Two United States Postal Service workers have been convicted this week in separate schemes to deliver marijuana.
In Mobile, Alabama, Unterria Rogers was sentenced to 5 years for helping to run a marijuana delivery service that coincided with the city's postal routes.
The 33-year-old recieved the packages from California and distributed them along his route. Over the course of the scheme, Rogers delivered around 133 pounds and pocketed $250 per pound he successfully delivered. He was found out after suspected drug packages appeared to spike in Mobile. According to AL.com, Rogers was sentenced on a charge of using a firearm in the furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
Meanwhile, in New Jersey, yet another postal worker was going down for their part in a trafficking scheme. Newark mail carrier Fred Rivers was convicted on a conspiracy charge for intercepting drug-filled packages delivered to false names and passing them on to a local drug dealer. Rivers' going rate was a little cheaper, accepting $100 cash per package. The 47-year-old will be sentenced in October, according to NBC's New York affiliate.
While USPS-employed drug dealers are having a rough week, nobody has it as bad as Thomas Franzen. The Illinois man was sentenced to 4 years in prison for buying and selling marijuana through the mail just a day before the state voted to legalize the drug's use recreationally. Starting in 2020, recreational marijuana will be legal, but Franzen will be in prison. Governor J.B. Pritzker pushed hard for the change in state law, noting the way that the war on drugs has destroyed communities.
The war on cannabis has destroyed families, filled prisons with nonviolent offenders, and disproportionately disrupted black and brown communities," Pritzker said, per AP. "Law enforcement across the nation has spent billions of dollars to enforce the criminalization of cannabis, yet its consumption remains widespread."
