This piece has been written so as to maximally dramatize the experience of receiving a drug conviction in Florida (it's Reason, after all), but the core of the story can be summed up as:
* Man mistakenly allows police to search vehicle and is discovered to be carrying Oxy
* He pleads no-contest and as a result loses a lucrative job as a Merrill stock broker
* He receives probation, which includes a curfew (and pointless Narcotics Anonymous meetings)
* Record of the no-contest pleading hits his background checks and makes it harder to get a job
The details of watching movies in Narcotics Anonymous meetings, or of the scheduling of his nighttime MBA courses, seem besides the point (he continued going to class).
Stripped to its core, this is not a particularly compelling story about drug laws ruining (or "almost ruining") people's lives. I was surprised that the protagonist was so unsympathetic; a Reason story about Oxy is more likely to be about doctors being locked up for helping people in intractable pain. Those people (or at least the ones who it doesn't turn out are running illegal narcotic dealerships) are having their lives ruined by drug laws. This guy got a slap on the wrist, and had a job that won't tolerate even that.
* Man mistakenly allows police to search vehicle and is discovered to be carrying Oxy
* He pleads no-contest and as a result loses a lucrative job as a Merrill stock broker
* He receives probation, which includes a curfew (and pointless Narcotics Anonymous meetings)
* Record of the no-contest pleading hits his background checks and makes it harder to get a job
The details of watching movies in Narcotics Anonymous meetings, or of the scheduling of his nighttime MBA courses, seem besides the point (he continued going to class).
Stripped to its core, this is not a particularly compelling story about drug laws ruining (or "almost ruining") people's lives. I was surprised that the protagonist was so unsympathetic; a Reason story about Oxy is more likely to be about doctors being locked up for helping people in intractable pain. Those people (or at least the ones who it doesn't turn out are running illegal narcotic dealerships) are having their lives ruined by drug laws. This guy got a slap on the wrist, and had a job that won't tolerate even that.