Jackson Jambalaya

So now the state is going to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to feed, clothe, and house this inmate over a couple of fentanyl pills? What a waste of taxpayers dollars and law enforcement resources.

Fentanyl is the new crack. Fill the jails with them. Learn nothing from other era’s approaches to this, just make everyone criminals and fill the jails. As brilliant as Mississippi gets.

4:11 and 4:47 I understand your disgust to long prison sentences as they relate to prior efforts against crack, because although crack was super-addictive, it generally wasn't deadly. Fentanyl is a whole different animal. This is pharmaceutical Russian roulette. Exceedingly small amounts of this stuff frequently kills, and therefore, MUST be treated differently. I'm confident you'd have a different position on the severity of the sentencing if you had children that ran the risk of being exposed to Fentanyl vs. being exposed to crack.

On probation, suspended driver's license, fentanyl (50x stronger than heroin) in my pocket, light up some weed and take a drive through Madison county, what could go wrong? Prison may be what saves his life and those he would have come in contact with.

Put one in jail next day someone replaces them.

You wish fentanyl = crack. How many crack overdoses/ deaths do you remember? Were you alive during the crack epidemic? Lots of killings/ gang shootings but almost no overdoses. It takes commitment to overdose on cocaine/ crack. Fentanyl is causing deaths that surpass Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. BTW filling up the prisons lead to the lowest rate of violent crime in modern memory. Stop drinking the liberal/MAGA kool-aid

This is pure insanity. 16 years?

If these were your dead sons or daughters you would think different!

Good riddance. Profiting off of a deadly, addictive, and illegal substance that has taken far too many of our young people lives is an abomination. I hope is rehabilitated and makes something of the time he has left on this earth.

Why can’t grown adults make up their own mind if they want to use drugs. Being an adult is about choices. Sometimes good choices and sometimes bad choices

Legalize all psychoactive substances, and let the cards fall where they may according to nature's selection. If parents don't raise their children properly, they self-destruct. It's not "society's" problem. We must return to individual responsibility, or we will become a Communist nation driven by "helping everyone".

@10:51

People who make the libertarian argument act like there are zero societal effects to drugs outside the individual users’ body. Obviously there is great societal harm. Libertarians are cringe.

Because it kills non-adults who accidentally overdose not knowing what they are getting in to.

"“We hope this is the end to Jones’ criminal behavior and that this sentence will discourage others from choosing to make money by trafficking illegal drugs in and through our county, state, and country,” Gotta love delusional thinking. As long as there is a demand, there will be a supply.

And yet, very few folks suggest shorter, tougher sentences in which the incarcerated have to work to not only sustain themselves, but also to produce excess goods or services. Or even make it an option; for example, in this case it could have been 16 years on his ass doing nothing or 4 years working 40-60 hours a week. The wealthy/well-connected seem to love the idea of being able to buy one's way out of a jam, so why shouldn't the poor nobodies at least get a shot at doing so. Getting some education would further reduce the sentence.

Instead of paying lip service to prison being a place for rehabilitation, allow those serious about going straight to prove it, as well as reduce the cost of confinement. Incentivize businesses to hire those who have demonstrated that they are serious about getting clean and straight. My late father owned a construction company and he went out of his way to hire ex-criminals. He always said a man who was in the darkness and then saw the light will sure-as-shit work twice as hard to pay the power bill. There was nothing "religious" about it - he was just a keen observer of human nature.

No. They just expect people to raise their children properly to AVOID such self-destructive things. Children (and of course adults) have common denominators as to why they self-medicate/experiment with drugs/alcohol (low self worth). Children (and of course adults) also have common denominators as to why they end up healthy and successful.

Well said! Kudos to your Dad.

How many people did he kill to get 16 years? These sentences make you scratch your head.

I saw no mention of the amount of the drug found on him. Would your opinion change if his pockets contained a ziplock of 50 pills?

Trafficking? What does M30 mean? If he had two for personal use, that's hardly trafficking. If that's a typo and he had 30 in his possession, that's different.

He didn't have to kill anyone. Unless I misunderstood, the trafficking charger carries a mandatory sentence. No way, the time required to serve is worth the small amount of money to be made.

I have been told that they buy a pill press, and use fentanyl to make what looks like prescription pills.