Drug WarRant

Rasmussen: 61% in Colorado Favor Legalizing, Regulating Marijuana

… and it’s in an important Presidential election state.

Here are the marijuana-based questions that they asked in the poll:

5* Should it be a crime for people to smoke marijuana in their own home or the home of a friend?

6* Would you favor or oppose legalizing marijuana and regulating it in the similar manner to the way alcohol and tobacco cigarettes are regulated today?

7* Suppose that marijuana was legalized and regulated so that it was illegal for people under 18 to buy, that those who drove while under the influence of marijuana received strict penalties, and that smoking marijuana was banned in public places like restaurants. With such regulations in place, would you favor or oppose legalizing and regulating marijuana?

8* Suppose that, if marijuana was legalized and regulated, it could be sold only in pharmacies. Drug dealers who sold marijuana on the street would be subject to strict jail sentences. Would that reduce the number of drug dealers in the country?

9* If marijuana was legalized and regulated, but could be sold only in pharmacies, would you favor or oppose legalizing and regulating marijuana?

I think you have to be a subscriber to get the breakdowns of responses.

24-Year-Old Gets 3 Life Terms in Prison for Witnessing a Drug Deal: The Ugly Truth of Mandatory Drug Sentencing

At the age of 24, Aaron was sentenced to three life terms for his role in a cocaine deal. That’s effectively three times the sentence imposed upon Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square in 2010. Aaron was a student and football player at Southern University in Baton Rouge. He’d never been arrested. In 1992, he made the mistake of being present for the sale of nine kilograms of cocaine and the conversion of one kilo of coke to crack. Aaron would have earned $1,500 for introducing the buyer and seller. He never actually touched the drugs.

It’s a good article, written by someone else who is serving an exceptionally long time in prison for a small drug crime.

It points out the added injustice when the judge and pretty much everyone involved in the case thinks that the prisoner should be released, but there’s no mechanism to do so when Presidents fear to use their clemency power.

A travel day today, coming back from New York. Looking forward to catching up on drug policy news when I return.

Lobby E-Mails Show Depth of Obama Ties to Drug Industry

The New York Times article doesn’t specifically address the question posed in the title of this post, but it does show a clear willingness on the part of the administration to give in to the wishes of the pharmaceutical industry if it would help pass health care.

It certainly wouldn’t be surprising to discover that a discussion had occurred about preventing the proliferation of non-pharmaceutical medicines.

This, to me, is an important point. Too many people think that drug laws are about catching criminals, when, in fact, they’re more about creating criminals.

Marijuana law just creates criminals by Hakeem Jeffries at CNN

The consequences of an arrest are severe, especially for young people of color who are already disproportionately subjected to criminal justice system intervention and incarceration. An arrest creates serious barriers to going to college or getting a job, and that person’s future may begin to spiral downward. The damage to police and community relations cannot be overstated.

Another serious problem is that these needless and inappropriate arrests detract from arresting and prosecuting serious criminals. Millions of dollars in law enforcement resources are wasted. Thousands of lives are damaged with the contamination of having a criminal record.[…]

The connected and powerful — including many in high political office — have frequently admitted to smoking marijuana when they were young. We didn’t unmercifully penalize them. We should stop needlessly criminalizing tens of thousands of our young people for doing the same thing.

LEAP is Hiring: Assistant Media Relations Director

Pro-Legalization Cops Seek Assistant Media Relations Director

Continue reading →

This AP story has been getting a lot of play around the media: Colo. vote on pot could affect Obama-Romney race

Whether to legalize marijuana will be on the Colorado ballot in November. President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney have identical stances on pot legalization — they oppose it. And neither is comfortable talking about it.

Yet Obama and Romney find themselves unwittingly ensnared in the legalization debate — and both may want to take it more seriously if their race in Colorado is close.

Again, it’s good to see this on the national stage this year. Even when both candidates don’t want to talk about it, they can’t avoid it.

And one thing the article didn’t discuss… How will they avoid talking about it, if a Gary Johnson, for example, starts spending some time in Colorado talking about legalization?

Heading for New York for a week. Will check in often.

If you’re concerned about the lack of posts, take a look at the comments, where you’ll find the other folks who hang out on Pete’s couch – and a whole lot of great content and activity.

They don’t come any dumber than Dennis. Unfortunately, a fair number are as dumb.

House OKs bill to ban flavored rolling papers

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Flavored tobacco rolling papers that critics say are used to smoke marijuana would be banned under a plan approved by the Illinois House.

The House gave its OK to the bill sponsored by Rep. Dennis Reboletti Thursday night. The legislation would also toughen the penalty for heroin sales. […]

The bill would also send anyone who sells 3 or more grams of heroin to prison. The threshold is now 5 grams.

What a schmuck. He apparently thinks the state is just rolling in money.

In the meantime, the state legislature is gridlocked over how to resolve the Constitutional requirement that they pay their debts, they’re cutting education spending right and left, have run out of new casino income streams, and are pretty much broke.

But Dennis figures they can always spend some money hassling small store owners who sell rolling papers. And prisons? There’s always room for more. Right?

I wonder if former prosecutor Reboletti ever figured out that sending people to prison costs money.

He certainly can’t prove that either provision will actually do anything useful. It’s all about grandstanding with the taxpayers’ money.

Time for the residents of Elmhurst to take out the trash and elect someone responsible.

From the Moving towards a Drug-free Society: Statement made by the 2nd Congress of World Federation Against Drugs – WFAD, Stockholm, Sweden on May 23, 2012… (where our own Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske was a proud and eager participant):

[…] Realizing that advocates of legalization and decriminalization of drugs are driven by greed, disrespect of human rights and lack of understanding of the harms of drugs and of addiction, and that making drugs more legal to use, and thus more accessible, will escalate drug use and the chemical slavery of drug addiction; […]

The Congress of WFAD finds that states and all concerned individuals, groups and bodies need to support the international conventions on narcotics and to advocate for a balanced and restrictive policy that seeks to limit the harmful effects of drugs through prevention, law enforcement, treatment, and recovery programmes.