Any sympathy for the British drug mule in Georgia?

[mids2019]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14723481/drug-mule-suspect-company-director-Chinese-retailers-Amazon.html

I was reading about this girl and actually do have a little symapthy. She is obviously vain, stupid, misguidedly ambitious but I don't know whether she is real player in the drug trade and has probably been groomed into carrying drugs by men promising her the earth.

The penalties for drug smuggling are understandably harsh on Georgia but should the UK try and get her to serve a sentence in the UK?

Well that's good to know.

Again, I'm not saying let them go <regardless of their hair colour> I'm saying use them to get to the serious criminals

When are women mature enough to take responsibility for themselves? Why are we infantalising grown women?

I ask myself that a lot reading threads on here...

I'd go further. I would criminalise it for users. No users = no suppliers.
We have such conflicting drug laws. It's illegal to manufacture, import or supply drugs but allowed for own use.
If it was illegal, all those shoving powder up their nose at weekends would think twice, rather than get a criminal record.

You can say the same about alcohol, literally. Some people drive while drunk/tipsy. It does not make alcohol illegal, though

Do you really think they don't?

Same. Cannot roll my eyes hard enough at a 24 year old still being considered a child.

Usually when there's a big fuss about a young girl trafficking there are experts in teh background suggesting it's been done to draw attention away from something massive going on elsewhere in the drugs world.

She's a stupid girl who is going to pay dreadfully for what she did. She will spend some time in jail in Georgia but hopefully she will be allowed to return home to finish her sentence in a UK jail at some point. I don't care what someone has done, they don't deserve to spend the rest of their lives on the other side of their world from their families. All prisoners deserve to be treated with respect and to have their basic needs met. That is not going to happen for her in Georgia.

Well they arrested her at the airport so I don't think they took the opportunity to follow her and arrest others, no.

I feel sorry for her. She probably has a history of being erratic. I suspect she is not NT. Her poor family.

I read a very intense prison memoir written by an Australian drug trafficker, who got caught in Thailand.
The punishments and conditions are just as awful as you’d imagine them to be.

However, in the introduction, he says ‘don’t feel sorry for me.
I knew what i was doing, and i knew the risks were big - particularly in a country like Thailand’.

Honestly, as the parent of someone not NT I get bloody tired of everything that someone does that is criminal or obnoxious or rude or selfish being blamed on that.

Maybe the girl is just greedy and wanted the crim and gangster lifestyle- like her tiktok videos indicate. She thought she was big and she thought she was clever. Perhaps at the end of the day that was the extent of it.

You need to immediately write to your local police commissioner and your MP with your brilliant suggestion. I'm sure they'd be amazed that a member of the public could come up with such a revolutionary idea. They'll probably employ you in a newly created, highly paid position to oversee your fabulous and original plan.

I watched Bangkok Hilton when I was about 10 or 11 (thanks mum!). I knew at that age that being involved with drugs was stupid and I think many of my generation who watched that have been paranoid about carrying stuff through airports since.

We trust 17 and 18 year olds to make decisions about further education/ huge debts/ life changing decisions. You can't condone her because of her she. Arguably, if that's the world she was mixing in, she was more streetwise and savvy than many other 18yr olds. Just got caught.

And isn't the 'brain doesn't stop developing until 25' thing about ALL parts of the brain? In greens if flexibility and ability to learn etc? Not just the decision making process? Because in that case, I've got grounds to make both career and husband choice null and void, as I was too young to know any better.

Nope.

Choices, actions, consequences. All her own.

They maybe do have a better plan in this country and follow the mules to actually make some progress on drug trafficking but yes I'll write to Georgia customs with my common sense tips right away they clearly need some guidance.

😁😁😁😁😁😁

In which country? Cannabis (Class B drug) is still illegal for personal use in the UK.

Cocaine is a Class A drug and possession is absolutely still a criminal offence.

Looking at your first sentence.
My reaction to it is:

Well, this country is wrong and Georgia is right and the sooner this country follows Georgia's sentencing system, the better off we will be.

Nope.... if you're that level of stupid you deserve everything you get.

It's not like there isn't enough information about the consequences of drug smuggling

I work in a prison near an international airport. We get lots of both forigners and locals in on remand who have been arrested at said airport. They have almost exclusively been travelling from Thailand. There is a high index of suspicion from customs for anyone coming back from an extended trip there.

Do I feel sorry for them?

Sometimes. Many of them are nice people who are from deprived areas who just wanted to make some money. They're the bottom of the drug food chain. Some of them are very young. Some are very old. It's usually their first time in prison. I can usually spot them a mile off!

There are also a fair amount who were threatened in to it because they've got themselves in debt with dealers. I do feel sorry for them.

But. They all knew what they were doing was illegal. They knew the risks. So while I do have some sympathy for being in prison for a non violent crime, it's limited.

Oh yes, I do so agree with you.

I have the same magic power to diagnose.

Why oh why do we need psychologists or SEN specialists when people like you and I can do it by reading a newspaper report!

I hope her needs can be met and I hope they take them into account at sentencing. How will she cope with PDA and sensory needs inside a prison like that? I have detected that this is her diagnosis from the same sources that you used.

I imagine her PDA will disappear quite quickly, so every cloud has a silver lining.

I feel sorry for her. I feel she's just another victim of capitalism and because she's at the bottom she will suffer for it. But corporations people like Phillip Green and others in government do shady shit and get away with it.

All those people who took govt money and set up false businesses or were awarded government contracts by rubbing hands have got away with it

But trying to make a buck by dishonest means at the bottom you always suffer the penalty. That's fine as long as the rules are universally applied. It isn't though. And women always receive stronger critique and less sympathy from their own sex.

It does sound like she could be ND and unpredictable and spontaneous, like my Nephew who has ADHD and is always getting into trouble and really believes each time that things are going to work out.

Fed up of seeing ADHD used as an excuse for poor behavior and I say this as someone with a diagnosis myself.
I don't tell anyone who doesn't need to know that I have it, as it's already stigmatized enough and this kind of thing just makes it worse.

I think people can be pretty stupid at that age and so I do have some sympathy, having said that she of course has committed a terrible crime and needs to be punished. However life imprisonment is a bit much and it would be better if she were able to serve her term in the UK close to her family.

I also remember a girl I was at university with, her father was one of the countries top consultant doctors and very wealthy. It turned out she had a side line in credit card fraud when she got caught she somehow got off with it something to do with suffering from anxiety, she was in her early 20's.

I suspect her family background made the most difference.