Drug WarRant

Just another city in the long list of major drug-war-related law enforcement scandals.

Scandal Roils Tulsa Police by Stephanie Simon in the Wall Street Journal gives a good overview of the situation.

A federal investigation into the Tulsa Police Department that began nearly two years ago has unearthed a flood of corruption allegations.

Federal prosecutors allege that a handful of veteran officers, aided by a federal agent, fabricated informants, planted evidence, stole drugs and cash from criminal suspects, coerced perjured testimony, intimidated witnesses and trafficked in cocaine and methamphetamine.

The drug war corrupts. Sure, we don’t have it nearly as bad as in parts of other countries where entire police forces have been bought off, but still, in the drug war, there are enormous sums of money involved, there’s political pressure to make lots of arrests, there’s a culture that treats a certain part of the population as sub-human scum, there’s a sense of real and sometimes unaccountable power that we give to law enforcement, and finally, there are the tactics that are used to enforce drug laws (because the transactions are consensual) that encourage law enforcement to lie and cheat to accomplish goals.

It’s a recipe for corruption.

It’s not like there are full-blown corrupt individuals being recruited into the police force. Many times it’s much more subtle and gradual than that. I often turn to this particular section of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition’s video that explains how it can start.

But, the question you may ask is, how does it get as big as the apparent scandal in Tulsa without somebody noticing?

Until you reach a certain critical mass of scandal, there’s very little to be done, because the police officers hold all the cards.

Several Tulsa-area criminal-defense lawyers say their clients had long alleged that police had fabricated evidence and attributed it to anonymous informants. But they could rarely make a judge take notice, not when it was a suspect’s word against an officer’s.

“You going to believe the police, or someone from the ghetto who has been in trouble before?” said DeMarco Deon Williams.

As it is, that culture may still protect some of the officers on the edge of the scandal.

Four additional officers and one retired officer are under indictment on multiple charges including depriving suspects of their civil rights and distributing drugs. Trials are set for January. All five men deny wrongdoing.

Officer Phil Evans, president of the police union, says he has a hard time believing the allegations. And attorneys for the indicted officers predict vindication. They say the evidence against the officers is flimsy—and relies heavily on the word of convicted criminals.

“This will be a credibility contest and, quite frankly, we welcome that,” said Stephen Jones, who represents indicted Officer Jeff Henderson

Credibility. Yeah. You know, it means more than just whether you wear a uniform (or work for someone who does).

As the property tax rates in Tulsa go up to pay off the inevitable lawsuits, the homeowners should start asking about the credibility of those who sold them this drug war.

Jacob Sullum at Reason’s Hit and Run:

Today John R. Jones III, associate vice president of Northern Illinois University, informed Jeremy Orbach, president of the school’s chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, that NIU’s administration is stepping in to recognize SSDP as a “social justice, advocacy, and support organization,” which means it can use campus facilities and is eligible for activity fee funding. The administration is thereby overriding the Student Association Senate, which twice voted against recognizing SSDP based on vague, constitutionally suspect criteria. In a letter (PDF) to Orbach, Jones writes:

I have made the determination, under the unique circumstances of this case, to administratively recognize SSDP as a student organization at Northern Illinois University. Your application appears to be in order, and the other documentation that I have reviewed is not sufficiently clear to identify a justifiable reason for the denial of such recognition….

This is not a big surprise. As a state university, NIU is the government as far as the 1st Amendment is concerned.

Once this story hit the news, their legal counsel probably told them that the student association actions were leading to an legally actionable result.

Congrats to NIU for such a prompt response and for going the step beyond to fix the process.

In addition to this action, the Division of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management is establishing a task force comprised of University officials and Student Association members to review and revise the recognition and funding processes as they relate to student organizations…

Lastly, the SA is collaborating with the University to develop a more formal training module for use by the Student Association on the applicable legal standards that have been established by the court systems regarding student recognition processes in public university settings.

I know a lot of you aren’t on Facebook, but for those who are, there are more and more good drug policy reform resources all the time.

Here’s a good one I hadn’t seen before:

A War on Drugs: A War on People

This excellent page discusses the global ramifications of the drug war and is:

Committed to raising awareness about the human rights violations that occur under the auspices of the war on drugs

And, of course, don’t forget to join Willie Nelson’s Teapot Party on Facebook (which has organized its first national meetupevent.

Of course, Students for Sensible Drug Policy have a strong presence on Facebook, not only from their national organization, but individual chapters around the world with their own pages.

There are active pages for Law Enforcement Against Prohitibion, Drug Policy Alliance, NORML Women’s Alliance, Marijuana Policy Project, Marijuana is Safer, Transform Drug Policy Foundation, International Centre for Science in Drug Policy, Flex Your Rights, The Vienna Declaration, and more.

And don’t forget, you can follow Drug WarRant on Facebook as well, where all Drug WarRant posts are also duplicated with its own audience of over 1,000 daily views.

Are there good drug policy reform Facebook pages that I’m missing?

I ended up yanking about 5 comments today from a variety of folks for breaking the rules, so I thought it might be a good idea to recap my philosophy on comment moderating.

• Don’t call other commenters nasty names.

Pretty simple, huh?

Why? It’s not that I’m squeamish about the language or haven’t used that language myself to talk about the DEA or someone else in prohibition — rather it’s my experience that once it happens, the whole conversation turns into nothing but a shouting match and nothing interesting is said again.

Also, since this is my blog, I reserve the right to be completely arbitrary and unfair about it. I may yank yours even though someone else said something worse to you. Just like in football, it may be the retaliation that gets the penalty.

Sometimes it’s because I’ve been too busy to read them all, but other times I have my reasons.

For instance, if a prohibitionist or prohibition enabler stops by and calls us nasty names, I’ll probably leave the post up. We don’t get them here often enough and it’s nice to have a chance to argue with them (argue, not call them names). If you respond in kind, it brings you down to that level, cuts off any chance of having a discussion, and allows them to prance away gloating that “those legalizers didn’t even have a response to my argument — they just called me names, because they knew I was right.”

A couple of you found clever backhanded ways to give a dig back, while refuting the arguments. That’s cool.

Final note: a commenter I’ve never seen before left a comment wishing someone a bullet in the head. Comments like that will not only be pulled, but will probably get the commenter banned.

Feel free to disagree — actively, passionately, vocally, and intelligently, but civilly.

Thanks! I’ve got some of the best commenters out there and we have some amazing discussions.

The December 27, 2010 edition of The Nation focuses heavily on Drug Policy Reform

Nearly forty years after President Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” it is painfully clear that the nation’s approach to drug policy is counterproductive and cruel. Shifting our priorities toward a more sensible approach—one that offers treatment rather than punishment for addicts, and that recognizes the deep injustice of mass incarceration—seems like a daunting task. But as the writers in this forum suggest, we have all the answers and resources we need. If ever there was a time to say enough is enough, it’s now. —The Editors

There are 13 articles on the drug war in this issue. Many of them available now online (a few of them are subscriber-only).

If you’re not familiar with the concept of official student groups at state universities, here’s how it works in most cases….

A group of students can get together and form an organization (which may or may not be connected to a national organization) and get approved as an official student group (usually by submitting a set of by-laws, list of officers and getting a faculty advisor). Once approved, the group usually gets certain benefits, such as being able to check out university rooms for free for meetings and events, being able to promote their events and meetings through a variety of means on campus, and have the ability to apply for student fee money for the purpose of providing programming or other activities that are open to the student body as a whole.

Since state universities are government entities, they cannot by law discriminate based on viewpoint.

Northern Illinois University has an odd system. They differentiate between political organizations (campus Republicans and Democrats) and social advocacy organizations (including such things as anti-war organizations and pro-or-anti abortion groups). Political organizations are not allowed to apply for funds, but get the other benefits of being a student organization, social advocacy organizations can also apply for funds.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy was established as a social advocacy organization at NIU but was told by members of the student government, who apparently didn’t agree with their message, that they should apply as a political organization. The SSDP members felt that was wrong and that they shouldn’t be denied the option of applying for funding, so they went ahead and applied as a social advocacy organization. The NIU Student Association Senate denied their application completely, so now SSDP cannot even meet on campus.

Press release from SSDP

“It’s clear that the NIU Student Association Senate is incapable of fairly imposing its policies on student groups and after speaking with lawyers and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), we believe that the NIU Student Association Senate is in violation of the First Amendment,” explained Jonathan Perri, Associate Director at SSDP. “Unfortunately, it also seems that some members of the Senate are simply opposed to SSDP’s mission to promote an open and rational discussion about alternatives to current drug policies, including marijuana legalization, and that this may be the basis for their decision.”

SSDP has been an important voice of reform in this country (and internationally) by involving young people in issues of extreme importance. Just downstate at Illinois State University, where I function as faculty advisor for the SSDP chapter, the group is well received in the university community and their Constitutional rights are protected by both the student government and upper administration.

The student government at NIU is shooting themselves in the foot. They should welcome the debate that SSDP brings, and they should eliminate the bizarre and impractical distinction between political and social advocacy groups.

Sorry about neglecting to pass on the programming note regarding the CNBC documentary that was on tonight called “Marijuana USA.”

Here’s the CNBC page on the show.

There are also showings at midnight and 1 am ET (may be more later).

Let us know if you saw it and what you thought.

Site note: I’ve been getting a huge spike in comment spam this week, so I’m afraid I’m just deleting the entire batch each time without actually looking through 45 pages of them. Sorry if one of your comments got stuck in there.

So we spend millions of taxpayer dollars on the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign — a campaign that has been shown to have almost no positive effect and, in fact, has even been shown to have a reverse effect.

The advertising agencies they hire know this, so they keep trying to come up with a new and different approach that is going to appeal to kids today.

They even pay lip service to the idea that trying to use advertising by the government to change youth behavior is absurd..

We know that you’re very smart when it comes to the messages you see and hear. That’s great and you should question us, too.

Sometimes you just gotta wonder what they think they’re actually accomplishing. I just saw this on TV…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T82Z40t8Y8k

We’re really spending money on this?

OK, well they may not think that’s what they passed, but I don’t know any other way to accomplish this.

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

1. declares that drug trafficking organizations cultivating illicit marijuana on Federal lands in the United States pose an unacceptable threat to the safety of law enforcement and the public;
2. affirms that it is the responsibility of the Federal Government to confront the threat of illicit marijuana cultivation on Federal lands; and
3. calls upon the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy to work in conjunction with Federal and State agencies to develop a comprehensive and coordinated strategy to permanently dismantle Mexican drug trafficking organizations operating on Federal lands.

Via LEAP, who were ready with a great response:

“No matter how many grow operations are eradicated or cartel leaders are arrested, there will always be more people willing to take the risk to earn huge profits in the black market for marijuana,” said Richard Newton, a former U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent who is now a speaker for the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “My years of experience in federal drug enforcement tell me that only when we legalize and regulate marijuana will we put a stop to this madness. After all, you don’t see too many Mexican wine cartels growing grapes in our national parks, and that’s because alcohol is legal.”

At the Drug Czar’s “blog”: ONDCP and Canada Renew Partnership in Substance Abuse Work

Last month Director Kerlikowske visited Ottawa, Canada to share the Obama Administration’s efforts to restore balance to drug control efforts and discuss drug issues affecting both sides of the border.

Ah yes, “balance.” That’s the code word that the drug czar likes to use to excuse why, if he’s already ended the drug war, and they know that supply side policy doesn’t work, they still use so much enforcement. It’s really a “balanced” approach of [and then they mumble] mostly law enforcement. It’s sort of like calling it a balanced approach to a diet when you have a diet coke after eating an entire Death by Chocolate.

On his first trip to the Canada in his official capacity…

Interesting wording there. Perhaps a staffer in the office doesn’t realize that Canada is a sovereign nation (actually, perhaps the entire office doesn’t realize that) and going “to Canada” isn’t going “to the Canada” — it’s not like going “to the mall.”

He also discussed how these measures, combined with smarter use of law enforcement, could help reduce the southbound flow of drugs, especially methamphetamine and ecstasy, from Canada into the U.S. and stream of guns into Canada from the U.S.

Yep, there’s the real agenda. Supply-side, pure and simple.

He also met with the Honorable Peter Kent, Minister of State of Foreign Affairs; the Honorable Rob Nicholson, M.P. for Niagara Falls, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada; the Honorable Vic Toews, M.P for Provencher and Minister of Public Safety; and Member of Parliament the Honorable John Weston to discuss cross-border issues on drugged driving…

Really? He is so determined to beat this dead horse. He apparently sees his claim to fame (other than ending the drug war, of course) to be the creation of an international epidemic of drugged driving out of thing air all by himself. I wonder what those “cross-border issues on drugged driving” are? Do we have a lot of people who are driving high and failing to stop at checkpoints? Is drugged driving something that is catching and they might have to seal the border to keep it from spreading?

During meetings with Mr. William J.S Elliott, Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and with members of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police Drug Abuse Committee, Director Kerlikowske discussed current drug-related challenges and explored opportunities for cross-border collaboration across a range of law enforcement of issues.

More “balance.” And more bad grammar.

Hope you had fun on your trip to the Canada, Director Kerlikowske. Did they enjoy your lies as much as we do?