Hillsborough: Freed man still in limbo

Hillsborough: Freed man still in limbo: "TAMPA - Mark O'Hara left jail without handcuffs Wednesday, two years after he went to prison and one week since an appeals court ordered him a new trial.

He was serving a 25-year sentence for having 58 Vicodin pills in his bread truck. Jurors weren't told that it is legal to possess the drug with a prescription, which he had.

The Hillsborough State Attorney's Office has not decided whether it will seek a retrial in the Dunedin man's drug trafficking case."

And you thought you were safe with your fate being decided by a group of your peers? Not if the government leaves out little details, like the fact that you had a prescription for the pills you possessed. The sentence is also a prime example of why the war on drugs is simply wrong. He received 25 years for prescription pills. I was recently on Vicodin for the cracked rib that the gestapo Schenectady police gave me. It is a mixture of Tylenol and a tiny bit of an opiate. It is not a very strong drug at all, just barely enough to dull the pain a bit. Honestly, it is not much better than the ibuprofen I am now taking. Is that sentence justifiable? What would have happened if I had been stopped by the cops while I was walking home from the drug store? Especially seeing as I have already accused them of abuse...

Also, why is the State attorney still undecided about a retrial? It is quite obvious that this man was railroaded to begin with...

"He sold two condos, his car and his bread business to pay for the appeal. But the state took the proceeds, according to family friend Eric Mastro, to pay toward the $500,000 fine that came with his conviction."

I think this is lovely too. The state tried to sabotage his appeal. Drop this war on drugs. It just fills the prison system with non-violent offenders, pushing out the violent ones. Drop the bogus war on terror while we are at it.