Working on databases from prison

Sorry, but this is a disgusting take. Addiction is well established as an illness. It's outright shameful to suggest that someone who is going through recovery is purely doing it as a grift. What you're suggesting is that we can't trust that rehabilitation is possible or reasonable, which is a deeply cruel prospect.

And I'm sure if you had your way the prisons would be empty of anyone convicted of a drug related crime because 'they and their terribly sad addictions/illnesses are the real victims'

Theyre in prison as a punishment for crimes

Rehabilitation is great. But you might have the wrong idea about the crime.

It wasn't just addiction. He had enough U-47700 for 30,000 trips (30 thousand). See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44291172

Preston has never asked for anyone's sympathy or understanding about his past crimes. If you read his stuff, he owns it fully, is incredibly sorry. He's the first to admit that what he did had very real consequences.

I'm not disputing that. But someone doesn't simply decide to acquire that much of a very serious drug with a sound mind. Is it fair to treat a crime the same for two people if one person is suffering from schizophrenia and the other is of sound mind?

Simply saying "you did a terrible thing, and that's irredeemable" isn't useful to society. What good are you doing if you've rehabilitated the criminal? You're just spending tax dollars on principle. It's cruel and unproductive.

To what end? To spend tax dollars? To make them rot away indefinitely?

What good are we doing to society if we are keeping rehabilitated individuals locked up at taxpayer expense? There's no objectively correct amount of punishment. The correct amount of punishment should be the smallest amount of time necessary to be confident that the criminal won't cause more harm to society, especially when the crime was committed as the result of a treatable illness like addiction.

100%

Great. Now let him go sit in a jail cell and recieve his punishment, and give the dev opportunity to someone who didnt sell drugs and chose the easy route

To what end? Justice.

Great, go take that idea to the parents who want justice for the child who is dead due to scumbags like this guy.

He's never honestly admitted his crimes in public, on his blog or anywhere. He doesn't own it fully, he tries to absolve himself of ill-intent thoroughly.

It doesn't matter what the parents think. Truly. Prison isn't and has never been about making the family of victims whole. And this guy didn't kill anyone.

Justice goes both ways. How much punishment is too much justice? At some point you're just being cruel, which the US constitution forbids.