Drug WarRant

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Adopting what might be called the Qaddafi defense, the head of Bahrain’s military claimed that the country’s brutal crackdown on dissent was entirely justified because the kingdom’s security forces had been confronted by young protesters under the influence of mind-altering drugs.

Via Toke of the Town…

Raided medical marijuana providers sue U.S. government

Two medical marijuana providers have accused the U.S. government of civil rights violations in what may be the first lawsuit of its kind in response to a federal crackdown on pot operations across the nation. […]

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Missoula against the government, Department of Justice, Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Attorney for Montana Michael Cotter. […]

New Mexico attorney Paul Livingston, who is representing the plaintiffs, believes this is the first constitutional challenge of the government’s actions.

“I’m surprised nobody’s raised a 10th Amendment challenge,” Livingston said. “This is a process going on in all the states that have approved medical marijuana. They’re trying to set limits.”

District Court law clerks in Missoula were seen frantically searching for a copy of the text of the 10th Amendment.

While it sure seems like the 10th is deader than a doornail, I’d be absolutely thrilled if someone could find a spark of life left in it, so I’m happy to see the lawsuit.

Even if for no other reason that to remind people that the 10th Amendment exists.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

It’s the Truth Enforcement Squad Car, number 420, of course, patrolling the streets in Dallas/Ft. Worth. This is a project of the Dallas/Ft. Worth NORML chapter, complete with green LEDs to replace the normal red and blue lights. Near the rear, it reads: “Legislate, Educate and Medicate”

More here.

I don’t recommend driving while stoned, but I’ve got to admit I’m enjoying the mental image of a Cheech and Chong or Harold and Kumar being followed by this car.

At Alternet, Can Psychedelics Make You Happier?

Research suggests that psychedelics may be better than antidepressants, which tend to dampen or suppress psychological problems without necessarily curing them.

Interesting article, and a lot worth exploring in this area – an area where research has been, of course, hampered by the usual forces.

But when the government made them illegal in 1968, research in the U.S. ceased. As Sgt. Joe Friday said that year in the cop drama Dragnet, “Don’t you con me with your mind expansion slop.”

Only in the late 1990s did federal regulators begin easing restrictions on controlled experiments with psychedelics. “It’s experiencing a rebirth after being pretty much totally dormant for 30 years,” Richards said […]

But while Doblin is pleased that scientists are once again able to legally study psychedelics, he said that obtaining funding for such research is still difficult. No federal agency will direct money toward experiments involving substances that the Food and Drug Administration classifies as illegal, and the obvious funding alternative — the pharmaceutical industry — isn’t interested: Psychedelics cannot be patented and are meant only to be taken in small doses.

“No one’s going to take one psilocybin pill before breakfast and another one after dinner for 30 years,” Doblin said.

We have a drug problem in our country. No, not that drug problem. I’m talking about the fact that we have a completely dysfunctional approach to determining which drugs people should take and which ones they shouldn’t, which is more guided by profit and politics than by health and science.

Pennsylvania

Nearly 400 students got to skip school Tuesday to be honored for their commitment to staying drug free. That’s because each of them made a promise at the beginning of the school year to volunteer to be randomly drug screened as members of the “Remembering Adam” program. […]

“It’s been fun. A lot of my friends are through the program,” said Freiwald.

This is just weird in a number of ways. Friendship through voluntary drug testing with a bonus of skipping school?

Every year in my theatre management class, we have a discussion on whether they would refuse a donation for their arts organization based on the identity or reputation of the donor.

Keep in mind that this is merely a donation — no strings attached to the donation other than listing the benefactor as a donor.

It always generates a good discussion, with questions such as:

• What if you personally disagree with some of the donor’s politics? (ie, would you accept money from George Soros? The Koch Brothers?)
• What if you think a company’s products are harmful? Would you accept money from them? (Philip Morris, maker of cigarettes, has been one of the best supporters of cutting-edge arts organizations.)
• What if a company’s image conflicted with that of your organization? (Usually someone brings up a pretty unlikely notion like Hustler Magazine wanting to donate to a Children’s Theatre Company.)

There’s almost always a split in the class with some students having a clear line that they won’t cross in accepting donations (although that might change if they were actually facing real-life budgetary challenges, rather than classroom theorizing), and other students who are happy to take anyone’s money and put it to better use (as long as there are no strings tied to it).

All this made me interested in a (continuing) debate regarding the church in Mexico and donations from drug traffickers.

Catholic Church under scrutiny for accepting blood money

HIDALGO, Mexico – The drug war in Mexico has forced the Catholic Church to confront allegations it accepts donations from drug lords.

In the tiny community of Tezontle in Hidalgo, Mexico there is a new building with an enormous silver cross.

A plaque on the wall identified the benefactor as Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano. He is a top leader of the Zetas which is one of Mexico’s most feared cartels.

He’s a native son who is a wanted man on both sides of the border, but people in the town say they know nothing of the generous donor.

Critics say the problem extends to the Catholic church hierarchy when it comes to drug money donations.

A spokesman for the Archdiocese in Mexico said the church warns parishes not to accept dirty money even if it’s to pay for good deeds.

Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano is attempting to buy salvation. Or perhaps he’s just trying to whitewash his image. Or maybe he really believes in the church and wants to support it now that he has a shitload of money.

The church is not offering salvation in exchange for the money — merely a plaque of acknowledgement.

Is it wrong?

(Personally, I would find it better if the Catholic Church spent less on fancy buildings and more in other areas, but that’s another discussion.)

I can understand the church hierarchy wanting to squelch the practice. Whether it is morally wrong or not, they see the problem of the appearance of impropriety (ie, they’re afraid the public might assume they’re somehow in cahoots with the drug lords, letting them hide cocaine in the bell tower, etc.).

But using tainted money for good purposes — even money that has been obtained through murder — Is that morally wrong?

How is the Catholic Church’s use of tainted drug money different from the use of seized tainted drug money by law enforcement? (Other than the fact that law enforcement took it and the Church had it given to them freely.)

And here’s another thing to ponder. What about all the money that is given to other countries by the U.S. to prosecute the drug war? Now that money actually does have strings attached, requiring the recipient to be involved in fueling bloody conflict. Where’s the morality in accepting that kind of blood money?

The Alyona Show on the RT network has been gaining some real traction by covering a lot of stories that the mainstream media tends to ignore.

Here, she interviews our friend Scott Morgan on the latest intimidation efforts by the federal government against medical marijuana states.

(8 minutes)

Doesn’t Scott look cute all cleaned up and ready for TV?

For a really bizarrely bad column, check out Paul Sheehan in the Sydney Morning Herald with Tolerance a recipe for drug misery

It leads off with a huge picture of a cute family – fiancee, father, little boy.

And then immediately plunges into the dark side.

Stathi Katsidis lived faster than 99 per cent of Australians. He rode racehorses for a living. He took illegal drugs. He was reckless and self-indulgent. He didn’t make it past 31. At lunchtime on October 18 last year, Katsidis and his fiancee began drinking at Brisbane’s Hamilton Hotel.

As they lingered, Katsidis began taking drugs. By evening, with friends back at home, he had taken fantasy [GHB], and ecstasy, and cocaine, and crystal meth. He had also kept drinking. The binge lasted 12 hours before he passed out on his couch. Katsidis was found dead in the morning.
The coroner’s report, obtained by Brisbane’s Courier-Mail and released at the weekend, found he had nine times the lethal limit of fantasy in his system. His blood alcohol level was three times over the legal limit.

OK. Stop right there. I see where this is going.

But is he really going to use this as an example of a larger picture? It’s like advocating for laws against fatty foods because of the case of a 400 pound man who eats a 10 pound steak, three large pizzas, a couple pounds of bacon, two whole chickens and a chocolate cake in one sitting and dies of heart failure.

Yep, he’s using it.

A victimless crime? Katsidis left behind a young son, a distraught fiancee, and the more than 1000 people who attended his funeral. He didn’t have to steal to pay for his drugs but so many addicts do, creating real victims of real crimes. Tens of thousand of them.

Give me a break. This isn’t about drug tolerance causing victims. This is about a really, really stupid person dying. That’s all.

When I was in high school, two students died from huffing kerosene. They left distraught families (and I’m sure there were a lot of “victims” who attended their funerals as well), but it wasn’t tolerance of kerosene that caused their deaths. They were morons. Just like Stathi Katsidis and Paul Sheehan.

Some believe it would be better to legalise drugs and remove the criminal world that supplies them, using the money saved on enforcement to fund drug treatment programs. The libertarian side of me is comfortable with this. People should be allowed to take whatever drugs they like, so long as they harm only themselves.

It’s that last part, the myth of the victimless crime, that causes me to drop my libertarian bias on this subject. The death binge of Stathi Katsidis is a part of the mosaic of human folly that will lead me, despite a strong streak that favours less government intrusion and more personal freedom, to take a non-libertarian position tomorrow night in a debate entitled ”All drugs should be legalised”, the latest in the IQ2 debate series.

I don’t know Paul Sheehan, but I suspect he has no clue what the word “libertarian” means, let alone having any kind of streak of it at all. I suspect his kind of libertarianism is along the lines of “The government should allow free speech as long as they agree with what’s being said.”

I mean, really. Take a look at what he said.

People should be allowed to take whatever drugs they like, so long as they harm only themselves.

except…

It’s that last part, the myth of the victimless crime, that causes me to drop my libertarian bias on this subject.

So he’s just refuted himself. Apparently his libertarianism is only applied to hermits who know nobody and to whose funeral no one would come.

By that same token, he should be fully prepared to make it illegal for me to eat chocolate, because that could lead to obesity and early death, and some “victim” might be unhappy if I died.

He spends some time on the analysis of public opinion and then gets to this one…

This is a highly emotional debate for many people. At a dinner party at the home of a judge recently, one of the guests, upon hearing that I was preparing a column critical of the Kings Cross heroin injection centre, said to me: ”So you don’t care if drug users die in the street?”

This is the sort of emotionalism, the assumption of higher moral ground, reflexively used to club people in this debate – that you don’t care about the welfare of vulnerable addicts.

Yes, you wouldn’t want to use emotionalism or the assumption of a higher moral ground, would you Paul? Have you already forgotten the beginning of the article you’re currently writing???

Stathi Katsidis dead leaving behind a young son, a distraught fiancee, and the more than 1000 people who attended his funeral…

• Emotionalism? Check.
• Assumption of higher moral ground? Check.

Let’s move on.

Drug legalisation advocates also love the word ”tolerance” because it masks a position of moral relativism, the default position of progressive politics. Moral relativism encapsulates several mantras which favour victimology: social disadvantage is the root of social problems; addiction is a disease not a crime; prohibition drives crime, not consumption; underground markets drive underground behaviour.

Once again, it’s Sheehan who played the victimology card earlier (remember, the the more than 1000 people who attended his funeral).

And besides, it’s true that prohibition drives crime and that underground markets drive underground behavior.

But here, we get a glimpse into Sheehan’s real internal freak show, and it’s about desiring a moral absolutism against drug use, backed up by the power of the state. And that’s as far from libertarianism as you can get.

Go ahead, Paul, and play “libertarian” dress-up whenever you want lower taxes, but don’t insult us by claiming to be one.

Lawmakers ponder immunity in overdose cases

Springfield (AP) – Kathie Kane-Willis faced a life-and-death dilemma: Her boyfriend’s lips were blue. He was going into cardiac arrest from a drug overdose. Would she be arrested if she called the authorities for help?

If a law had been in place offering legal immunity to drug users who overdose and the person who calls for medical assistance to save them, Kane-Willis would have had an easier decision.

Along with the parents of overdose victims, she now is one of the principal advocates of a bill moving through the Illinois General Assembly that would offer that immunity

This should not even be a minor controversy. It should be approached as an unfortunate error in the crafting of existing laws, that left in place the fear of being prosecuted for doing the right thing and helping save someone’s life.

After all, what’s the worst that happens by allowing this bill to pass? Some people who were involved in a drug transaction in some way will avoid arrest at the time they are helping save someone’s life. Is that such a loss to society?

Who could oppose such a thing?

Originally, the bill had no limits for the amount of drugs emergency callers could possess and still earn immunity. But the bill was changed in the Senate to limit the amounts of possession — for example, to less than three grams of a substance containing heroin. […]

The Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police prefers offering legal immunity solely to the person who overdoses. Instead of immunity for callers, they suggest the matter be left to the discretion of judges, who could take the caller’s actions into account when sentencing for drug

“By doing the right thing, you’re going to be rewarded with the fact that you did the right thing,” said Laimutis Nargelenas, a lobbyist for the chiefs organization. “So it’s a personal issue. And the prosecutor and the judge can take that into consideration.”

Ah, yes. Whenever something comes up in Illinois that could involve saving some lives but might cut into the profits or easy arrests for the police, you can always count on Limey Nargelenas lobbying for the police chiefs against saving lives.

Talk about easy arrests – distraught people at the emergency room.

I’m sure the police chief lobbying fund doesn’t care if some more druggies die. Particularly not when it means they can pad their arrest records and get more funding.

…

VANCOUVER — A batch of extra-strength heroin is on a deadly rampage in B.C.’s Lower Mainland, the B.C. Coroners Service warned Thursday.

“Heroin being dealt to users in some areas is at least twice as potent as usual,” the coroners service advised, citing 20 heroin overdose deaths so far in 2011, double the number of deaths last year.

Drug users should “never be alone when ingesting drugs, and where possible (should) use available community services such as INSITE or needle exchanges,” the coroners service warned.

Those 20 overdose deaths are directly attributable to prohibition; they would not have happened in a legalized and regulated system.

But at least in Vancouver, they seem to understand that harm reduction is better than the “arrest at all costs” mentality in Illinois.

My mom sometimes reads this blog to keep up with what I’m doing, so just in case… Happy Mother’s Day, mom! (yes, I’ll call her, too)

This is an open thread.