the community at large and for no pay ( I think they get a small allowance for prison jobs ). The rest of us work our asses off to obtain these things.
Step out of the box and enjoy life
I spent 2 years in prison for a crime I did not commit, and let me tell you, this farcial idea that prison is some kind of 'vacation' is a crock of garbage. I am a computer guy, one of you, so let me set you guys straight, because I was naive myself too... prison was something I had no clue what it was, except these silly pictures on tv. Prison is a psychological, physical hell on earth.
1. There is no private room ever ~ I was housed with a big black homosexual thug who kept his punk roommate in there all the time. When I begged to be moved, the guards laughed at me. I wrote statement after statement because my life was seriously in danger. I spent six months of shear terror with this psycho. WHen he finally went home after a 20 year sentence, guess what, they moved another black homosexual punk thug into my room, and it was hell all over again. Really thou you are lucky to have a room, more often than not you are packed like racks in a dormitory bed to bed with eighty people who are noisy, nutcases of a sixth grade level and dangerous as all get out.
2. Their is air conditioning in some places, but in others, there is none. In the summer time you are trapped in a steel metal building that reaches 110 degrees. You are forced to stay dressed 'inspection ready', which is absurb, and the humidity is insane. Do you know what its like inside a car when it rains with no airconditioner, int he summer time? Yeah.
3. Near perfect security. No. I saw many people stabbed, I saw guards beat people to death, where do you get this? You are in the most dangerous place on earth.
4. No high speed internet. At all. Some computer access, but only too look up case law, and you only get a marginal crack at that 1 hour a week.
5. Guranteed meals. These were total puke. I couldn't live off them. If my parents hadn't sent me $100 a month to buy the junk food they sold on the store, I would of starved to death for certain. There is nothing, nothing, nothing nutritious about them. Are you insane?
6. Real world. Let me tell you, we got one hour outside ever day maybe, in a little cage. I would go out there, and stare through the fence and cry, I was so homesick. Every day I would be out there, staring at the pine trees, wishing I could just touch them. Trying to hear myself think again, from the noise. The constant noise. Made you go insane. Free cable tv my butt. That thing drove you mad. And you didn't watch it, because you'd be sitting in a dangerous area.
I made a little harddrive out of paper and placed it on my shelf, to know my webserver was out there still running on a shared server gave me some home. No, it was not serving some scam or trying to get me out. You can't run a scam from inside prison, you are doing everythign you can do to survive. No, my webserve served my poetry, and my graphics, and all my dreams to the world still before the POLICE STATE kidnapped me and threw me into this HELL.
How many of you have seen Star Wars Episode II, where the Genga Fett has given his dna to be used in a clone army on the cloning planet. There is a scene where all these clone Fetts are being raised and trained, elbo to elbo, as far as the eye can see, in some kind of twisted human warehouse where their entire reality is controlled. That is what the cafeteria looked like. The stress of being packed so close together... its not human... its not human. It causes stress, it breeds violence, and ignorance and stupidity.
Get out of America before smash through your door, put you in front of a panel of conservative jurors with a joke for a public defandant who does not care if you win or lose. I had a paid lawyer. What did it matter to him, he got his money up front, they want you to lose, it perpetuates their system... that there are criminals and therefore that justifies prisons, courts, laws, and so on. Its just a way to project power and control your behavior by internalizing thier rules in you.
Read LOCKDOWN AMERICA by Christian Parenti.. or any of his other books
Prisoners supposed to be repaying a debt to society not to be inhumanely tortured. No human interaction? Come on, you and a lot of other people are bordering or crossing the line of human dignity. If you want them to be 'paying the price' why not suggest something more productive than telling them to rot away in a cell, community service is much better. Hell giving them the resources to be productive on their own is probably more useful. Would you still be making that post if a prisoner came up with something that led to better treatment or a cure for cancer and other currently unstoppable ailments?
It's this same stupid attitude that crime should be responded with by more crime that keeps humans at war with each other.
Posession of any amount of Adderall is a felony. I shit you not. I was recently in a felony court in Houston for posession of 7 pills of Adderall. Less than a month after I was charged, a doctor lawfully gave me a perscription for Adderall, in light of my longstanding ADD diagnosis. This DOES NOT result in the felony charges being dropped. I still take Adderall to improve my concentration and actually do as well in school as a person of my intelligence should. I would have gotten it sooner but back when I was in middle school (with horrible grades) my parents thought that putting my on stimulants was a bad idea. The antidepressents I was given instead probably did more harm than good.
Going to felony court was by far the scariest experience of my life. Compared to the fear I felt of the seemingly imminent ruination of my life spending the night with murdurers and rapists in Harris County lockup was a resort vacation. Not sure how long I would have lasted in prison though. I hope nobody else ever has to go through what I went through but I know it happens every day.
Felons don't believe in your right to property/life/free express, etc. why should you agree to theirs?
what?? I believe in the rights to life, liberty, free expression, and the persuit of happiness. It is the people who created these assinine laws we live under who have no respect for the rights of others. I have never stolen from anyone. I have never hurt anyone. My crime had no victim.
Fortunately my story has a relatively happy ending. Thanks to my ludicrusly expensive lawyer and countless court appearances which caused me to miss alot class (I don't even live in Houston, I was just visiting my parents) I was able to get my charge reduced to a misdemeanor posession of a dangerous drug from felony posession of a controlled substance. At the completion of my year deffered adjudication I should be able to have the record sealed. Once I make sure Choicepoint has up to date information, I'll be able to once again look for a job and earn my keep in this hatefull society. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to look for a job with a felony on my record with people like you making up such a substantial portion of the populace. If I had been convicted of a felony, my plan was to take my life if 5 years after graduation I was still unable to find a job due to my record. I really do feel as though my life has been spared.
I'm so thankful I didn't get convicted of a felony. I was pretty much at the mercy of the district attorney and the skill of my lawyer, but thank God things turned out ok. If I had been convicted of a felony losing the right to vote would have added insult to injury. I relish every opportunity to vote against the hatefilled Nazis who wrote our drug laws.
Facing a felony has really changed me, and as far as I can tell it hasn't been for the better. I became distant, aloof, paranoid, and extremely depressed. My girlfriend left me. Given the condition I was in I can't say I blame her, though it would have really helped if she had stuck by me. They say that whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. I don't know about that, but having been to hell and back I do feel like I can deal with anything. Certainly my parents, especially my father deserve alot of the credit for saving my life.
Morals:
If you use Adderall, make sure you have a prescription. They aren't hard to get and you can save you a life ruining experience.
Get a good lawyer. Mine was one of the best in Houston and cost over $10,000. He was worth _every_dime_. He saved my life, and I will never forget it.
Don't judge a person by their record, especially drug related convictions. The only difference between me and the millions of people rotting in prison for similarly pointless drug convictions is that my parents had the money (barely) to pay for a lawyer who could spare me that fate. I'm a gifted programmer, smart and socially conscious, and in general a good person. I'm also
Someone wake me when you can run a women's prison cell from your website. Now that will be interesting...
There's about 3 types of prisoners.
"Act of passion" prisoners, people who comitted a basically one-time act that happened to be illegal. Usually includes murder and assault, but might also include rape (but very few), and many other types of crimes. Mose of these prisoners aren't all that dangerous because they're not generally sociopathic personality types, but people exposed to very stressful situations who overreacted. You can argue the fact that they did whatever it is they did makes them more dangerous than other people, but generally outside of their stress situation, they're not anymore dangerous than you or I.
"Political" prisoners. People in jail for a range of crimes that generally center around drugs, prostitution and gambling. Generally speaking these people aren't either dangerous or sociopathic, they just got involved with an activity that's banned by our politicians.
"Sociopathic" prisoners. These are the people that most people think about when they think about prisoners; dangerous, sociopathic (sometimes even psychopathic) personality types that are largely immune from the kinds of right/wrong calculations you and I make. They're not afraid to hurt other people to get what they want, they will almost always take advantage of any one or any situation.
Most people assume everyone in prison is a dangerous sociopath, which is why they have so little sympathy for them. It's possible to make an argument that "act of passion" prisoners are inherently dangerous because of what they've demonstrated they're capable of, but it assumes an awful lot. The rest are in jail largely on morals grounds or because they're mentally ill.
That wouldn't qualify US prisons as the worst in the world. It does sound like exaggeration, though. But he didn't mention what state, so I can't say he's wrong. There are a lot of strange laws on the books, and I know for (fairly) certain that if you don't have enough money to defend yourself, you can get railroaded on next to no evidence. And if you do have money, they'll never pay you back for the damages that they did in prosecuting you.
I know of two cases that are nearly as bad. In one case the guy ended up dead shortly after he went to prison (no funds). In the other the guy's career was destroyed, his possessions and funds were seized (so that he couldn't afford a lawyer) and his parents house ended up on the block to pay for his lawyer. It's still being prosecuted. (Or it was a year ago. The prosecution tactic has been to postpone hearing at the last minute, trying to run the defense out of money without ever letting the case come to trial. JUSTICE! HAH!)
The US *IS* a police state. It's operating under disguise, but don't be fooled. I can say this because they don't care. If they did...
1) They don't need evidence to bankrupt you. All it takes is an accusation, and they can steal all your property and all your money. They commonly do this to prevent you from hiring a lawyer. (It's called RICO. What it's called and how they use it are two different things.)
2) If you don't have enough money to defend yourself, you can't defend yourself. The public defenders are essentially a joke. They need the cooperation of the police, so they don't do anything that might offend them, unless a news reporter is watching and interested.
We still have the shell of a democracy, and many of the outer forms. And that's *IT*. Perhaps some of the other states are better off, but a lot of this corruption stems from the top. And has for several decades.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
and someone slap the grandparent with a trout. I'm sick of that rhetoric. Yes you're right (some) criminals have ignored the rights of others, and perhaps they don't "deserve" rights. But our society is not based on the notion that rights are something you "deserve." I'm not talking about the right to drive or something (which is a privilege in US law anyway) but the right to vote, which is a fundamental component of participatory democracy. The theory of government that the right to vote is based on falls apart if you assume you can take it away like that (forever). The universal right to vote is not something you "earn" but rather something that legitimizes the very notion of this government as being a government of the people. It is not a question of whether this or that person "deserves" to be considered part of the society; it is a question of what kind of society do we have if we allow the state to usurp the notion of participatory government for those people who broke a rule. It cuts to the legitimacy of the rules themselves.
Arguing over whether supplying drugs (tobacco, anyone?) should be a felony may be academic to whether or not prisoners should be prevented from voting. It depends what you think the purpose of prison is for. As a deterrant, I think it's largely useless (see below), and presumably deterrence is the purpose of punishment. Even if you do regard the purpose of prison as deterrence, denial of voting rights isn't going to scare anyone. Which leaves the purposes of re-habilitation and protection of society. I would think that for the first, encouraging prisoners to participate in a democratic process for their country is engaging them in a useful way; and for the second, given who the remaining non-felons of the US voted in last year, I can't imagine you need protecting from prisoner's voting preferances.
* I don't believe prisons work as a deterrant because (a) real violent crime usually operates on a seperate level to the "if I do X --> Y consequence" and (b) if it were really such a deterrant, would there be such a high re-offending rate. Higher-end white collar crime might be more deterred by the risk of prison, but these criminals are less likely to be sent there. The really powerful shape the laws to make what they want to do legal and what they don't want other people doing, illegal.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Lets see as little as 2 years ago we had the highest incarceration rate in the world, we have put to death innocent people, and if you look you can find more ugly stories about the failed war on drugs than you can shake a stick at.
And after all this I'm supposed to care about a few prisoners who make websites? Ooookkkk.
Oh, and all you right wing guys feel free to start flaming me............now.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
It doesn't even require that. Look at the drug laws . Once drugs is found on/in your property, you can lose that property. It doesn't require being accused of a crime and it doesn't require a trial.
There have been cases where people have purchased vehicles, been pulled over, and the cops have found drugs in the vehicle. Law enforcement has then seized the vehicle.
Quick question: Imagine your vehicle right now. Is there a trace of cocaine under the hubcaps? How about an old joint in the crevice of the back seat? Some meth hidden before the air filter?
How these laws ever survived constitutional challenges puzzles me.
Look, you make it illegal to operate a motor vehicle under the influence (already a law), you make it illegal to do it on public property (already a law), and tax the hell out of it. Win/Win. Pull the false economy away from the drugs you've created and drug-related crime will drop like a rock. Some people will do it more, some will do it less, some will do it the same. Oh well.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
The big problem with taking away anyone's right to vote is that you essentially deprive them of their only means to make themselves heard, influence the system and fight for what they think needs to be changed. The ability to put pressure on politicians by voting for or against them is what makes a democracy work, and it's more or less the only thing that makes sure that certain groups are not treated overly unfairly. For example, if a law was passed that allowed only people with a yearly income of at least - say - $100,000 to vote, don't you think that politicians would start caring less and less about the wants/needs of those with a lower income? If only white people were allowed to vote, don't you think that everyone who happened to have a different skin colour would suffer? The same thing is true with prisoners - if you don't allow them to vote, then you essentially say "we're going to do whatever we want with you and you can't do anything about it", which is fundamentally undemocratic, and what's worse, it opens the door to just about anything - after all, no matter what you do with prisoners, you can always justify it by saying "but they are only criminals, they don't deserve $fundamental_human_right".
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Let them sit in a small cell, and never leave, with no human interaction and nothing to do for the entriety of their stay and see how they feel about being a repeat offender when they are released.
...society's trash...
You'll be paying the price in the extra staffing it takes to keep the prisoners inside the jail and not killing the guards. Not to mention that after that kind of treatment they won't go back into society too well...meaning that all they *CAN* do is go to crime.
Make them pay for their own meals, if they don't have the money, they don't eat. If they die of starvation or commit suicide, then society doesn't need more trash anyway.
That's right...take away all their money when they try to defend themselves, and then deny them food because they aren't millionares. Just fucking great. You realise that your country's constitution says that you can't torture prisoners? Or kill them without due process? What a fucking retard, even I (Australian) know your country's laws better than you. Not to mention the innocent people who you're going to kill. Doesn't that worry you at all?
Society's trash? Yeah sure...I deserve those kind of living conditions, and possible death if i'm not rich enough, all because I downloaded some movies from bittorrent. Maybe you think all prisoners are sick maniacs, but I you seem to forget that a significant proportion of them are in there for drug offences. In other words, doing things to their own body that the government seems to think is wrong. If my country had a law that said I had to kill all Aboriginal people on sight, do you think that it is reasonable to send people to the jail you describe because I don't kill people?
And where did you get amphetamines without a prescription?
Look, I sympathize with you for what you had to go through. It's obvious that you need the meds since you eventually got a script. I'm glad you were able to get things more-or-less worked out with the legal system, but what you did was extremely stupid. Taking a amphetamines without the advice and supervision of a doctor was dangerous to your health and, as I'm sure you know, highly illegal.
As a rental property owner, I have a particular problem with amphetamines because I've seen what someone on meth can do to a property. I've seen what is involved in the extremely costly cleanup from a meth lab (I realize you weren't cooking, but I just wanted to help you understand where I'm coming from). Fortunately for you not all landlords will do a criminal background check. But given how much damage a meth addict can do, you can guess what an amphetamine conviction on your record will do to your application if the LL runs a criminal report.
Anyhow, I just want to say that I fully support drug-control after seeing firsthand what drug addicts can do. I'm sorry you got caught up in it for (mostly) innocent reasons, but drug abuse is NOT a victimless crime.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent