19-year-old got 12 years for selling $5 of pot in 1975

I came across a September 1976 piece in High Times headlined “Missouri — 12 Years for 11 Grams.”

Jerry Mitchell, a 19-year-old from West Plains, Missouri, had sold about a third of an ounce of marijuana to an undercover Highway Patrol agent for five dollars.

Circuit Judge Winston Buford gave him twelve years. “I hope that the sentence fits the crime and w…