look into mr. angelos' background a little more. he got what he deserved.
he didn't get 55 years for carrying a gun. he was hit with 3 counts of trafficing drugs WHILE carrying a weapon. he was offered a plea deal which he declined. also there was 3 pounds of pot in his house with guns. And since he was such a big druggie he long ago abandoned his 2 sons.
get your story right. i wish they gave him 155 years.
suppose he was selling his drugs to your kids.
one good thing is he won't be selling anymore drugs for a while. next time he sells pot will be from a nursing home.

Joe, I don't give a damn whether he was tap dancing with a grenade in one hand while selling drugs. Did the man force people to do business with him? As far as I can tell, he did not. Therefore, he should have been left alone.

Selling drugs to kids is one of those instances where everyone is expected to chime in on the side of aggression against businessmen. I refuse to do so unless I see evidence that show Mr. Angelos coercing and threatening people to buy his drugs.

I want all drugs decriminalized and unregulated. A person owns his body and must take responsibility for what he introduces to it. It isn't up to you or anyone else to make that choice, to punish for bad choices, or to force changes in behavior. That's tyranny and it is unacceptable.

Furthermore, if I caught anyone selling drugs to my hypothetical children, I wouldn't go attack the person selling the drugs. I'd explain the dangers to my kids and be open and honest with them about the responsibility they face as individuals. Dependant upon their physical and mental maturity, I might even demonstrate the effects of certain drugs for them in order to demystify their appeal. Whatever I decide to do, I wouldn't be a coward and force other people to do what I wanted through the proxy of the state.

American drug warriors are a bigger threat to my individual freedom than terrorists as far as I'm concerned.

Weldon isn't a bad guy. He just made bad choices. I wouldn't judge him so much when u don't know him!

WHAT SHOULD WE DO? Mother of 2 teenage boys. Good boys. Have great frends. But as any mother who has teenage boys know boys will be boys. natural curosity to experiment, curiousity of things is there human nature. ITS ALL OF OUR HUMAN NATURE. The government would have one fight on there hands to take one of my boys from me. WAKE UP YOU DUMB FUCKING SLEEPING AMERICANS OUT THERE AND RELIZE THIS COULD BE YOU. AND IF YOU DON"T ACT GOD KNOWS I HOPE ONE DAY IT WILL BE YOU. You will lose your loved ones to MANDITORY sentencing and the system who for all intents and purposes SUCKS. ONCE IN THE SYSTEM MOTHER FUCKERS THEY WON"T COME BACK OUT. YOU MIGHT AS WELL SAY they were eaten by headhunters in africa. Because they will not be back out in society. and if by GOD THEY EVER MAKE IT BACK OUT. they have been so traumatized and abused that they let there souls go on to heaven long ago and they are just a shell. THE PERSON ENTERING PRISON WILL ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS COME OUT WITH NO COMPASSION. THEY MAY HAVE WENT IN WITH HEART BUT THEY COME OUT WITH STONE. AND THEN YOU ASK WHY THEY ARE REPEAT offenders. Because our prison system is BARBARIC. BARBARIC PEOPLE. WE DON"T DO OUR ZOO ANIMALS THIS WAY. Punishment is one thing but you people put these people in there and they come out CRAZY. I WISH TO GOD THAT ONE GOOD PERSON OUT THERE BE PUT IN JAIL FOR 5 YEARS SEE WHAT THEY COME OUT AS. I MEAN A PERSON THAT NEVER BUCKS SOCIETY IN ANYWAY. SEE WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM in five years. there attitude. PUT ONE PERFECT PERSON IN CONFINMENT and see what your just punishment does to people. SOMETIMES I JUST HATE MAN KIND FOR BEING ABLE TO TURN THERE BACK ON OTHERS LIKE THAT. I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND THE ABILITY OF MAN KIND TO PUT OTHERS AWAY WITHOUT THOUGHT. THEse people believe they are good law abiding citizens. I don't think so. DO YOU NOT RELIZE THAT IN EVERY EVERY EVERY EVERY HOUSEHOLD OUT THERE. SOMEONE IS COMMITING A CRIME EVERYDAY. EVERYDAY EVERYDAY. YOU ARE COMMITING SOME CRIME THAT IS ON THE BOOKS THAT YOU DO NOT EVEN NO ABOUT. WHAT IDDOITS YOU PEOPLE ARE. Wake up you stupid common folks before you are the ones behind bars/ YOU Yes You teacher, pastor, christian, child, teen, parent, neighbor. You could be next. BECAUSE YOU COMMIT A CRIME EVERYDAY. Look up the laws. you don't know what crime you are committing look it up. YOU ARE. THERE ARE SO MANY CRIMES on the books you have know idea what YOU ARE EVEN DOING WRONG. YOU COULD BE THE NEXT TO SPEND 55 years in jail. AND BECAUSE OF YOUR head being in the sand mother fucker you deserve it.

If you have ever smoked pot, you know that this is a bunch of bullsmoke......rapists , murderers get less punishment.. Pot is grown from Mother Earth while drugs are manufactured everyday by corporate America.

THIS IS A JOKE of a sentence...I thought Judges/people/laws were smarter than this! There could have been a compromise.

plus, pot has not one recorded overdose unlike alcohol, cocaine, perscriction drugs.

This is an outrage!!!!!!

It doesn't matter if he was asking people to buy from him or not he was playing the gangster role he wanted to play being the street thug that he was. He was enjoying the money he was making being a DRUG DEALER and GUN carrying thug, he had a chance to a plea but rolled the dice and lost now he should do all 55 years and one day of his sentence. No one forced him to sell weed and carry a loaded firearm that was his choice and now lets see how tough he is when his little ass has to spend some serious time with the big boys in the big house. Good luck and may god have mercy on your soul.

Kirk, attempting to smear a man's character with the label "drug dealer" is a meaningless exercise against someone who views drugs and the drug trade as fundamentally no different than any other sort of economic activity and wants all narcotics decriminalized and legal for anyone to ingest. Similarly, the scary "GUN" aspect is also an empty concept. Firearms are tools and as such, can be used for good or bad purposes.

Mr. Angelos SHOULD have enjoyed the money he was making. It's his money and to the extent he earned it by letting his customers decide to buy from him or not, he earned it legitimately and fairly. Shit, the single biggest reason why anyone can make a good living off drug dealing is because drugs are illegal and thus enjoy relatively low costs of production and high street prices.

Perhaps someday you'll be arrested, indicted, convicted, and sentenced to a prison for a few years for an activity that never deserved to be illegal in the first place and is perfectly moral. Perhaps, as you stare down the black maw of a few dozen months in an iron cage where rape, assault, murder and theft are commonplace and essentially written off, where the rest of the world (sans a few friends and family members) doesn't care and won't give a damn about your troubles, and where the social system has been brutally upended and reversed such that vice is celebrated over virtue...perhaps THEN you'll understand the sneering contempt I feel for people who cheer this kind of pointlessness.

i went through jr. and high school with weldon, he's not a bad person at all he just got caught, it's not like he was selling crack of meth, just a soft drug (marijuana). I feel for him and his family and no he did not abandon his kids. they were #1 to him. he got caught so he should serve time, maybe 5-10 years tops not no 55 IT WAS JUST BUD................

to the first man named joe who posted something about selling drugs to kids... the average sentencing for raping a 10 year old CHILD is 11 years, and I am pretty sure that that effects a childs emotional and physical well being more than whether or not they CHOOSE to buy a soft drug as marijuana. I am not just blurting out random facts, I have researched the topic of manditory minimums for drug offenders for much time now, for I have resently presented a speech on it for my high school forensics team. The judge, Mr. Cassell, sentenced a man who beat an elderly lady to death with a log to 22 years in prison a mere 2 hours before sentencing Mr. Angelos, and this is with parole. Maybe you should actually do some research on a topic before you start blurting out things like "he got what he deserved" and "suppose he sold it to your children." yea, but I would rather have a man who raped my child, taking away there innocence, to be sentenced longer than a man who sold them marijuana. that is the wrong-doing of the child as well.

Im tired of people thinking that drug dealers are thugs that will shoot you if you dont pay them. He dont diserve 55yrs, he dont even diserve 10. I bet someone in your family smokes weed, some one on your street probraly sells it, and you cant tell. Im related to Weldons wife and he always took care of her and his kids, and him being such a drugie I dont know where people get that, I never heard of him doing drugs. They found 3 pounds at his house, whats that $1,000 worth.

If you dont wanna do the time, dont do the crime, I have no sympathy for drug dealers or any other criminals.

Hey Rob, does that wonderful exercise in deliberate irrationality extend to *everything* a government outlaws?

If it's illegal it's for a reason correct? That could be it's anti-social, violent, vandalism, whatever, the fact is people can get away with murder *litterally*, harsher sentances are the deterent, exactly how it should be.

Good grief. That wasn't so much a dodge of my question as a reaffirmation of why I asked it in the first place.

Violence and vandalism are crimes because they violate a person's right to unmolested use of their property. As such, people busted for engaging in them owe their victim(s) restitution. But notice how offering drugs to people who are willing to exchange money for them does not constitute either of the above.

You'll have to define "anti-social" for me to get anywhere on that track.

People can get away with lots of things, Rob. The deterrent effect of jail time and fines certainly does convince some people to not kill or steal. But that isn't the question here. I want to know what is wrong with the act of selling drugs to people who want them.

To put it bluntly (and in a way which I have no doubt will give you much cause for hmmm not really sure of the right word specificly but suffice to say I can guess your reaction based on your various postings) drugs are not a good thing.

I can comprehend the potential benefits for medical reasons and personlly see no reason why they should not be made available legally for such purposes, uncontrolled use however does by existing study appear to be anything other then damaging in the long term with wide ranging affects regardless of short term pleasures gained - in this respect society is protecting it's own. At another level it is afterall society who has to pay for care of some these individuals (the drug users) and the results of their actions while under the influence of drugs in some cases - as well as in other cases the related crimes commited, for example too fund a drug habbit (obviously this is not every drug user, indeed is probably a minority and could to some extent be due to the very fact that drugs are illegal).

The easiest way to resolve this issue (preventatively) is to cut the supply at it's source (the grower) or at its point of distribution (the seller), the individual may not themself be a problem, but by the nature of the products he/she supplies they pose one indirectly.

That may or may not explain it correctly (from my point of view anyway), I can't really be arsed to go over it (to be honest), its late here now, if I think of it I'll pop in tommorrow and have a look but it's as likely I wont.

and I did skim read it again, made an obvious an rather stupid mistake in there lol, should be:

"uncontrolled use however does by existing study appear to be nothing other then damaging in the long term"

Rob, so part of your argument is that some drugs, if used more than just a few times, can be harmful to your health. Well, that isn't a surprise or an unknown. You can replace "some drugs" and "used" with any number of noun-verb combinations and arrive at the same conclusion. The entire sphere of human activity can be stretched to fit that logic.

Another part is that "society" get stuck with the bills the irresponsible leave behind when they get trashed and destroy people and property. Well, while that is certainly the case, the proper response to it is, "Why the hell are we being forced to pay for the services others consume AT ALL?" What does it matter if the emergency room patient is missing an arm from a chainsaw-weilding maniac or because he was high on PCP and thought he could stick his hand out a moving car's window and grab a mailbox? Neither myself or you are responsible for anything in these hypothetical incidents, but if the injured in these cases lack health insurance, the taxpayer is presented with the bill. I say that is the real problem. End that practice and you won't have to worry about "society" paying for the jackassery of others.

You also implicitly argue that there are secondary crime effects with drug use. Of course there are! This is because drugs are illegal! By prohibiting and regulating drugs, you artificially decrease the "legal" supply for them. However, the demand remains the same. Therefore, their prices rise. If drugs were free to be produced, they'd quickly drop in price and be much more affordable. This would almost instantly gut the black market/gangland/mafia criminal activities related to the supply of drugs. Two huge problems solved: drastically reduced drug-related gangland warfare and far less of a need for junkies to steal to support a habit. Of course, this won't stop the real junkies, who are hopelessly homeless/jobless/etc. But it would cut back on the petty theft and robbery by a noticable amount.

Getting back to the original point, though. Drug use is no different from any other human activity in that the harm caused by it is localized in individual people. Just as there are irresponsible drug abusers, there are responsible drug users, such as myself. My mistakes are my own, as are everyone else's. How you get from "drugs are harmful" to "everyone ought to be denied access to them" is something you haven't proven.

this is bullshit 55 fuckin years for weed,guns and money.suck my dick. what ever you need weldon, i got your back,

Drizz, Do I know you? You say you got Weldon's back, whatever he needs, right? Do you write Weldon? Do you even know where he is locked up? Do you know how his kids are doing? Or Zan? Call me, I can give you a list of many things you can do to "have Weldon's back". Contact me and I can provide you with that information and I am sure Weldon would love to hear of your support. Respectfully, Pamela Ortega 801(347-5710)

CORRECTION: TO: Richard Johnson, Do I know you? You say you got Weldon's back, whatever he needs, right? Do you write Weldon? Do you even know where he is locked up? Do you know how his kids are doing? Or Zan? Call me, I can give you a list of many things you can do to "have Weldon's back". Contact me and I can provide you with that information and I am sure Weldon would love to hear of your support. Respectfully, Pamela Ortega 801(347-5710)

To all those who do nothing but talk down on Mr.Weldon Angelos or on this case must have no clue about him or his case. Befor talking down on someone you know nothing about try getting the facts right! People like your selfs that do nothing all day but sit on your axx's on the internet putting your twocents in where they dont be long! Please know what and who your talking about first befor putting them down. By Zandrah Angelos

Folks, there's something not many people know about the drug situation in this country that has a direct affect on the way marijuana is treated by our government. Most of you are going to read this and say, "oh, shit, another conspiracy theory--what bullshit." Well, I challenge you to disprove anything I write here; please, do any research you please that does not solely rely on the 'official document releases' of the two Bush administrations (father and son) and the 'official document releases' of the previous administrations when Bush Sr. was in overall control of the CIA. By 'official document releases', I mean the lies published for the delection of the mind-controlled masses of the United States of America. . .

The main reason that marijuana was RE-CLASSIFIED in the '70s to be included in the Schedule 1 Drugs category was that it is direct competition to all of the other illegal drugs that can only be grown in specific locales, and harvested and refined under painstaking, and often physically dangerous conditions. By that I refer to the poisons needed to refine heroin from opium, or cocaine from coca leaves. Marijuana can be grown in every part of the world easily by anyone who cares to make a mimimum effort(throwing seeds on disturbed or broken ground and waiting three months). As well, it is basically the only drug that is minimally damaging physically when ingested or inhaled properly, not physically addictive, and the only drug that makes the user blissfully happy for the majority of the drug experience.

All of this made it imperative for George Bush, Sr., to order it re-classified as quickly as possible, and to mandate draconian punishments for the possesion and use of what is, overall, a commonly available weed. This was necessary to force the availability of marijuana to decline, and was done so that his own drug empire could flourish in the vacuum created by the lessened availability of marijuana.

George Bush Sr. is one of, if not the single leading, major distributor of cocaine and heroin throughout the entire world. This began during his years as assistant director and then Director of Operations of the CIA(for funding for 'black' projects, like taking over the government of the United States) and was solidified during his vice-presidency(what an interesting term, especially in his case) and the succeeding years of presidency he enjoyed. As such, the marijuana traffic annoyed him greatly. He had already decided against trafficking in marijuana, as it is not physically addictive and bulkier than the other, more dangerous intoxicants. So he used his various contacts in Congress to get marijuana labeled as being 'of no medicinal value', which is a crock of shit any way you look at it, and re-classified as a dangerous drug. Which, to George Bush Sr.'s profit margins, it was. . .

Drug traffic in the Golden Triangle is currently being adminstered by an old friend of Mr. Bush, an associate from his CIA days. Opium poppy growth is up 1000% in Afghanistan since the American army kicked out the Taliban and installed a puppet government there. You do the math, folks.
In any case, whether you believe me or not, as I suggested before, do some research on your own. Check on who the man is that the people responsible for fighting the opium traffic in the Golden Triangle have positively identified as the main administrator. Check out when marijuana was re-scheduled as a dangerous drug, and who supported and drove it. Check out current opium poppy growth in Afghanistan, and ask yourself 'why?' Oh, and check out the pattern of what our 'initiative' in South America against the cocaine cartels has been, and ask yourself why we destroy this field, and that area, and leave the areas beside them strictly and completely alone, even though they grow more coca than the destroyed areas ever did.

The sad fact is that many of our politicians, including past and current Presidents and many in their administrative posts, have a vested interest in keeping the drug situation exactly the way it is. They are making huge sums of money not only by selling it, but by taking your money and supposedly 'fighting' the sales and distribution of the very drugs they are flooding our country with. They don't care that people suffer because of their drug policies and the drugs themselves, because they don't give a rat's ass about anyone but themselves--the drug war, and drugs, have made them million or billion-aires. Until that changes, and the people RESPONSIBLE for the drug traffic in the United States are held accountable under the laws they themselves have drafted, situations like that experienced by Weldon Angelos and Todd McCormick are inevitable.

We, the American people, are in the grip of a conspiracy of monstrous proportions, a conspiracy that is made up of highly-placed persons in our government and major industries who are stealing our money, poisoning us and our children, and laughing about it all the way to their off-shore banks. And, as long as people like Joe, Kirk, and Rob are willing to just accept the 'Party' line and not do any of their own thinking on the subject, NOTHING HERE IS EVER GOING TO TRULY CHANGE.

I, too, support unilateral drug legalization. Unilateral decriminalization and legalization is the only way to take recreational drugs out of the hands of the criminals in our government and on the streets, and properly regulate their sales and quality. No-one remembers Prohibition anymore, and how our country proved that MORALITY CANNOT BE LEGISLATED when it made drinking illegal. Instead of alcohol use being eliminated, it made a new class of violent criminals millionaires and powerful beyond their original scope. Prohibition was finally overturned, and if our government had not been basically flawed that would have been the end of ALL prohibition of recreational chemicals.

Certain members of our government, industries, and news media of that time, however, learned and applied another lesson from prohibition--that prohibition of a popular substance could mean millions of dollars of profit for those ruthless enough to traffic in them in spite of the laws. So we went from prohibition of alcohol to prohibition of drugs, and the people responsible for that move are now some of the richest families in this country, and integrally linked to the government so that they can extend their control over the drug distribution and production rackets.

Wake up, look around, and get pissed, folks. Otherwise the rich SOBs running this country into the ground will take it all and leave you with nothing but broken dreams--LIKE THEY HAVE DONE TO WELDON ANGELOS, AND SO MANY OTHERS. . .

Henry D. Rinehart

first off, how dare you say he abandoned his children, he never has and never will. He loves his kids very much. Every thing that he did was to give them a better life then what he had. I know, I grew up with him. he is my uncle. so before you start talking crap get the facts.

First off, Thank you from the bottom of my heart to the people who are sticking up for my brother. My family appreciates you all dearly. Second, for those of you who do not know what has happened let me tell you.

An inmate who I will not mention his name due to privacy decided that he wanted a lesser sentence so he thought he would turn in Weldon. the feds ate this up thinking "wow someone who produces music with Snoop Dogg is going to have a lot to bust, this is where we make it big guys." So they took this inmates word and thought they would illegally search Weldon's home and found a bag of weed. The feds tried to get him for Money Laundering and other crap which failed. So six months down the road the feds decided to have this inmate say "oh ya, by-the-way Weldon had a gun." So the truth is Weldon got 55 years for a testimony of an inmate and 1 year for actual evidence. So to all who say Weldon deserves it you can kiss my ass. Weldon is one of the best fathers I have ever known. Why don' you try growing up in the projects where people are getting killed and beat and the only hope you have to get out is making a little bit of money the wrong way. Our father taught us that this is wrong Weldon already started changing his life and getting his music career going. All of Weldon's siblings have extremely good careers, medical fields, teachers, fireman. We are a damn good family who are a product of our environment. If you are not God then you have no right to judge my family or anyone for that matter.
Lisa Angelos (Weldons Sister)

Lesaulde (sp?) the inmate/informant that got Weldon suddenly remembered that Weldon had guns at the three drug transactions the fed's got him on months after they occured. There was nothing in the fbi's initial reports stating that Weldon had a gun on him. I've heard that Weldon got screwed because he got into some sort of an altercation with an fbi agent at a local bar. The law (924(c)) allows the government to do this to people. Sure Weldon deserves a sentence - but does he deserve life in prison for selling a little refer?

Drizz - give Cassell a break - if you read his actual opinion you would see that he is basically crusading to get congress or a higher court to change 924(c). Cassell even asks the President of the United States to commute Weldon's sentence.

924(c) and other manditory minimum laws are present because people don't vote for politicians that are "soft" on crime. Therefore, criminal sentences get harsher and harsher and harsher.

Weldon got screwed.

I just got convicted of aiding and abetting with the intent to distribute 18lbs of mary jane. i have no prior record two degrees in computer science and ex military fought in desert storm and desert shield, I have been on pre-trial probation for about a year and had several uranalysis and passed all them. I didnt even have andy witness saying i knew what was going down, the detectives and th CI said they didnt know anything about me. The judge gave me 2 years incarcerated and 2 years supervised relief. When i knew he could have given me probation. All this law shit is bogus, a murderer can walk free, a child molester get 30 days. as long as a black man didnt do it it. its ok. Its time for a change and if anyone know how i can get in touch with Mr Angelos father send me a email. It time to stop this.