Drug WarRant

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.

I’ve added a new feature for Drug WarRant readers who follow the site on mobile devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, etc.). You’ll now get a new streamlined version of the site that’s a fast download and very easy to read on those devices.

Don’t worry — if you prefer to get it the usual way on your mobile device, just scroll down to the bottom and make the switch.

I’d love to hear from any mobile users — let me know if it works OK for you. This change shouldn’t have affected anything for regular users (Firefox, Safari, IE, etc. on a computer), so please let me know if, for some reason, you’re getting the mobile version when you shouldn’t.

There’s an excellent OpEd at Alternet, written by Penny Coleman, the widow of a Vietnam veteran who took his own life after coming home: 10 Reasons the U.S. Military Should (Officially) Use Pot

I know this is an issue of some importance to a number of our regular readers.

Lots of good points… here are some interesting ones:

Restore the reputation of the VA among veterans.

After all the criticism of the VA for limiting access, shredding claims, misdiagnosing illnesses as a cost-saving trick and using soldiers as uninformed guinea pigs to test pharmaceutical drugs linked to suicide and other violent side effects, veterans invited by the VA to knowingly participate in a marijuana study might be inclined to allow the euphorogenic qualities associated with cannabis to blur their outrage, even to the point of forgiveness.

Israeli rats have less stress than American soldiers.

In an article published in the September issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, Israeli scientists revealed that injecting synthetic marijuana into the brains of rats allowed them to recover faster from trauma. In fact, it “cancelled out the symptoms of stress.” […]

Soldier Suicides […]

Soldier suicides are at an all-time high and so are prescriptions for all kinds of new and dangerous drugs. Nobody can say for sure if there is a connection between those two facts, and I would never suggest that marijuana could or should take the place of SSRIs or any other drugs proven to be effective in managing PTSD. Or that marijuana could prevent soldier suicides. But the vast majority of drugs the VA prescribes for PTSD are known to worsen depression, increase suicidal thinking or increase risk of death in enough people to warrant the warning.

The same is not true of marijuana.

Supporting our troops is not accomplished by putting a ribbon on your car or a God Bless America poster in your window. More soldiers are surviving combat these days but coming back with serious conditions that need help. How can we be said to be supporting our troops when we force veterans to turn to street criminals to score medicine that will help them?

We have some amazing discussions in the comments section here and I tend to let them run without interfering too much. Lately, though, it has, on occasion, gotten a bit contentious among people of differing views who should be working together.

With the new year, it’s probably a good time for me to clarify once again the views of this site.

Drug WarRant believes in working toward the ultimate goal of the legalization of currently illicit drugs. That legalization could include different regulation regimes for different drugs. Legalization is defined as a state where “responsible adults may legally acquire, possess, and use a particular drug, although there may be restrictions on time, place and manner.”

Legalization of all drugs is important as a matter of individual liberty. It is also a matter of extreme importance to eliminate the horrendous worldwide damage caused by prohibition. Any “solution” that doesn’t dismantle the criminal prohibition regime and dramatically reduce the black market profits/corruption is incomplete.

In an ideal world, we would eliminate prohibition today, all at once. Some prefer to push for that approach. Others believe that it can only happen in steps — that legalization of marijuana (the largest of the illicit drugs) is a major step in dismantling the prohibition regime, making it easier to tackle the other drugs — or that legalizing medical marijuana will make it easier for the people to accept the idea of legalizing recreational marijuana.

We welcome all those looking for drug policy reform to this site. That includes those who may only be focused on one aspect of reform (such as medical marijuana, recreational marijuana, freeing up opioid pain management, harm reduction techniques, prison reform, oxycontin for fun, etc., etc.) The fact that they are focused on one area doesn’t mean that they are antagonistic to the bigger picture (nor are they hypocrites). As disagreements occur, educating others on our side as to why your approach to the big picture is important is fine — a great idea. However, spending lots of time calling allies names is unproductive.

Drug Policy Reform is a tiring business (I know — I’ve been writing this blog for over 6 years). It certainly feels like we should be able to go faster, and it’s frustrating to see the same lies and deceits in the media and our government officials. And yet, progress is being made, and it’s because of us. It’s because we’re doing a better job of educating the public as to the truth of drug policy issues than the government is doing with propagandizing them.

Drug policy reform can be a messy coalition. Conservatives have a set of good reasons to want reform, which may be different from the set of good reasons of liberal drug policy reformers. Hippies, corporatists, capitalists, environmentalists, Christians, atheists, ex-cons, ex-cops all have disagreements, yet can all have compelling reasons to support drug policy reform. If we want to build the critical mass that will force politicians to follow us, we need all those disparate views

So let’s make an effort to avoid calling our allies names. If you find yourself doing that too often, channel that into something productive. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper (or one of thousands across the country) — go to MAPinc for help in writing letters, or finding papers to write, or finding how you can volunteer as a newshawk. Or volunteer to help Law Enforcement Against Prohibition set up speaker engagements.

Thanks to all of you for your passion, your commitment, and your determination to end the destruction of prohibition.

Let’s work together toward another good year.

With this year just about over, what do we have to show for it? It’s certainly been an interesting year for drug policy reform, and I’d say one possibly our best in terms of progress made in the most important area: building critical mass for reform.

Here are some re-cap stories (and similar items) from various places…

Drug War Chronicle: Top 10 Domestic Drug Policy Stories

• Marijuana Goes Mainstream
• Medical Marijuana: The Feds Butt Out and the Floodgates Begin to Swing Open
• The Reflexive Prohibitionist Impulse Remains Alive — Just Ask Sally D
• “We Must Drug Test Welfare and Unemployment Recipients!”
• Rockefeller Drug Law and Other State Sentencing Reforms
• Swatting SWAT
• America Finally Notices the Drug War Across the River
• Congress Ends Ban on Needle Exchange Funding, Butts Out of DC Affairs
• Questioning the Drug War: Two Congressional Bills
• The Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity

Tony Newman, writing at Alternet, has a slightly different approach to a top-10 for the year: 10 Signs the Failed Drug War Is Finally Ending
2009 will go down as the beginning of the end of America’s longest running war. Here’s 10 reasons why.

1. Three Former Latin American Presidents Call Drug War a Failure (February)
2. Michael Phelps and the Bong Hit Heard Around the World (February)
3. Obama Justice Department Says No More Raids on Patients and Caregivers in States with Medical Marijuana Laws (March)
4. Drop the Rock! NY’s Draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws Finally Reformed (April)
   Governor Arnold Calls for Debate on Legalizing Marijuana: Voters to Decide in 2010 (May)
5. Drug Czar Calls for End to the Drug War (May)
6. Mexico and Argentina Move to Decriminalize Marijuana and other Drugs (August)
7. The Results Are In: Portugal’s Decriminalization Law of 2001 Reduced Transmission of Disease, Cut Overdose Deaths and Incarceration, While Not Increasing Drug Use. (August)
8. Coming Out of the Closet: “Stiletto Stoners” Explain Why They Like Marijuana (September)
9. The Marijuana Legalization Debate Hits the Mainstream (Fall )

Note: With both stories above, be sure to go to the original article to read the full description under each item.

This item in The Nation really threw me for a loop. I was rather shocked to come across this poll in a major political magazine:

What was the best political moment of 2009?

• Obama’s inauguration. It marked the end of the Bush years and set a hopeful tone for the year.
• Iran’s revolutionary moment. A new generation of activists’ tweets are heard around the world.
• Obama’s progressive drug policy reforms. A first step towards an exit plan for the ‘war on drugs.’
• The confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor. Obama’s appointment broke with precedent; gave the court its first hispanic woman chief justice.
• America’s renewed outreach to the international community. The Cairo speech heralded a renewed embrace of diplomacy.

Wait. Really? That item stunned me on multiple levels. First, for those of us working on drug policy reform, it’s extremely hard to think of Obama as a leader in drug policy reform. Second, for a major political mag to consider working toward an exit plan for the ‘war on drugs’ to be an important political goal — well, that’s pretty exciting in itself.

Of course, good things have happened this year — some may say that those things happened despite Obama. After all, his Drug Czar (and all his other appointees) has been no friend to true reform. And didn’t Obama himself derisively laugh at us internet drug policy reformers… more than once?

And yet… and yet… I am willing to posit that Obama’s Presidency has been, if not a friend to reform, in many ways less of an obstacle to reform than past Presidencies. During the Presidential campaign, I said that I felt Obama’s value to drug policy reform would not be as a supporter of reform (that no President who could become elected would be a reform supporter), but rather through “benign neglect” — through not completely shutting down the doors that others might go through — and I believe that has been the case. In fact, everything from his Drug Czar’s bumbling vocabulary limitations to Obama’s derisive laughter has actually helped us in a backhanded way (I’m not giving him credit, just saying that the actions of the administration have done nothing to shore up the reputation of the drug war, allowing us to effectively chip away at it).

Jordan Smith in the Austin Chronicle has Top 9 Joints

1. Patients Free to Inhale
2. Some Like it Pot
3. Don’t Know What He’s Smoking
4. Frustrated Farmers Jailed
5. Cracking the Cocaine Disparity
6. Pricks Kill Needles … Again
7. We Don’t Talk Like That in El Paso
8. Pot From Coast to Coast
9. Your Choice: Treatment or Jail

The last one caught my eye… Full text is:

After years of hearing the nation’s drug czar jaw on and on about how potent pot is sending more tokers in search of medical help to quit their habit, the feds this year released a new set of statistics showing that – surprise, surprise! – 56% of people admitted to rehab for pot use have actually been sent there by the criminal justice system, as an alternative to going to jail for drug possession. Back to the drawing board, Mr. Czar.

Actually, of course, we’ve known and have been trying to get that information across for some years. But I’m always happy to have someone discover it anew and talk about it.

What are your top stories for 2009? Any that weren’t listed here?

The New York Times came out with a very strong, even harsh, editorial last week that’s worth noting.

Righting a Wrong, Much Too Late

Public health advocates held an understandably muted celebration when President Obama signed a bill repealing a 21-year-old ban on federal financing for programs that supply clean needles to drug addicts.

The bill brought an end to a long and bitter struggle between the public health establishment — which knew from the beginning that the ban would cost lives — and ideologues in Congress who had closed their eyes to studies showing that making clean needles available to addicts slowed the rate of infection from H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, without increasing drug use.

But the shift in policy comes too late for the tens of thousands of Americans — drug addicts and their spouses, lovers and unborn children — who have died from AIDS and AIDS-related diseases. Many of these people would not have become infected had Congress followed sound medical advice and embraced the use of clean needles.

It’s good for the New York Times to bring this level of condemnation to such horrific Congressional policy. Yet it means less after the fact. Surely, there are other horrific Congressional policies related to drugs that could be condemned now, and thereby avert needless loss of life, rather than merely bemoaning the loss later?

This is probably of little significance, but I found it interesting.

Altria Group, the parent company of tobacco company Philip Morris USA, has filed an arbitration proceeding to get the domain names AltriaMarijuana.com and AltriaCannabis.com.

Is the company getting ready for the day pot becomes legal? Perhaps, but the company is probably more concerned about the content on the web sites. Both sites invite visitors to “Fight Against the Legalization of Marijuana” and ridicule tobacco companies as beneficiaries of legalization of the drug.

Yep, these are sites that proclaim themselves to Fight Against the Legalization of Marijuana. Not very well designed, and with limited content (and probably more visitors based on this link than any other source). Curiously, the site designer included, in the links section, under “To find our more on the dangers of Marijuana…” the Marijuana: Myths and Facts page from Drug Policy Alliance!

Apparently not a reader.

Despite great gains in so many ways, every now and then, we run into the fear, the… taboo of even including factual representations of drugs or drug policy. Recently, there were two prime examples.

1. Chased.

Chase conducted an online contest to award millions of dollars to the top hundred vote-getting charities. As part of the effort, non-profit groups worked hard to get individuals to vote for them, which included becoming online “fans” of Chase bank.

It appears certain that three of the top 100 vote-getting organizations were denied the chance to win. Two of these were Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and Marijuana Policy Project.

More info at the Boycott Chase site.

As Radley Balko says:

It’s Chase’s money, of course. They can do what they want with it. But they got free advertising from these groups who promoted the contest. And I’m also free to call Chase a bunch of cowards for not backing their promotion because some of the winners were too controversial.

2. Smoked

It’s Complicated. No, that’s the name of the movie — the situation involved isn’t complicated at all.

The MPAA has embarrassed itself an untold number of times over the years for its prudish attitude toward sex and its wildly permissive attitude toward violence. But what’s it’s done to Nancy Meyers’ upcoming comedy, “It’s Complicated,” is perhaps the ratings board’s biggest boneheaded move yet.

[…] the MPAA has given Meyers’ fluffy comedy about a middle-aged love triangle an R rating because Meryl Streep and Steve Martin’s (who star in the film along with Alec Baldwin) characters are seen sharing a joint while on a date.

The problem, according to people involved with the board’s hearing on the issue, isn’t that the actors are seen smoking pot — it’s that the scene “features pot-smoking with no bad consequences.” Apparently, everything would’ve been fine if only the characters had been killed in a gory car crash …

I just saw the incredible and wonderful movie “Avatar.” The final sequence has scene after scene of horrific violence, death and destruction. The movie received a PG-13 rating. So did “G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra” and thousands of other violent movies. One joint, however, gets you an R.

What a strange world in which we live.