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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless
    #8456012 - 05/28/08 04:46 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Hard-Line Drug Law Threatens a Pillar of the Community
May 28, 2008 - washingtonpost.com

When D.C. police allegedly found a small amount of marijuana in her grandson's bedroom last year, Frances Johnson had to take the rap with him. As a tenant in a federally subsidized apartment, she is subject to eviction for any criminal act that occurs under her roof -- whether she knows about it or not.

Within weeks of the grandson's arrest, her landlord and the D.C. Housing Authority began legal proceedings under the federal government's "one strike and you're out" policy.

That might have been the end of the story. But Johnson, 68, has taken a stand, fighting back even as she battles cancer and diabetes, her stellar reputation for community service acting as a bulwark against a law that can easily steamroll vulnerable, innocent, low-income tenants.

Several D.C. Council members, noting her volunteer work on behalf of at-risk children, wrote letters of support to the D.C. Housing Authority. The agency eventually reversed itself and yesterday recertified Johnson's eligibility for the Housing Choice Voucher Program.

But the landlord, NDC Realty, still has two eviction lawsuits pending against her under the "one strike" law. She's far from being home safe.

"I feel the pressure, but I'm staying prayerful," Johnson told me recently. "It does make it hard to sleep sometimes, not knowing if I'm staying or going and if I have to go, will I have a place to go to."

I first met Johnson in 1993, when we both lived in the 1400 block of R Street NW. After neighborhood kids witnessed a drug raid on her building, Johnson responded by turning her walk-in closet into a dollhouse and classroom for them. I wrote a column about the scene: children reading stories, drawing and making believe they were doctors, lawyers and teachers, among them her 9-year-old grandson, Ernest Johnson, who pretended to be president of the United States.

"I'll give grandma a $1,000 reward," the boy told me back then. "I think this place is pretty good."

Ernest, now 24, is a highly regarded employee at a supermarket in his neighborhood, still living with Johnson and serving as her primary caretaker. In September, he was arrested on the streets while gambling, pleaded guilty to marijuana possession and was sentenced to four months in jail. The store is holding his job until his release next month.

A raid on the Johnson apartment two weeks later allegedly netted a cuff link box with marijuana in it, but the charges were dropped.

Nevertheless, the episode was enough to trigger the "one-strike" a provision of the federal Anti-Drug Abuse Act, passed by Congress in 1988 and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002.

"This is a law that has no defense, except for the raw fact that it is unconstitutional," said Pat O'Donnell, a lawyer with the firm Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis, who is representing Johnson pro bono. "There is no due process under the law when the law treats people who have done nothing wrong like criminals."

Under an agreement between Frances Johnson and D.C. housing authorities, Ernest will no longer be allowed to live with her, which will be a hardship for her.

Julie Becker, a lawyer with the D.C. Legal Aid Society, said the federal law permits but does not require eviction for all criminal activity. In testimony before the D.C. Council last year, she accused the D.C. Housing Authority of taking "an extremely zealous approach" to the law, citing attempts to evict an 82-year-old man based on the activity of his son and grandson as well as a woman based on a fight between her teenage granddaughter and a neighbor.

O'Donnell said he hopes a settlement can be reached with Johnson's landlord. Kevin Kane, a lawyer handling the case for NDC Realty, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

"However this ends for Ms. Johnson, though," O'Donnell said, "the sins of the grandson will continue to be visited upon grandmothers like her under the one-strike law."

Through the years, Johnson has continued her good works. Most recently, as a custodian for Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, she has been coaxing neighborhood kids to attend Sunday school by cooking breakfast for them in the church kitchen.

"I try to help others as much as I can," she said. "No better way to keep from worrying so much about your own woes."

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OfflineCoaster
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: veggie]
    #8456021 - 05/28/08 04:49 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

thats wut happens when ur under their money fool
it makes sense


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InvisibleJackthaTripper
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: Coaster]
    #8456094 - 05/28/08 05:01 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

:nonono:


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Come on breakthrough with me...such wonders terrify the soul...it's real no need to question...knowledge infiltrates the host

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InvisibleEgo Death
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: veggie]
    #8456102 - 05/28/08 05:02 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Another innocent victim of the "drug war".

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OfflinePreyToGod
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: Ego Death]
    #8456160 - 05/28/08 05:13 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

how could you kick a grandma out on the streets?


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"We live together, we act on, and react to, one another but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves... By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude." Huxuly
the man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed

just because we all see the:greenshroom:
doesn't mean we all see the same
:mushroom2:

I pushed my fingers through the earth, returned this flower to the dirt. so it could live, I walked away now. But I know... Not a day goes by when I don't feel this burn. There's a point we pass from which we can't return. I've felt the cold rain of the coming storm
None but ourselves can free our minds.”



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InvisibleJackthaTripper
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: PreyToGod]
    #8456178 - 05/28/08 05:17 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Didn't you read the article? Her grandson was a filthy drug taker! They all deserve to not just be homeless but probably capital punishment as well!


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Come on breakthrough with me...such wonders terrify the soul...it's real no need to question...knowledge infiltrates the host

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InvisibleGeomancer
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Registered: 05/09/08
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: Coaster]
    #8456185 - 05/28/08 05:18 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Coaster said:
thats wut happens when ur under their money fool
it makes sense




One could say the same thing about kids who get busted for drugs on school property. 

"you're on their property fool, it makes sense"

:wink:

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InvisibleJackthaTripper
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: Geomancer]
    #8456232 - 05/28/08 05:25 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Actually I bet the govt would try to pin it on the school as well if the school didn't take steps to eradicate possession on school property.


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Come on breakthrough with me...such wonders terrify the soul...it's real no need to question...knowledge infiltrates the host

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OfflineCoaster
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: Geomancer]
    #8456249 - 05/28/08 05:27 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Geomancer said:
Quote:

Coaster said:
thats wut happens when ur under their money fool
it makes sense




One could say the same thing about kids who get busted for drugs on school property. 

"you're on their property fool, it makes sense"

:wink:



no because everybody has the benefit of education
here only a select few are benefitting
so they have to "weed" out the people who arn't perfect
same thing with livers, if u drink at all u dont get 1


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Offlinephoreverphishin
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Registered: 05/01/08
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: JackthaTripper]
    #8456544 - 05/28/08 06:19 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

JackthaTripper said:
Didn't you read the article? Her grandson was a filthy drug taker! They all deserve to not just be homeless but probably capital punishment as well!





Why because he smokes weed he deserves to die by that logic you deserve to die for watching porn. At least weed is from the earth.

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OfflineOverclock22
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: phoreverphishin]
    #8456567 - 05/28/08 06:24 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

sarcasm?


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He did not laugh as his eyes stopped in awareness of the earth around him. His face was like a law of nature-a thing one could not question, alter or implore. It had high cheekbones over gaunt, hollow cheeks; gray eyes, cold and steady; a contemptuous mouth, shut tight, the mouth of an executioner or a saint.

If you wake up at a different time in a different place, can you wake up a different person?

Cf. A.C. Doyle "I'll rise above this, you can't keep me down, for I am Divine, and I know it all too well."

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Offlinenobhdy
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: Overclock22]
    #8456665 - 05/28/08 06:44 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Well marijuana IS illegal, so I can kinda see where the law is coming from. Blaming grandma, especially one who gives so much of her time to others, is wrong. I don't think the fact that "he's just doing pot" should blur the fact that it's still technically against the law, as much as i disagree with that law.

Hell, you'd think he'd wise-up and find somewhere else to stash his shit, or get his own place so his family doesn't take the blame.


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[quote]Gumby said:
And if you are going to waste peoples time with your stupid questions, at least try to have grammar skills higher then that of a 7th grader.

READ DAMNIT! [/quote]

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InvisibleInvisible_Woe


Registered: 05/25/07
Posts: 11,708
Loc: Mabase
Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: nobhdy]
    #8457089 - 05/28/08 08:22 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

lets wage war on chemicals and irresponsibility


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These are not the answers you should be questioning.

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InvisibleJackthaTripper
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Registered: 01/29/07
Posts: 2,494
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: phoreverphishin]
    #8457111 - 05/28/08 08:28 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

phoreverphishin said:
Quote:

JackthaTripper said:
Didn't you read the article? Her grandson was a filthy drug taker!  They all deserve to not just be homeless but probably capital punishment as well!





Why because he smokes weed he deserves to die by that logic you deserve to die for watching porn. At least weed is from the earth.




I don't watch porn!  Fornication is the ultimate evil of the flesh.  Anybody who watches, or makes, porn also deserves the death penalty, we can agree there!


(and yes these comments, as well as the last, are dripping with sarcasm :wink:)


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Come on breakthrough with me...such wonders terrify the soul...it's real no need to question...knowledge infiltrates the host

Edited by JackthaTripper (05/28/08 08:50 PM)

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Offlinenobhdy
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: JackthaTripper]
    #8457622 - 05/28/08 10:20 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Wait, what?

Curse me. I took the internet seriously again :frown:


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[quote]Gumby said:
And if you are going to waste peoples time with your stupid questions, at least try to have grammar skills higher then that of a 7th grader.

READ DAMNIT! [/quote]

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InvisibleJackthaTripper
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: nobhdy]
    #8480410 - 06/03/08 05:37 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)



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Come on breakthrough with me...such wonders terrify the soul...it's real no need to question...knowledge infiltrates the host

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Offlinelearningtofly
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: JackthaTripper]
    #8480437 - 06/03/08 05:46 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Mad props to NDC Realty being a cruel, calculating, black monster. :borat:


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Offlinespacemonkey69
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: learningtofly]
    #8480444 - 06/03/08 05:49 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

veggie i always enjoy reading your posts :yourock:


--------------------
"If you take a psychedelic,and aren't afraid you've done too much, you haven't done enough."

:mushroom2: Terence Mckenna :mushroom2:

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OfflineAp0calypse
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Re: Smoke a Joint and Your Whole Family Could End Up Homeless [Re: spacemonkey69]
    #8497437 - 06/07/08 08:46 PM (15 years, 9 months ago)

Well what the hell were they doing in her house? He gets busted for gambling and possesion of weed on the streets, so they search his grandma's house? wtf?
Is this what the "Drug War" is all about in the states? I REALLY hope they don't bring this shit over the border... I like being a freeman.

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