Reformation of laws, no contest.
Because one cannot apply a bad law in a good way which supports justice, if the law itself is inherently injust.
Say, one were to look back at the nazi regime, how could, for an extreme example, to make the point, apply a law demanding the burning and gassing of jews, slavs, the disabled, in a way that upholds justice? the law itself, was wrongful, and you can't apply it in a good way. What GOOD way is there to burn or gas the disabled, the slavs? there isn't one.
And say, although it's being legalized a lot, thankfully, now, in the US, how can a law which puts an individual at the risk of being jailed, for selling or possessing weed, it's an inebriating material, inebriating substance is already sold, in shops everywhere, supported and profited from by the government, alcohol. Alcohol has been responsible for a vast number of broken homes, individual fatalities, people killing other people due to lack of inhibition and flying out of control, addiction, leading to liver failure, liver transplants needed for alcoholics way, way down that path, when that liver could have saved a child with a liver disease, in fact, an adult liver could save more than one child.
Not saying that alcoholics ought not to be given treatment and a second chance, that they ought be left to die, not at all, but if there is the choice between legalizing a plant that has perhaps one or two deaths known through the entire history of it's modern use, and that, AFAIK, in very young children who find a stash and eat it.
But if one intoxicant is sold legally, alcohol, not to mention tobacco, which we all agree I'm sure, is a pernicious habit, yet one which nevertheless, ought to be the free, knowing choice of adults, then all ought to be.
I've got books, dating from the 1700s, medical manuals, and in those days, opium, laudanum, various other preparations of opium, they could be bought freely, all one needed do, was go to the pharmacy, ask for it and pay for the goods sold. There was no crime committed to get the money by desperate junkies driven to living rough under bridges or in cardboard boxes. Those who did find themselves subject to physical dependence could either choose to maintain themselves on the opium or derivative of it, or choose to detox, by stepping down the dosage, at their own chosen rate, such as to experience no discomfort. Not be told 'you are detoxing this way, at this rate, and we choose how fast, if you suffer, you deserve to'
And in the US, how about the law that allows seizure of property, before conviction of an offense, after an arrest. Seizure of assets in this manner, thus preventing a person accused, guilty or innocent, from paying for legal counsel. And anyone who's ever had a duty solicitor, will know how fucking shit they are, and that they don't really give a shit as long as they get paid by the system, they don't fight for an accused person's being found not guilty, look for technicalities to wriggle out of something with, they go through the motions, nothing more.
For example, I was once convicted of carrying an offensive weapon, because a mate, had taken a bat with them, and was walking down the street, smashing car mirrors, smashing stuff generally. I had taken out no weapon of any kind, just with them, not knowing at the time they had the bat. I took it from them, to prevent them acting as they were, and in the UK at least, acting to prevent someone committing a criminal act, is not a crime, even if it means say, disarming an assailant, and as a result, being left the one holding the knife someone was about to stab you with in a dark alley, etc.
*I* was convicted and sentenced to probation, just because I'd taken the bat off the guy to stop him smashing up parked cars, and was left holding it. I had done nothing of the kind he was doing, just took it from him and kept it out of his hands so he couldn't continue. Not even a crime, duty solicitor didn't bother even to make sure my medical needs were taken care of (I HAD my meds brought to the pig shop, but they were denied me, and as a result, I was made very, very sick.
THAT, is the kind of thing duty solicitors (lawyers in the US of course) are fit for. Fuck all. They don't even bother to follow instructions, never mind to actually put effort into seeing that an innocent man is not convicted and punished. Hell, they won't even bother to challenge an illegal warrant, or to see that items taken in a raid, which are legal to possess, are returned. They just leave you to rot.
IMO, garbage in, garbage out. Be it computer coding, chemistry, or law, you put shit in you get shit out.
And in the US, there is an entire prison industry, a profit-making monstrous machine. Using people as fuel. That ain't right.
And how about, even while they are illegal, say, drug 'offenses' often earning the one caught a sentence harsher and longer than that of a child rapist?
Or mandatory minimum sentences.
IMO both must be enacted. Bad laws struck down, and laws applied wrongfully and responsible for little but injustice reformed, if there is a genuine good reason for the law, but that it is applied wrongly.
Before it gets legalized, and I truly hope such things do, take for example, LSD. It's not a killer, it isn't addictive, people don't butcher people over it, it is active in doses of at low end, 50 thousandths of one milligram, a strong dose being 300 thousandths, 300 micrograms. Yet it is impregnated on paper as a carrier, or dissolved in distilled water, or made into geltabs. Which of course weigh far more than the amount of LSD present.
The US law, counts the entire lot as the drug. So a liter of distilled water containing a few tens or a couple of hundred milligrams of acid, is counted as, given H2O weighs 1g/ml, as a kilogram of acid. And people are sentenced accordingly. Even if one believes LSD ought to be illegal, should someone who has a few milligrams, be convicted as if he had a kilogram? convicted for having distilled water, and quite likely face life in jail as a result?
1kg of LSD would supply every single american citizen, man, woman and child and pet dog with a dose, probably more than one, given a 100ug modest dose, each milligram providing ten such doses.
And is probably considerably greater a quantity, than the world output of LSD per annum, given how few chemists are capable of the skill required to make it, and how difficult the precursors are to obtain, unless culturing ergot fungi, which I can tell you, is a difficult endeavor, Claviceps is a tricksy wee bugger of a family, easy to culture, much, MUCH more difficult to mutate a strain that produces grams per liter of culture medium.
And if you DO manage that, they usually become senescent and degrade after a few subcultures. And strains that produce the valuable lysergic acid peptide alkaloids needed for the hydrolysis to produce lysergic acid, needed for making the LSD, typically do not produce conidia, the asexual, clonal spores which would allow a monoclonal, stable line to be established. It can happen, they exist, but it is very rare.
'Raxy...I'm ashamed of your saying that. Sure, rich people can do what they like.
But the poor? what about people who cannot afford a lawyer who will actually put their ass into the case and do their job, not go through the motions?
Do you ever hear the phrase 'the stinking rich and downtrodden' ? no. Rich people can do what the fuck they like, bar getting caught raping kids or murdering someone with incontrovertible proof. Even then, plenty rich people get away with a lot of fucked up stuff.
And look at it this way. Why should a rich man, be able to get away with the same action which would land a destitute man in prison?
