Drug WarRant

The October 9, 2002 Petition to Reschedule Marijuana has been officially denied by Michele Leonhart and the denial placed in the Federal Register today.

Interesting timing, given the recent DOJ letter regarding medical marijuana prosecutions. Looks like all-out federal war.

Time for our Rapid Response Team to spring into action!

From The Thinking Policeman: A Police Officer’s Blog: The Drugs Debate

Apparently he’s already expecting to hear from the “usual hysterical pro drugs legalisation brigade.”

He’s heard all the legalization arguments and can recite them, but can’t quite put together the pieces. Besides, he gets caught into some of the worst traps:

• “Until there is a clear strategy and model the pro legalisation lobby will not be taken seriously.”
• “Drugs are far more addictive and potentially harmful [than alcohol]”
• “Using the same argument there is a better case to legalise all crime.”
• “Drug users have a false belief that more people are using drugs than in fact are.”
• “In my view the risks of a liberal experiment of lawful drug supply by way of regulation coupled with lawful possession far outweigh any potential benefits. Liberalisation of possession in countries such as Portugal and Holland has done little to address drugs and crime. The Swedish model of strict enforcement with investment in prevention and treatment works better.”
• “For example, there are 1.5 million bikes in Amsterdam and every year 600,000 are stolen.”

Someone may want to inform him about Transform’s Blueprint, among other things…

Your tax dollars on drugs.

A professionally printed ad sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse being seen on the El trains around Philadelphia contains the following:

“contact the Family Trainging Program” […] “The Parents TRanslatoinal Researg Center.” [emphasis added]

It makes the advertised phone number — 877.i.WORRY.2 — all the more appropriate.

Ethan Nadelmann will be on “Real Time with Bill Maher” tonight.

I’ll be at my Dad’s for the next couple of days with no WiFi, so I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to post.

Have fun in comments. Whenever I leave you guys alone, you get some amazing stuff going!

The INCB (International Narcotics Control Board) is an international terrorist organization with influence in more countries than al-Qaeda. It even receives material support for its activities from the U.N.

The INCB has members from around the world who meet in secret and whose stated goal is to impose their interpretation of drug treaties on the rest of the world (especially their holy text — The Single Convention), even to the point of coercing entire governments to function as assassins and kidnappers on their behalf.

These governments, acting under an agreement with the terrorist group, have kidnapped millions of peaceful citizens, often keeping them confined for years, executing some, and applying the tactics of terror on innocent victims (shooting their dogs, etc.), using fear to promote their agenda.

In addition to their government puppets, the INCB terrorists are allied with Mexican cartels and other criminal organizations who couldn’t exist without the holy warriors of the Single Convention.

This terrorist organization has released a statement indicating their disappointment with the government of Bolivia for denouncing the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs:

Such approach would undermine the integrity of the global drug control system, undoing the good work of Governments over many years to achieve the aims and objectives of the drug control conventions, including the prevention of drug abuse which is devastating the lives of millions of people.

The international drug control conventions are the corner stone of international efforts to prevent the illicit production, manufacture, traffic in and abuse of drugs while at the same time ensuring that licit drugs are available for medical and scientific purposes. The almost universal adherence to these conventions is testimony to Governments’ trust in the international drug control system and a pre-requisite for the treaties’ effectiveness to prevent drug trafficking and abuse. […]

The Board has the responsibility to bring any threat to the international drug control system to the attention of States parties.

The way to stop these terrorist organizations is to stop giving them power.

What a kidder…

The Obama Administration has made clear that science and research – not politics – should determine what is safe and effective medicine.

Right.

And, of course, he just can’t resist throwing out completely irrelevant treatment numbers.

… 150,000 people who showed up voluntarily at treatment facilities in 2009 reported marijuana as their primary substance of abuse.

The volunteerism of 149,999 of those had to do with choice.

“Either you show up at treatment, or you’re out of this house buster.”

“Either you go to treatment or you go to jail.”

“Either you sign up for treatment now, or the judge isn’t going to look at your case as favorably when you show up at court.”

The 150,000th person thought it would be a good place to pick up chicks.

Portugal drug law show results ten years on, experts say

Health experts in Portugal said Friday that Portugal’s decision 10 years ago to decriminalise drug use and treat addicts rather than punishing them is an experiment that has worked.

“There is no doubt that the phenomenon of addiction is in decline in Portugal,” said Joao Goulao, President of the Institute of Drugs and Drugs Addiction, a press conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the law.

The number of addicts considered “problematic” — those who repeatedly use “hard” drugs and intravenous users — had fallen by half since the early 1990s, when the figure was estimated at around 100,000 people, Goulao said. […]

Portugal’s holistic approach had also led to a “spectacular” reduction in the number of infections among intravenous users and a significant drop in drug-related crimes, he added.

Of course, the naysayers will tell you that Portugal is not the United States and so we can’t believe those numbers. Then they will proceed to give you numbers of increased addicts with legalization or decriminalization that they have produced from a darkened orifice.

An ACLU production.

Just to clarify, the federal government cannot go after everyone, so it helps to know where you stand if you’re thinking about breaking federal law.

1. For those involved in ordering torture, approving it, and even for the vast majority of those who committed brutal torture that went all the way to murder, they are now permanently and fully immunized by the Department of Justice from any form of criminal investigation and prosecution.
2. For those involved in supplying marijuana for sick people in full compliance with state law, they are “subject to federal enforcement action, including potential prosecution,” including civil or criminal action, and utilization of federal money laundering statutes and other federal financial laws.

Over at the Agitator

Self explanatory.

A lot of suffering. A lot of grief. A lot of injustice. This damned drug war.

I guess I’m just ready to share all this love that I have built up inside of me all these years. No more late nights or days just wishing I can hold my kids & tell them that their daddy loves them with all his heart. I’m sure my not being physically present has affected them in many ways. I just pray that it’s not too late, and together we can work on healing one another.

And finally, a little relief.

The “clarification” of the Attorney General memo on medical marijuana (AKA the “Ogden Memo” has arrived. No big surprise. This administration, like the others before it, has hitched its wagon to the drug warriors.
Continue reading →

Press release from Drug Policy Alliance:

WASHINGTON, DC—Today, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to provide retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act, which Congress passed last year and narrowed a decades-old disparity in federal sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. The Commission’s decision to apply the sentencing guideline changes retroactive could benefit as many as 12,000 people in federal prison who could be released early, saving taxpayers as much as $240 million over the next 30 years. The Commission’s commitment to reforming this egregious practice is consistent with its history.

“Since 1995, the US Sentencing Commission has, in four reports to Congress, requested that Congress raise the threshold quantities of crack that trigger mandatory minimums in order to ease the unconscionable racial disparities in sentencing,” said Jasmine L. Tyler, deputy director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, who testified in front of the Commission on June 1, 2011 in support of retroactivity. “This vote to provide retroactive relief to the thousands of defendants whose sentences the Commission has consistently condemned for the past seventeen years.”

The Commission received more than 43,000 pieces of mail urging them to apply the Fair Sentencing Act retroactively to alleviate overcrowding in the Bureau of Prisons – currently operating at 140% capacity, and to relieve the unwarranted racial disparities in federal sentencing that has led civil rights leaders, criminologists, elected officials, and whole communities to criticize the criminal justice system. Some Republican members in the House and Senate opposed retroactivity, however, setting up a possible fight over the issue in Congress.

The historic bipartisan passage of the Fair Sentencing Act was an acknowledgement by Congress of the racial disparities that grew out of the old law. Advocates argued that a decision to not apply the law retroactively would continue an openly unequal practice.

“Imagine that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had upheld segregation in existing schools and only mandated integration for new schools being built,” Tyler added. “Without retroactivity, that’s exactly what would happen to the Fair Sentencing Act. The Commission should be lauded for their commitment to ensuring racial justice and fairness in the federal system.”

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It’s still only a step, but an important one.