Drug WarRant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBOXUjHhrVM&feature=player_profilepage

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Also, see Gary Johnson’s OpEd in The Washington Times: JOHNSON: Hitting the cartels where it hurts

Imagine you are a drug lord in Mexico, making unfathomable profits sending your illegal product to the United States. What is the headline you fear the most? “U.S. to build bigger fence”? “U.S. to send troops to the border”? “U.S. to deploy tanks in El Paso”? No. None of those would give you much pause. They would simply raise the level of difficulty and perhaps cause you to escalate the violence that already has turned the border region into a war zone. But would they stop you or ultimately hurt your bottom line? Probably not.

But what if that drug lord opened his newspaper and read this: “U.S. to legalize and regulate marijuana”? That would ruin his day, and ruin it in a way that could not be fixed with more and bigger guns, higher prices or more murder.

You may disagree with his political approach of talking about ending the whole drug war but focusing only on marijuana policy, but you can’t deny that he’s doing an outstanding job of focusing on the anti-drug-war message in his campaign.

Update: You know how practically every mainstream article about marijuana or drug policy has that ubiquitous and anachronistic graphic of the fingers holding a large lit doobie?

Well, I was fascinated by the graphic that was used instead in the Washington Times OpEd. Much more interesting and relevant.

It’s “Legalization” by Alexander Hunter for The Washington Times.

It appears to be a graphic showing that under criminalization, there is an inevitable link between marijuana and huge black-market profits, which then leads to blood and violence. And the scissors and dotted line indicates legalization severing that connection.

An outstanding editorial from the Chicago Tribune puts some much-needed sanity in the government-fueled hysteria over “drugged driving.”

Someone who drinks to excess and gets behind the wheel of a car can be prosecuted and punished for driving under the influence. Everyone would agree that’s as it should be. But what if the law included DUI to cover anyone driving sober who has had a drink in the last week?

That would make little sense, since the past drinking would have no effect on the motorist’s fitness to drive. But under Illinois law, something very similar is the norm for drivers who have used illegal drugs. […]

But it’s still possible to detect impairment through field sobriety. Potheads may reek of weed. A driver caught on videotape mumbling incoherently would have a hard time arguing the dope in his urine had no effect. In these cases, an officer can request a blood or urine sample — with refusal leading to license suspension.

When felony charges are involved, the law ought to require a showing that the drug in question contributed to the crash. Motorists involved in fatal accidents who have drugs in their bodies should at least have the chance to rebut the presumption that they were impaired.

Driving under the influence is a crime that deserves strict enforcement and stern punishment. Driving long after being under the influence is not the same thing, and it shouldn’t be treated as though it were.

Let’s hope that we see more of this kind of sanity. It’s time for the drug czar’s ugly and fact-free push for per se drugged driving laws to get ridiculed and to stop getting a free pass from the press.

We’ve talked here often about the corruption that is an integral part of the drug war. There are a lot of corrupting influences, but one of the most egregious is the notion that law enforcement can go out and seize money for itself like some kind of mercenary army that is paid by allowing it to loot and pillage the enemies it defeats (or anyone else who gets in the way).

Americans for Forfeiture Reform has one more in the long list of abuses…

A Kentucky sheriff is on trial over how he used more than $43,000 from a drug-asset forfeiture account belonging to the county. […]

Hendrickson cited Garrett’s use of more than $900 to pay his homeowner’s insurance and nearly $600 to pay for Coca-Cola products. Thousands more, she said, were used to pay personal loans for former Deputy Sheriff Benjamin Buckler Sr., who became a Carlisle police officer before he was indicted earlier this year on similar charges. Buckler will be tried separately.

About $6,000 was spent to make drug buys as part of investigations, but there was documentation only for a $180 buy, Hendrickson said. There were no case reports and no prosecutions resulting from those buys, she said.

And this is just peanuts in the millions of dollars in forfeiture abuses – one that got caught.

Narco News has a statement from Javier Sicilia and the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity.

They’ve been working to stop the drug war (in particular, the use of military against citizens) in Mexico and have tried to work with Calderón and Congress, but are furious since it appears the government has paid lip service to their concerns, while drafting additional legislation to allow even more war powers within the country.

After the agreements we made with the Mexican Congress on July 28 in Chapultepec Castle, we have come, as agreed, to the home of the legislators who claim to represent us in order to renew the word that they gave. Unfortunately, on August 3rd, Wednesday morning, we were surprised to learn that the deputies approved a draft version of the National Security Law that had previously been sent to the Senate, against our demand to stop the law, against our warning to them that they not tell us one thing in public and do the opposite behind the closed doors of a bureaucracy and amid the dark goings-on of power, against the weight of the Word. […]

When the deputies approved the Senate’s draft of the law on August 2, Tuesday evening, what they really did was continue the process of unconstitutional legalization of the current administration’s war strategy, and to therefore, continue the war. And when they asked for forgiveness, under the sacred Word, they didn’t know what they were saying; it was only out of a unconscious disdain for not just our 50,000 dead, our more than 10,000 disappeared and our more than 120,000 displaced, but it was also out of a disdain for the love that Octavio Paz refers to. It is a disdain for flesh and bone human beings who are living in the nation today, and who tomorrow, under the auspices of the law, will swell the graves of the dead and the criminals’ reserve army. […]

Why did the deputies, only a few hours after they began the work of having a dialogue with our movement, while National Autonomous University of Mexico specialists and human rights defenders were preparing a project that would actually work in favor of peace and public security, hurry in approving a law legalizing a war that is imposed by the United States and is a source of so many tears and so much pain?

We reiterate that we’ve not only had it up to here with the war, but also with the deception and the simulation that make it possible and accompany it.[…]

We are going to mobilize and call on you, brothers and sisters of our nation, to mobilize with us on Sunday, August 14 and beyond so we can together raise the national flag, the “white flag” against the war, to again insist on what State powers and the criminals do not understand: that we do not want one more death, not one more person disappeared, not one more person tortured, that we want a Mexico where each place is suitable, where each hour is favorable, for us to look each other in the eye and love one another.

Mobilization next Sunday.

It’s so important for the people to step up and not let their government continue its thirst for war. And we have to do more to stop the United States’ desire to impose war on everyone else.

We urge the executive and legislative branches to return to the dialogue by showing an authentic willingness to listen to the citizens so that together we can bring peace. We remind them of the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.”

Documents: Feds allegedly allowed Sinaloa cartel to move cocaine into U.S. for information

U.S. federal agents allegedly allowed the Sinaloa drug cartel to traffic several tons of cocaine into the United States in exchange for information about rival cartels, according to court documents filed in a U.S. federal court.

The allegations are part of the defense of Vicente Zambada-Niebla, who was extradited to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges in Chicago. He is also a top lieutenant of drug kingpin Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman and the son of Ismael “Mayo” Zambada-Garcia, believed to be the brains behind the Sinaloa cartel.

The case could prove to be a bombshell on par with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ “Operation Fast and Furious,” except that instead of U.S. guns being allowed to walk across the border, the Sinaloa cartel was allowed to bring drugs into the United States. Zambada-Niebla claims he was permitted to smuggle drugs from 2004 until his arrest in 2009.

This is big. Not surprising. But big.

Of course, to the feds, letting several tons of cocaine into the U.S. is nothing. They know (as do we) that it’ll have almost no effect on supply, and if it’ll give them some big busts for the press, they’ll take that deal any day.

However, that reality doesn’t match the “getting drugs off the streets” message that the federal government dishes out to the media and the populace on a daily basis.

It also makes the theatre of their regular seizure photo-ops (not to mention the entire basis of the drug war) seem… disingenuous.

Oops.

I haven’t updated the Drug WarRant Cafe Press store for quite some time, so I thought I should at least put a couple of new things in there.

This elegant and understated clock avoids the clutter of numbers scattered all over its face and instead picks one as a point of reference. (Not recommended for those new to reading analog clocks.) Goes with any decor and great for starting conversations. Only $14.99

I’ve also added a car magnet (10″ x 3″ – $4.99) – like a bumper sticker, but removable and doesn’t harm the paint. Plus, you can take it off in situations when you prefer not to be talking about the drug war.

I’m really interested to see what people think about this. It’s hard to say much in such limited real estate, and all the standard catch phrases like “End the Drug War” and “Free the Weed” have been heard and aren’t going to get people thinking in different ways.

So yeah. I went there.

What do you think?

Link

Some state lawmakers are hoping all the fuss over the White case will focus public attention on the growing problem of drugged driving, a crime that’s difficult to detect and hard to prosecute.

Although Kathleen White was suspected of drugged driving after her one-car accident on July 6, a hospital drug test cleared her of being under the influence of any opiate drugs, and a neurologist diagnosed a seizure.

Let me get this straight… the idea is to use the case of someone who was falsely accused of being high on drugs to promote tougher laws on drugged driving?

Stupid Quote of the Day:

Dick Little in the Paradise Post must have thought Reefer Madness was a documentary.

How many will smoke pot and deteriorate into mindless morons who will have to be cared for in public hospitals and institutions for the rest of their lives, at a cost of millions of dollars to the rest of us? So much for all the tax revenue they claim will be generated. It will go towards the medical costs of taking care of those who will have health issues from overuse of the drug.

So, just where is that hospital where they keep all the brain-dead potheads on life support? I can’t seem to find the address.

Mindless morons, on the other hand, appear to be writing for the Paradise Post.

Smart Quote of the Day:

Ken at Popehat talks about Cayley Anthony’s useful idiots — you know, the ones who, due to their ignorant outrage and lack of understanding of how the criminal justice system is supposed to work, “become the useful idiots of the security state and the unwitting shills of the media.”

Imagine, for a moment, if all of that outrage could he harnessed and directed not against the acquittal of one accused defendant, but against the ruinous war on drugs or police misconduct or any number of other causes that don’t amount to being government’s fluffer.

Now that would be something.

John H. Tucker has an excellent feature in the Riverfront Times: Angela Halliday was a junkie. Does that make her a murderer?

It’s a powerful in-depth article about a couple who shared everything – their lives, their love, their possessions, and their addiction.

One of them died of an overdose, and now the other one is being charged with his murder.

It’s about prosecutor over-reach and laws intended to be a deterrent that actually make us less safe.

I was also interviewed for the article and am quoted on page 5.

There are a lot of lessons in the article, and they all add up to the fact that our drug war is poisoning everything it touches.

Some people think that heroin is the poison. But no. Heroin is mostly just a conduit for the poison of prohibition.

The International Business Times is really a joke of an online publication, and has published some really bad pro-drug-warrior stuff in the past. Here’s another one, this by Amrutha Gayathri: Why DEA is Against Legalizing Smoked Marijuana

It’s mostly a list of DEA and ONDCP talking points, but then it actually goes to Irma Perez!

DEA reports a graphic story that occurred in California in the spring of 2004 which proves that legalization of marijuana is a much more complex issue than what the public perceives.

14-year-old Irma Perez was “in the throes of her first experience” with the drug Ecstasy. After taking one Ecstasy tablet, she became ill and told friends that she felt like she was ‘going to die’. Her teenage friends, instead of seeking medical care tried to get Perez to smoke marijuana. When that failed due to her seizures, the friends tried to force-feed marijuana leaves to her, “apparently because [they] knew that drug is sometimes used to treat cancer patients.” Irma Perez lost consciousness and died a few days later when she was taken off life support.

I can’t believe that they’re actually still using that story as an argument against medical marijuana.

Irma was so clearly a drug war victim and not a medical marijuana victim, as this article back in 2004 shows.

What perhaps would have saved Irma’s life is a good Good Samaritan law.

DPA’s Gabriel Sayegh at Syracuse.com talks about New York’s new 911 Good Samaritan law: Sunday’s commentary: New York’ 911 Good Samaritan law to limit overdose deaths a national model.

In my view, it doesn’t go far enough, but it’s a very good first step.

“No one should go to jail for trying to save a life,” said Hiawatha Collins, a leader and board member of VOCAL-NY, one of the many groups that worked with the Drug Policy Alliance in advocating for the reforms. “This law will help make sure that calling 911 is the first thing someone does if they witness an overdose — not worry about what the cops will do. New York is making clear that saving lives needs to be our priority, not locking people up.”

Government agencies try to keep massive marijuana eradication effort secret.

A New Way to Fight Mexico’s Vicious Cartels: Legalizing Marijuana – Time Magazine.

New? I think not.

However, still a good article.

However, policy reformists point out that whatever the exact numbers, everyone agrees that Mexican gangsters are making billions of dollars selling marijuana to American smokers. “There is no doubt that marijuana legalization would hurt Mexican gangsters in their pocketbooks,” says Tom Angell, spokesman for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a U.S. group that opposes the war on drugs.[…]

Policy reformists like Angell, however, argue that a yes vote in a marijuana referendum would be a first step toward a historic change in drug policy. If marijuana were sold legally in shops north of the Rio Grande, Mexican authorities would be much less eager to spark more bonfires of captured weed. “Politicians across the U.S. and in Latin America would become emboldened to change their own marijuana laws,” Angell said. “It is a vote that will be heard across the world.”

Check this out. Thinking Drugs – a new site where people can go and rate the arguments on drug policy to see where they stand on the issues. Nicely done. Doesn’t attempt to tell you what to think, but makes you think about the positions you hold, which I think could help people who are unclear about their position (as opposed to most of us).

No surprise: The survey pegged me as a “Drug Policy Reformer” on the “legaliser” and “harm reducer” ends of the scales.

This is an open thread.