Random musings and activities of a 30 something mom, potential sprint triathlete, vegetarian, dog and cat owner, and a evolving urban homesteader just trying to do the right thing in life for my daughter and the world around us. If the blog seems random, it's because life is and hits us all at 100mph.
Thursday, October 12, 2006

PostHeaderIcon Award Winning Essayist Sentenced in Drug Case

Thursday, October 12, 2006 | Original Musings by Jen | Edit Post

Stories like this never cease to amuse me. So, because she wrote some essay over a decade ago, this is news? If you wrote down your beliefs at 14 and reread them 10 years later, would you have the same outlook, values, and beliefs? This story is sad, not because of what she did, but because there are 100s more right behind her.....



Award winning anti-drug essayist sentenced in drug case
Thursday October 12 2006 5:32

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A woman who was honored a decade ago for an essay about avoiding drugs and alcohol has been ordered to spend the next decade in federal prison for distributing meth.

Susan M. Gardner, 24, of Independence (yes, folks, Indepedence is the Meth capital of the US), sold methamphetamine to undercover detectives four times and led police on a chase before she was arrested with another package of the drug stuffed in her pants.

In imposing the sentence of 10 years and one month in prison on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Gary Fenner said Gardner had the capacity to live a productive life (everyone has the capacity, some just chose to concentrate their efforts on less legal avenues). But, he said, there was a price she had to pay for her actions.

"You were significantly involved with the distribution of drugs in this community,'' Fenner said. "That's something that has to be taken seriously and cannot be tolerated.''

Fenner said he would recommend that Gardner be sent to a prison where she can enroll in a 500-hour substance-abuse program (why don't all people get this option, or just ones that wrote a cute-essay over a decade ago? Rehab... what a novel idea..... /sarcasm).

Defense attorney Robert Kuchar said it was a "sad situation.''

"We're dealing with a decent young lady who made some bad decisions in her life,'' he said. (*ahem* A bad decision is trying wearing shorts to NV on Friday night, let's call a spade a spade here...)

When Garden was in eighth grade (really, what do you know when you're 14???), the Missouri Peace Officers Association picked her essay as the best of more than 400 other entries, according to news accounts (I can write an essay on almost anything, doesn't mean I believe it. Ask me about my market report on Ethanol pros.).

Gardner declined to speak on her behalf before she was sentenced.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Quotes as I come across them......

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, an hour, a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it last forever.” ~~~Lance Armstrong

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." ~~~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I like running because it's a challenge. If you run hard, there's the pain----and you've got to work your way through the pain. You know, lately it seems all you hear is 'Don't overdo it' and 'Don't push yourself.' Well, I think that's a lot of bull. If you push the human body, it will respond." ~~~Bob Clarke, Philadelphia Flyers general manager, NHL Hall of Famer. (Will-Weber's "Voices From the Midpack" chapter.)

The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.~~~Denis Watley

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly. ~~~Thomas H. Huxley (1825 - 1895)

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