Drug WarRant

An outstanding article by Paul Campos in the Wall Street Journal: Undressing the Terror Threat.

It’s primarily about the dysfunctional war on terror and the stupidity of playing by “Terrorball” rules:

1. The game lasts as long as there are terrorists who want to harm Americans; and
2. If terrorists should manage to kill or injure or seriously frighten any of us, they win.

It’s a climate that has fostered “the current ascendancy of the politics of cowardice—the cynical exploitation of fear for political gain.”

Terrorball, in short, is made possible by a loss of the sense that cowardice is among the most disgusting and shameful of vices. I shudder to think what Washington, who as commander in chief of the Continental Army intentionally exposed himself to enemy fire to rally his poorly armed and badly outnumbered troops, would think of the spectacle of millions of Americans not merely tolerating but actually demanding that their government subject them to various indignities, in the false hope that the rituals of what has been called “security theater” will reduce the already infinitesimal risks we face from terrorism.

Campus also relates this to the war on drugs:

…not treating Americans as adults has costs. For instance, it became the official policy of our federal government to try to make America “a drug-free nation” 25 years ago.

After spending hundreds of billions of dollars and imprisoning millions of people, it’s slowly beginning to become possible for some politicians to admit that fighting a necessarily endless drug war in pursuit of an impossible goal might be a bad idea. How long will it take to admit that an endless war on terror, dedicated to making America a terror-free nation, is equally nonsensical?

We’ve always said that the current approach to fighting the “war on terror” has its roots in the corrupt war on drugs. They are inextricably linked in their dysfunction.

A former New York City police commissioner backs his car into a pregnant woman and drives off. He faces no consequences.

Interesting.

Yet when drug war victim Jonathan Ayers feared for his life when undercover officers approached his car, and backed into one of them when trying to get away, that was justification for shooting and killing him.

New Jersey Scraps Mandatory Minimums Tied to Drug-Free Zones

Yesterday the New Jersey State Assembly passed a bill, already approved by the state Senate, that allows judges to waive heretofore mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenses committed in “drug-free zones.” Under state law, such zones include any place within 1,000 feet of a school or 500 feet of a park, library, museum, or public housing project. Selling drugs (or possessing them with intent to sell) within that area triggers a mandatory minimum sentence of three years.

Mandatory minimums based on zones have been a particularly ugly aspect of drug law, as they have a greater impact on inner cities and minorities.

Here’s an example of a map from a small town in New Jersey. You can imagine what it’s like in a big city.

Scott Morgan says It’s Time to Legalize Medical Marijuana in Professional Sports

Judge orders CHP to return 60 pounds of marijuana. I would have really loved to watch them return it.

Oregon police chief admits incompetence, says medical marijuana law is “unenforceable.” Seems to me he might want to be a little more concerned about what’s causing those mutant horses in his newsletter’s banner picture.

Couldn’t happen to a better guy… Grand jury investigating Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona

I guess the real question I have is… how can this feudal Sheriff of Nottingham, with such obvious contempt for civilized society, our country’s principles, and our Constitution, operate with impunity for so long?

DrugSense Weekly – a weekly review of the most interesting or relevant articles in the press and on the web related to drug policy reform.

Drug War Chronicle – weekly update of drug war news and analysis from Stop the Drug War.org.

Congratulations to Russell Barth and Robert Sharpe for being the MAP 2009 Letter to the Editor Writers of the Year.

Russell Barth had 183 letters published. Robert Sharpe had 176 letters published.

Russell Barth writes to Canadian newspapers from his home in Nepean, Ontario. Canada has less than an eighth the number of daily newspapers as does the United States. MAP has archived a total of 678 of his published letters which you may read at http://www.mapinc.org/writers/Russell+Barth

Robert Sharpe writes to newspapers all over the world from his home in Maryland. MAP has archived a total of 2,248 of his published letters which you may read at http://www.mapinc.org/writers/Robert+Sharpe

I write a letter now and then when something pisses me off so much, it’s not enough to talk about it here. MAP has archived a total of 8 of my published letters which you may read at http://www.mapinc.org/writers/Guither

How many have you written?

The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union has done some really outstanding work in drug policy reform, and their films are extremely well done.

They took the opportunity at the recent Drug Policy Reform Conference with Transform releasing After the war on drugs; Blueprint for Regulation, to ask drug policy reformers their views on some post-drug war options.

Nicely done. You may not agree with each individual’s ideas, but the dialogue is outstanding.

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal on prohibition. Interesting in that it managed to not even mention today’s prohibition once.

Drug prohibition doesn’t work – so what do we do next? – a good OpEd by Chris Middendorp in the Sydney Morning Herald

The focus of any drug debate should not be morals or the law; it should concentrate on the welfare of human beings. The common use of the term “junkie” helps us to maintain the belief that users of substances are in some way lesser beings. Part of the reason we’ve comfortably followed the prohibition path for so long has been mainstream culture’s view of drug users as subhuman creatures who need redemption. What they really need is medical support and laws that make sense.

As long as we’re down under, Logan sent me this delightful article about a real Australian individualist from Mountain Creek.

A MOUNTAIN Creek man told a magistrate yesterday that he grew his own marijuana crops because he refused to fund the Sunshine Coast’s illegal drug trade.

Terry John Lanigan said it did not matter what penalty the magistrate handed down, he would continue to grow organic cannabis for him and his partner to use. […]

“I don’t mean to be cheeky, but I’ll always continue to smoke marijuana and grow a little bit of marijuana for myself.”

Another nice article by Tim King at Salem-News.com. He’s pointing out the position of a particular local candidate, yet manages to take the time to point out the history of hemp in the U.S.

On the other hand, check out this bizarre editorial in the Democrat Herald: Forty years of ‘drug war’ What a pathetic editorial staff. They seem afraid to take a position.

The obvious question: Has the drug war been worth it, especially in regard to marijuana?

Nobody can say for sure.

Really?

Perhaps if, after 40 years, you can’t say for sure that it’s been worth it, then maybe that’s evidence that it hasn’t, hmmm?

This is disturbing. ‘Anthrax heroin’ cases spreading

Health officials believe contaminated heroin – thought to be responsible for cases of anthrax in Glasgow – may be circulating elsewhere in Scotland.

It comes after the death of two more drug users with the infection in Glasgow and Tayside.

Just as with the fentanyl spiked heroin deaths in the U.S., these are sad, but clear reminders that legalization is needed to reduce harm. In a legal, regulated market, such a thing would be unlikely to happen. But no, we turn the safety controls of drugs over to criminals.

Nice job by LEAP getting a punch in after the recent criticism by the DEA of the New York City pamphlet on harm reduction for heroin use.

group of police officers, judges and prosecutors who fought in the “war on drugs” and witnessed its failures is pushing back against the DEA for its criticism of a New York City-funded booklet that encourages heroin users to adopt safer practices. The group, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), points out that the booklet is intended to prevent overdose deaths and help reverse the high rate of disease transmission related to injection drug use.

“While we all want to stop addiction to dangerous drugs like heroin, the fact is that some people do choose to use despite the billions of dollars we spend on the failed ‘war on drugs,'” said Norm Stamper, a speaker for LEAP and Seattle’s retired chief of police. “Providing users with tips on how to keep themselves as safe as possible and reduce the spread of disease makes us all safer and cuts down on public health and criminal justice expenses elsewhere. The booklet is like a vaccine that helps reduce some of the harm related to heroin abuse. Who could be against that?”

Anthony Papa also has a response at Alternet.

I ran into an interesting paragraph at Family Security Matters. I’ve run across their site a couple of times and don’t find their views particularly useful, but I was intrigued by this article by Frank Hill, in which he suggested that we should stop blaming others for so many of our troubles.

Here’s the paragraph — it’s worth analyzing because of the power inside these two simple sentences:

The drug crisis would disappear if we and our children stopped using cocaine and marijuana for recreational purposes. Drug pushers don’t force it down our throats; we willingly buy it and use it and talk about it as if it was something to be proud of.

Let’s start with the second sentence: “Drug pushers don’t force it down our throats; we willingly buy it and use it…” Very true. And this is an area where we constantly face blatantly absurd statements. The liberals will talk about the dangerous drugs that poison people, while the conservatives bemoan the evil drug dealers that poison people, but, in fact, the incidents of people being drugged against their will are rare indeed.

Most people who receive drugs seek them out willingly, even eagerly, and voluntarily offer to pay money for them. And, most of them do so with full knowledge of the risks involved (to the extent that they don’t, that’s another bad side-effect of prohibition).

It’s nice to see this point acknowledged, and it’s important that we make it clear to people.

Back to the first sentence: “The drug crisis would disappear if we and our children stopped using cocaine and marijuana for recreational purposes.” Also true. If everyone voluntarily stopped using currently illicit drugs, the problems related to those drugs and the prohibition of those drugs would go away pretty much overnight. Absolutely true. And absolutely irrelevant, because it’s an absolute impossibility.

This is like saying “If everyone stopped having sex, we could eliminate STDs, abortions, and unwanted pregnancies.” True, but absurd — not even worthy of a science fiction short story.

You can take responsibility for yourself, and say “I’m not going to take these drugs,” and you can attempt to encourage those around you to follow your lead, but you have no power to force the rest of the world to suddenly move into your fantasy world where nobody wants to do drugs, and all the hot people want to sleep with you.

In the article, Frank Hill invokes Pogo’s famous cartoon line “Yep, son, we have met the enemy and he is us.” And it’s true, but not in the way Hill envisions. Yes, people choose to do drugs, but that’s not us-as-enemy, that’s freedom. And yes, we could end drug problems by stopping all drug use, but that’s also not us-as-enemy, that’s fantasy.

The enemy that is us… is prohibition. It is the war that we fight against our own people, our own children, with our own money. It is the politician afraid to follow the truth, the neighbor seduced by the propaganda, the cop and prosecutor caught up in the heat of the battle. It’s the academic who just wants to find a better way to make prohibition work, the scientist who goes for the gold and the publicity, rather than the science. It’s the political party member who says this just isn’t the time for reform.

The enemy is us, indeed.

There’s a new Law Enforcement Against Prohibition billboard up in Oklahoma, and LEAP member Wes Johnson got interviewed about it in this television news spot.

Of course, they had to get the “other side” and they naturally got someone whose paycheck is imperiled by such a message. His response was pretty easy to see through to those of us who know the facts.

“I’d personally like to see the billboard go away.” Mark Woodward is with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics — he not only disagrees with their message, but those behind it. “It’s giving people, whether it’s parents or kids, the wrong impression, that the police support the legalization of drugs and that’s absolutely not the truth.” He says any real police officer could not support legalizing drugs. “Anybody that has seen how drug addiction forces children to live in deplorable conditions would never come out and support this. In fact, they would continue to do everything they could to stop this.”

It probably is true that there are people out there in Oklahoma (and maybe even in that news team) that will listen to what Mark Woodward says and believe it without critical thought. But there are fewer of them, and their days are numbered.

Via LEAP…

Man Says Judge Arrested Him ‘On a Hunch’

NASHVILLE (CN) – A judge in Dickson County, Tenn., had officers pull a spectator out of his courtroom “on a hunch,” held him in custody and made him submit to a urinalysis for drugs, the man claims in Federal Court. Benjamin Marchant claims that General Sessions Judge Durwood Moore admitted that he “routinely drug-screens ‘spectators’ in his courtroom if he ‘thinks’ they may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.” Moore allegedly called it the “routine policy of the court.”

Routine policy? Fortunately, someone else had read the Constitution.

Moore acknowledged he had violated Marchant’s rights and was censured by the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Judiciary Court on May 1, 2009, the highest form of punishment short of seeking a judge’s removal from the bench, according to the complaint.

The court ordered Moore to “never violate a person’s constitutional rights as he did to the Plaintiff,” the complaint states.

Really. How does this guy get to be a judge? You have to be better informed to get a cosmetology license.

Mexico Arrests Brother of Slain Drug Kingpin

…. Ah, but wait…

Mexico nabs 3rd brother in reputed drug family

That’s right — we’re really dismantling the Beltran Leyva brothers now. So that should end the war in Mexico. After all, the Beltran Leyva brothers were… Wait. I don’t remember even hearing much about them before… but if they were so powerful, then dismantling them should still end the violence, right?

“The Zetas may now move against the Beltran Leyva and take them over, saying, ‘You are now taking orders from us, or we’ll kill you,'” Grayson said. “The good news is you’ve got a bad guy behind bars. The bad news is that this may enhance the Zetas.”

That possibility raises fears of even bloodier turf battles in a drug war that has already claimed more than 15,000 lives since Calderon took office in 2006.

In a possible sign of that fight, the bound, beaten bodies of two men were found Wednesday hanging by their necks from a highway overpass in the Sinaloa town of Los Mochis.

Nearby, a message was written on a piece of cardboard: “This territory already has an owner.” The message appeared to be from the Beltran Leyva cartel.

Authorities have blamed the Zetas for killing the marine’s relatives in retaliation for Arturo Beltran’s death.

Of course.

Well, at least we’re sending the message that we won’t stop our drug policy madness regardless of how many people die.

That’s something.

It’s not that often that you get such a neatly laid out list of reactions of candidates on this subject as we’ve gotten here from an AP questionnaire:

DEMOCRATS

— Dan Hynes: “I do not support the outright legalization of marijuana.”

— Pat Quinn: “People who are seriously ill deserve access to all medical treatments that will help them.”

GREEN

— Rich Whitney: “I support legalization of marijuana, period.”

REPUBLICANS

— Adam Andrzejewski: “I could support this bill as long as (it’s) for qualified medical uses only.”

— Bill Brady: “Legalizing medical marijuana appears to me to be nothing more than moving us down the slope of legalizing marijuana.”

— Kirk Dillard: “I do not support legalizing medical marijuana due to the concerns of the law enforcement community that it will be difficult to enforce.”

— Andy McKenna: “I would have opposed the legislation presented to the Senate.”

— Dan Proft: “In narrowly-defined instances where a doctor believes this treatment would alleviate the suffering of an individual … I would be inclined to allow a licensed doctor to prescribe such treatment.”

— Jim Ryan: “I would be open to a narrowly drawn bill that legalizes medical marijuana. It can provide needed relief for patients with various afflictions.”

— Bob Schillerstrom: “No conclusive evidence has been put forward to justify its legalization for medical purposes.”

Unfortunately, despite the fact that Whitney is probably most in tune with the electorate on this issue, it’s unlikely that he’ll get more than 8% of the vote, simply because the two major parties are way too powerful.