davita wroteColorado..a major and formidable military Sate in the USA which houses lots of the defense/attack missile bunkers, presumably nuclear tipped, has just passed a law where marijuana (cannabis) is legal as a recreational drug.
Corby was imprisoned for 20 years in Kerobokan for carrying 4.2K of cannabis into Bali.
QED.
Colorado has passed a law decriminalizing the possession and consumption of Cannabis in small quantity. You are allowed to buy from a licensed store up to 1 ounce (around 28g) of cannabis grown in Colorado if you are a Colorado resident and only a quarter of that if you aren't a Colorado resident.
Now, try to land in Denver with a body board loaded with 4,2 kilo of acehnese weed and and you may have hard time to have them believe that it is for recreational use, resulting in you staying longer than expected in the Colorado State. I have in good authority that they do NOT serve any of the Two Islands vintage in Colorado State Penitentiary. Make sure that you also pack a few bottle in the body board, Davita.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Indonesian Narcotic Act make sense. It doesn't but not only that, it is often wrongly interpreted by judges.
Talking about Colorado, you may have heard in another forum about the story of David Bao Duang a Colorado Native who landed in Soekarno Hatta in November 2010 with close to 2,4 kilos of pot. Perhaps no-one told him that it is growing wild in Aceh. Nevertheless, what is interesting in his case is that it has been handled smartly by his lawyers and embassy:
- they have managed to have almost no communication in the local medias at the time of his arrest and during the whole adjudication. You would find only a few articles about him.
- they have managed to impose total media blackout back home.
- he has admitted his guilt
Result? He has been sentenced to "only" 8 years both at the District Court level (Putusan nomor 101/PID.SUS/2011/PN.TNG) and High Court level (Putusan nomor 106/PID/2011/PT BTN). I've heard that the Supreme Court has even downgraded the sentence but I do not have yet a copy of the decision.
Another american, DH, a professional underwater photographer, has been caught by my side of the bush with weed and a fair number of ecstasy pills. Same than the above case, no unnecessary noise around it. Not even an article in my local press, which usually loves when there is a story involving a bule. In fact I came across this case only due to the fact that his family contacted me through LIIF. Result? Only a few months sentence after that he submitted medical statements concerning his addiction to various substances (as per art 127 UU 35/2009).
I could list here a whole bunch of sentences which are "rather lenient" compared to all these over-mediatized cases such as the Corby one.
Schapelle Corby, due to the disastrous manner her case has been handled from the beginning, has been railroaded to a harsh judicial decision. And the worse is that it seems that Aussie medias still don't get the message. By continuously willing to interfere with Indonesian affairs and comment that she will be "released before Christmas", often without properly verifying their sources, they will encourage people like GRANAT to maintain the pressure and forbid a lenient settlement.
