The US Attorney's office reports Quoc Trinh, 30, got the sentence after agreeing to plead guilty to his role in a drug ring he and other family members ran out of their home on Bloomfield Street (behind which they used large amounts of dead fish to produce fertilizer for the pot).
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Comments
upset vegans?
By TB
Mon, 03/08/2010 - 2:59pm
Does this mean there are now going to be pot-smoking vegans all over the city questioning their illicit habits because of the fish-based fertilizer?
you think?
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 03/08/2010 - 3:24pm
You mean, you think that vegans don't already question such things on a routine basis? That it would take a news article to make them realize that fish are used to grow pot when they already worry about bone charcoal used to produce refined sugar?
Honestly ... I've never known a vegan to NOT question the entire supply chain of anything that they consume or wear.
very true indeed. i'm a
By TB
Mon, 03/08/2010 - 3:40pm
very true indeed. i'm a non-pot-smoking non-vegan that question's the supply chain of my "goods of consumption" and this was just an interesting situation to consider. i've always avoided refined sugar for the economic implications around its production and only recently found out about the vegan issue with it. i have a hard enough time with the social consequences of production chains that i think i'd go crazy if i were to analyze it from the mind of a vegan.
27.5 years for drugs. Holy
By Jimmy
Mon, 03/08/2010 - 3:05pm
27.5 years for drugs. Holy smokes.
How much does someone get for a crime like rape, or assault with a deadly weapon? I'm guessing it's much, much less than 27.5 years. Seems kind of dumb.
Repeat offender
By adamg
Mon, 03/08/2010 - 3:13pm
He helped start the family business with the knowledge he learned in prison while on heroin trafficking charges.
insane sentence for victimless crime
By Ron Newman
Mon, 03/08/2010 - 4:40pm
There's no way we should be putting someone in jail for 27.5 years just because he chose to produce and distribute marijuana instead of beer.
He was also a felon with
By central squared
Mon, 03/08/2010 - 4:55pm
He was also a felon with other violations, including gun possession.
From the article:
"A Dorchester man was sentenced late yesterday in federal court to twenty-seven and a half years imprisonment for conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute over 3,000 kilograms of marijuana, being a felon in possession of firearms, conspiring to possess with intent to distribute and distributing MDMA, also known as ecstasy and distribution of ecstasy."
You make it sound like he's some college kid giving weed to his friends. Frankly I'm glad this guy is gone.
Let's not forget the attempted murder thing
By adamg
Mon, 03/08/2010 - 5:02pm
The only reason he doesn't also face murder charges is because the guy he hired to kill somebody who beat up his brother for stealing his marijuana shipment is because police were already monitoring the family compound and arrested the would be murderer before he could carve the guy up with "a long-bladed bow-style knife." And when he wanted to hire somebody else to kill the guy, it turned out he was working as a BPD informant. There's more at my second link (and in the affidavit by a BPD detective).
Shouldn't he have been charged with soliciting a murder, then?
By Ron Newman
Mon, 03/08/2010 - 5:11pm
That's a far more serious crime than growing marijuana plants and selling the resulting product. Seems like he got the right sentence for the wrong offense.
Agreed, but...
By eeka
Mon, 03/08/2010 - 6:38pm
I agree in principle that drug possession is a victimless crime*, and I think the stuff should be regulated and taxed. But since it's illegal, we have this vicious cycle in which possessing and distributing drugs is tied in with violence, threats, hiding from the cops, etc. So as long as this stuff is happening, society has an obligation to try and address these things. Sometimes when they can't prove the violent/antisocial stuff a drug trafficker is inflicting on the community, or they know the evidence is going to get thrown out or whatever, they get them on possession/distribution instead.
*Yes, I obviously know that substance abuse hurts the abusers' families and friends, but making it illegal doesn't make it better. Eating disorders and other addictions also tear apart families in very similar ways, and the solution to decreasing these problems isn't to outlaw the behaviors.
Ding Ding, This wasn't uncle
By anon2
Mon, 03/08/2010 - 5:14pm
Ding Ding,
This wasn't uncle joe trying to make a little extra off his medicinal mary jane.
Still, you do have to echo the facts that simple drug offenses usually bring higher prison times then violent crime. That's a travesty.
If drug offenders \ producers and users can stick to being non violent, we shouldn't worry as much as say a guy convicted of rape or murder. If they don't agree to go into intensive rehabilitation programs, those guys should get life since we'll have tons of room freeing up prisons from small fish and non violent offenders.
You've just made a great case for legalizing and regulating it
By eeka
Mon, 03/08/2010 - 6:42pm
The way to eliminate the ties between drug distribution and violence/threats/etc, as well as many of the overdose/laced-drug deaths, is to make it legal and tax the hell out of it. People don't get shot in alleys because they know who sells vodka in their community. People also don't generally go buy a flask of vodka intending to drink it for recreational use and then die because it was 50x stronger than the last flask of vodka they had, or die because it was actually paint thinner someone was trying to sell as vodka.
I'd amend that Eeka
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 03/08/2010 - 7:46pm
Add "since the end of prohibition" to most of your sentences about Vodka.
Agreed
By fenwayguy
Tue, 03/09/2010 - 12:20am
So let's end prohibition. What do you think, ten years before cannabis is regulated and taxed in the Commonwealth?
ugh
By central squared
Tue, 03/09/2010 - 10:08am
I freakin hope not. One big difference between alcohol and pot is that you can be in proximity of somebody drinking and not partake. The same is not true for pot or cigarettes. It's simply not fair to the other people around them. There is no right to smoke (anything).
Can you run that by me again?
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 03/09/2010 - 10:19am
Last I checked, cigarettes were regulated and NOT illegal ... and people smoke them where permitted.
Last I checked, there was a bevy of useful laws regulating where you can smoke, and I don't think they are terribly specific about the contents of your pipe or cigarette being tobacco and not something else.
Why in creation do you think that anybody will be magically allowed to smoke pot where they aren't currently allowed to smoke anything?
Unless you are simply burying moralistic distinctions in illogic here ...
So you agree?
By Marc
Tue, 03/09/2010 - 4:19pm
Hi central squared,
Well, the post you are replying to is advocating controlling pot the way cigarettes are currently controlled. So wouldn't you agree with that?
To be honest, I wish they'd
By central squared
Wed, 03/10/2010 - 3:57pm
To be honest, I wish they'd outlaw cigarettes. I don't need to get cancer and get high just walking out my door. And furthermore, I live beneath a chain smoker right now. Our place stinks most of the time. If people are allowed to smoke pot inside, it's going to get into the surrounding apartments. I don't want to be exposed to it. It's not fair that people who want to kill themselves should be able to kill others.
Reflexive tyranny
By Marc
Thu, 03/11/2010 - 10:12am
Hi central squared,
I'll never understand this casual impulse to ban things that other people enjoy due to a negative personal preference. I never wake up in the morning and think, "you know, I hate the smell of Indians in my building cooking curry. Let's ban it!". It's a such a weird response. I wouldn't try to ban a sexual practice because it doesn't personally appeal to me and I find it gross. Why would your distaste for smoke lead you to ban it, rather than look for a choice to live away from a chain smoker?
How would you feel about this suggestion: what if property owners could designate certain units, and entire buildings, as "smoke-free". Then, you could choose to move to a smoke-free building, and live happily free from smoke without thoughtlessly banning activities that others enjoy in their own homes. Isn't that better? Well, that exists now. Just look for a smoke-free building and we'll all be a little happier and more free.
The likely result of such a ban
By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 03/11/2010 - 11:10am
We get right back to where we are with pot: completely unregulated sourcing, very little meaningful government control or regulation of the use of the substance, easy access for youth, no tax money to offset harms, and a large and steady source of income for illegitimate enterprises.
No, cigarettes are properly regulated now
By Ron Newman
Thu, 03/11/2010 - 11:17am
and could be a model for how to legalize and regulate other currently-illegal substances. You can smoke, but not in a theatre or a restaurant or Fenway Park. You have to be 18 to buy cigarettes. Landlords can decide whether to allow or prohibit smoking by their tenants. Packaging must carry health warnings, and there is a hefty tax.