Drug WarRant

A disturbing piece at Al Jazeera about the proliferation of drug mules in the Philippines as the trend is for poor women to be drawn into working as drug mules (sometimes without even knowing what they’re carrying), and ending up on death row in China.

And more are getting caught. Over 690 Filipinos are currently sitting in jails around the world on drug offences, 227 in China alone. Of these, data shows there are 85 currently facing death row from drug-related crimes, and more and more of them are women.

Authorities say international drug syndicates have been specifically targeting Filipino women to traffic drugs, with dramatic increases in the numbers of convicted female drug mules in the last few years.

The women are paid between $500 and $5,000 to swallow tubes containing the drugs, carry them hidden in their luggage or even dissolved and soaked into paper or books.

Labour rights groups say these women are victims of poverty. One in four Filipinos lives on less than $1 a day and one-tenth of the population work abroad to send money home to support their families.

So a poor Filipino woman, desperate to provide for her family, agrees to carrying something and is caught. She gets executed.

How does her death help the world?

It certainly doesn’t affect the traffickers. And there are always more Filipino women for them to target.

The lengthy video investigative report is really a very powerful indictment of the drug war (although unfortunately the reporter’s interview with the Vice President at the end of the piece is very badly done).

Via Radley Balko:

Mom sues Lawrence County over seizure of newborn

For the second time in a year, Lawrence County Children and Youth Services has been accused in a federal lawsuit of removing a child from a mother’s custody after a positive test for opiates allegedly triggered by poppy seeds.

Eileen Ann Bower, a Lawrence County resident whose residence and age were not provided, gave birth to a son, Brandon, on July 13, 2009, according to a complaint filed late Friday. She was stunned, it said, when a blood test at Jameson Hospital came back positive for opiates.

Brandon was taken into foster care three days after his birth, it said, and only returned on Sept. 29.

That’s the first two months of mother and son bonding completely destroyed over poppy seeds.

Where’s the call in state legislatures for Brandon’s law? Can’t they whip together a law in outrage over this? Make it a felony to take away a child without proof of harm? Where are all the Nancy Grace bloodsucking wanna-be’s over this story?

Ms. Bower is suing the county agency, its caseworker and Jameson Health System for negligence, invasion of privacy and violation of due process, according to the complaint by attorney Stanley T. Booker.

Good for her. The state should be prosecuting the county agency for kidnapping and child abuse.

Iran leads the world in drug seizures

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Executive Director Yury Fedotov has said Iran ranks first in the world in illicit drug seizures, Mehr news agency reported.

Iran seizes 80 percent of the opium and 40 percent of the heroin and morphine seized in the world, Fedotov told Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar during a meeting in Tehran on Monday.

“Iran is our important partner in the war on drugs,” he said, adding, it is a “good and reliable” partner for the international community as well.

Wow. I thought we seized a lot. But apparently, Iran seizes even more? With all that seizing, where does that leave us?

Apparently, UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov missed out on an important economic lesson that those of us who enjoyed Doritos in the early 90’s learned very well.

It just doesn’t matter how much you seize. They can always make more. And it just makes it that much more valuable.

Every now and then, it can be amusing to check referral logs.

Today, someone using the U.S. House of Representatives Information System googled “drugged driving death statistics in california.”

It took them to this page.

I’m guessing it may not have been what they were seeking.

More and more, the attempt by the U.S. government to hide and obfuscate the truth about marijuana and the drug war just isn’t working.

Not that many years ago, this kind of editorial in an American newspaper would be unthinkable.

Colorado Springs Gazette: OUR VIEW: Government tells a big fat lie

Once again, government servants have told Americans that marijuana ranks right up there with heroin. The Drug Enforcement Agency ruled on July 8 that marijuana has “no accepted medical use” and will continue as a schedule 1 drug — the most forbidden category.

The DEA is a law enforcement bureaucracy. The medical opinions of law enforcement bureaucrats should be of little interest. We do not ask cops to make laws; we pay cops to enforce the laws established by constitutions or enacted by the people or the decisions of their representatives. […]

Nothing in the Constitution grants the federal government, let alone a lone bureaucracy such as the DEA, to regulate drugs. […]

This is the type of insanity that led President Ronald Reagan to say: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” […]

It seems clear that DEA officials want to demonize marijuana because it guarantees the DEA’s ongoing funding and growth. This ruling does nothing to harm the reputation of medical marijuana, and everything to diminish the reputation of the DEA. We must demand that government employees stop lying to the Americans they are paid to serve with integrity and truth.

The Gazette still has a rather backward view of recreational marijuana, but a very healthy suspicion of the veracity of our government drug warriors.

Add this data point to the Cole memo, the DEA re-scheduling rejection notice, and the ONDCP diatribe in the National Drug Control Strategy…

Feds Propose Clean-Up Language To Drug Regulations

July 11, 2011—The FMCSA [Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration] is proposing new language that will clean up several misconceptions that a driver using a Schedule I controlled substance under a doctors care is allowed to operate a commercial motor vehicle (CMV).

The FMCSA has always considered Sections 382.213, 391.41(b)(12), 391.43(f), and 392.4 to prohibit any and all use of Schedule I drugs by CMV drivers. In fact, Federal law prohibits Schedule I drugs from being prescribed in the United States (75 FR 16237, March 31, 2010). Schedule I drugs have a high potential for abuse and no medically accepted therapeutic use. Currently, Federal law only allows for their use in research, chemical analysis, or manufacture of other drugs.

Unfortunately, some MROs [Medical Review Officers] have misinterpreted FMCSA’s regulations and have permitted drivers to use Schedule I drugs while under the care of a physician and drive a CMV. This action puts the FMCSRs in direct conflict with DOT’s comprehensive drug testing program under 49 CFR, Part 40, which does not permit drivers to use Schedule I drugs. The FMCSA does not believe this is a reasonable interpretation of the regulations.

To avoid any confusion, this rulemaking would harmonize Sections 382.213, 391.41(b)(12), 391.43(f), and 392.4 with DOT-wide regulations and DEA regulations, and make it clear that drivers may not use Schedule I drugs under any circumstances.

It’s really pretty silly how they so carefully avoid even mentioning medical marijuana though that is clearly what they’re addressing (perhaps to fly below the radar?), and how they sidestep the fact that it has nothing to do with impairment or when you’ve used the drug.

They just want to make it flat out prohibited by federal law for any commercial motor vehicle to be driven by someone who uses medical marijuana at all, regardless of state law.

One more piece of the federal war on marijuana.

Talking about ending the drug war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRl1NxtpOkg

Didn’t get all his facts exactly right, but close enough, and definitely making good points.

Oh, and kudos to whoever got him the suit and haircut.

Farmers in Afghanistan are finally finding something to grow that will make them more money than opium.

Cannabis.

IDPC reports on a UNODC survey…

The findings confirmed Afghanistan’s role as a major grower of cannabis, but also discovered that the country produced more cannabis resin or hashish than any other nation.

Cannabis gross income shot up for farmers between 2009 and 2010 from $3,900 per hectare (about 2.5 acres) to $9,000 per hectare. Opium was at $4,900 and wheat at $770.

That drug war really is effective, isn’t it?

Philip Greenspun details the amusingly kafkaesque inflexibility in drug testing regulations.

Finally, the FAA inspector looked at my random drug testing program to make sure that everything was in place. I’m subject to the same drug testing requirements as United Airlines. I am the drug testing coordinator for our company, so I am responsible for scheduling drug tests and surprising employees when it is their turn to be tested. As it happens, I’m also the only “safety-sensitive employee” subject to drug testing, so basically I’m responsible for periodically surprising myself with a random drug test. As a supervisor, I need to take training so that I can recognize when an employee is on drugs. But I’m also the only employee, so really this is training so that I can figure out if I myself am on drugs. As an employee, I need to take a second training course so that I learn about all of the ways that my employer might surprise me with a random drug test and find out about drug use. But I’m also the employer so really I’m learning about how I might trap myself.

Ah, but that was just the beginning.

Five minutes after the FAA inspector left, I received a phone call. “I’m from the FAA and we’d like to schedule an audit of your drug testing program.” I remarked that a fully qualified FAA inspector was barely out of the driveway and had just gone through every document that I had on the subject. “He was from the FSDO (Flight Standards District Office)? That’s a completely different department. We’re going to send two inspectors up from Atlanta next month.” Why two? “We always send them in pairs.”

Terry Gilliam couldn’t have written it better.

Good OpEd in the L.A. Times by Stephen Gutwillig and Bill Piper: Medical marijuana: A science-free zone at the White House [Blowback]

President Obama came into office promising to reverse George W. Bush administration practices and elevate science over politics. He explicitly applied that principle to drug policy, an area long driven by ideology and prejudice. […]

But as The Times’ July 9 article makes dismayingly clear, the White House is putting the “science-free zone” sign back up.