Drug WarRant

“bullet” Tom Ammiano (who sponsored the bill to legalize marijuana in California) in the SFGate:

What if California could raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue to preserve vital state services without any tax increase? And what if at the same time, we could, without any new expense, help protect our endangered wilderness areas while making it harder for our kids to get drugs? […]
There may be disagreements about what direction to take, but it is clear to everyone involved that our current approach is not working. Regulation allows common-sense controls and takes the marijuana industry out of the hands of unregulated criminals.
As a member of the state Assembly, I believe we must acknowledge reality and bring innovative solutions to the issue of marijuana, not simply wait for the federal government. This is how change happens. Californians lead rather than follow, and we can set an example for the nation as we did on medical marijuana by passing AB390.

“bullet” And he’s interviewed in Salon:

Do you think legalizing it endorses its use?
Its use is there anyway. People do it everywhere. It’s better if you have a situation, like with booze, when you regulate it. If you’re smoking the legal product, you’re an adult, and it’s not full of pesticides, additives or other crap. The environment would benefit because a lot of these rogue plantations pollute the water source and deplete the soil. The growers pull up and walk away without any kind of remediation. You have to admit to reality here. I think everyone has been on this big denial trip.

“bullet” Californians inspire others, too. Steve Huntley in today’s Chicago Sun Times writes Legalizing marijuana makes sense, cents

The day may not be far off when Americans conclude, as they did with Prohibition in the 1930s, that violence associated with the marijuana ban is worse than the drug’s social ills. Some will raise the slippery slope argument that legalization opens the way to decriminalizing hard drugs like heroin and cocaine. Maybe we would have that discussion if legal marijuana works out, but saying yeah to one doesn’t mean saying yes to the other.
Marijuana prohibition no longer makes sense, if it ever did. For the record, my recreational chemical of choice is alcohol. After the sun sets, I like to enjoy a glass of wine or scotch. Why shouldn’t my neighbor, if so inclined, be able to relax with a joint?

“bullet” Good news from California’s DMV. While they claim not to be changing policy, there had been indications that they were yanking driver’s licenses of medical marijuana patients simply because of their status. Now they’ve clarified that medical marijuana is treated “exactly the same as any other prescription drug.”
“bullet” The Appeal Democrat (Maysville, CA) editorial suggests that the next step needs to be re-scheduling marijuana.

The criteria for Schedule I are as follows: “A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse, B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.”
Marijuana does not meet any of these criteria. In 1988 the then-chief administrative law judge of the DEA, Francis Young, stated as much in an extensive advisory opinion based on several years of hearings. This view was reaffirmed by an extensive 1999 report in book form by the government’s Institute of Medicine, which summarized all the most recent research documenting marijuana’s medicinal uses and potential.
As the law is written, then, marijuana does not belong on Schedule I. If anything it belongs on Schedule V, the least-restrictive schedule. But even putting it on Schedule II (along with cocaine, morphine, amphetamines, PCP and opium) would allow physicians and their patients to use it appropriately. It would still not allow “recreational” use.
We understand that the Obama administration has a lot on its plate. But correcting this ongoing mistake, thereby alleviating a great deal of pain and suffering nationwide, is worth consideration.

“bullet” Then there are those in California who lead… the wrong way.
San Diego County is nothing if not determined (or perhaps pigheaded). They really don’t like the state’s medical marijuana law and are doing everything they can to avoid implementing it (at great taxpayer expense) despite being shot down by every court so far.

San Diego County attorneys say they are pressing ahead with a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to resolve conflicting state and federal medical marijuana laws. That‰s in spite of comments from U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, suggesting federal enforcement of marijuana laws may change.

I really don’t believe the Supreme Court will take this one. They’ve been pretty clear all along that while federal law supersedes state law, it doesn’t negate it.

The Sheriff of Essex County, Massachusetts writes of his discussions with young people about marijuana and decriminalization.
He says

We should never have reduced the criminal penalties associated with the possession of marijuana.

And so what are the reasons for this?

But the reality is if you use marijuana, and are arrested for the infraction, the charge stays on your permanent record. And such a charge may hinder your chances for employment, particularly if you ever had aspirations of working in law enforcement at the local, state or federal level.
A marijuana charge also negatively affects the way you are perceived when you apply for other jobs. You may, for example, lose your ability to apply for a commercial driver’s license if you garner a marijuana charge. You may also lose the chance to work for a particular company if that corporation requires regular drug tests and perceives you to be a habitual user of marijuana.
The list of problems associated with marijuana use is endless.

Um. Huh? Thats a list of problems associated with prohibition. The Sheriff appears to be saying that they should never have decriminalized marijuana because there are still major penalties that users could face.
What other reasons does the Sheriff offer?

I also reminded the students that when you become a regular marijuana user in high school, you are looked down upon by those who do not partake in the practice.

Ah, yes. Marijuana should be illegal because people will think less of you if you smoke it… Yeah, that makes sense.
It continues to amaze me that some law enforcement in Massachusetts is completely incapable of understanding…. the law.

Link
Narcotics officers in a two-county drug force in North Carolina were serving a warrant on a suspected marijuana dealer. After a hot, tiring day searching the house — and while waiting for the truck to load up the seized growing equipment and the misdemeanor amount of pot — they got some pizza… and beer.
It was very nice of County Sheriff Joe Shook to provide the beer, particularly since he had to drive across state lines to Georgia to get it (the county they were in was a dry county).

Drug Sweeps At Schools Applauded As Deterrent

Before police officers with drug-sniffing dogs scoured the halls at Mount Vernon High School on Tuesday, students were given a five-minute warning to come clean.
A few handed over prescription and over-the-counter medications hidden in their backpacks or lockers.
The hourlong building sweep that followed netted no illegal drugs, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a success, said detective Cpl. Matt Dailey of the Mount Vernon Police Department, who helped organize the search. “We want them to know that we’re out there; we’re watching.” […]
“I think the bang for the buck is very good on the return,” said Bob Cornwell, director of the Buckeye State Sheriffs’ Association. […]
School officials say that random, unannounced drug sweeps help them measure a school’s safety and security. The exercise also is designed to make students think twice, said Mount Vernon Superintendent Steve Short.

Yep, that’s a deterrent all right.
You know what else would be a good deterrent? Selecting students at random and making them strip naked in front of everyone while guards go through their clothes and bags. That’d be a good deterrent.
Or how about this? Gather all the students in an assembly and pick one and execute him in front of a firing squad right there in the gym. Tell the other students that’ll happen to anyone who uses drugs. That would be a good deterrent.
A little extreme? Sure.
But you see, this is the mentality that has infected our schools. Anything goes as long as it’s seen as a deterrent to drug use (even if it isn’t). And so our young people are raised believing that they have no rights and become perfect fodder for authoritarians.

I have been heartened by the incredible work and growth of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. It gives me hope for the future in the development of a base of young drug policy reform activists.
And then I see an editorial like this in the school newspaper of a major university (University of Arizona) and I smile.

But this policy could not be more relevant to our current condition, as the UA sinks into a financial mire of budget shortfalls, desperate reorganization schemes and forced cutbacks. What better time to ask whether pursuing and penalizing student drug-users is really the wisest use of our time and money?
Of course, the UA didn’t write this policy, and it might be argued that even a united university community would be hard-pressed to change a federal law. But difficult is not the same as impossible, and it’s not impossible to imagine changed policy resulting from a nation of colleges raging against a policy that demands that they treat campus pot-smokers the same way they would treat, say, an outbreak of campus heroin addiction.
Our student government leaders, so eager to leap on anything that smacks of the downtrodden, should make this issue their own. At the very least, they would make it clear that this issue is an issue, and one that affects us all. After all, even those of us who don’t partake still wind up paying when those who do get busted – we pay through the teeth for the service, in fact, every April.

A nation of colleges raging against a policy. That’s something to dream about.

An open letter to the President: Obama, you’re no stranger to the bong.

Is there not a point in this endless drug war where the absurdity reaches a level of critical mass?

A man was been arrested after police said he used counterfeit money to purchase fake OxyContin pills from an undercover officer.

One of the crimes they charged him with was “criminal simulation.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady has, in the past, demonstrated an understanding of the economics of the drug war — usually, unfortunately, without taking that final step in proposing the solution (she dances around it).
Today’s OpEd is a very bizarre piece. Tell me what you think, but it appears to me that she’s trying to find a way to push the Journal’s required anti-Obama venom, while sneaking in a message about legalization.
Here’s how it starts (complete with a picture of captured Mexican gang members in front of a helicopter with a display of seized weapons):

Just when you thought the effects of U.S. drug policy couldn’t get more pernicious, guess what? That’s where we’re headed.
Mexico’s young democracy is already paying a high price for the lethal combination of prohibition and strong gringo demand for mind-altering substances. Drug violence has escalated as Mexican suppliers intent on satisfying appetites across the border have tangled with each other and law enforcement. Now the U.S. is getting ready to raise the incentives for gangsters.

Whoa — what did that Obama do?

At a press conference last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder indicated that President Obama would keep a campaign promise by ending federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries.

Huh?

This means that the weed will remain illegal to transport and sell — and thus highly profitable for criminals — but there will be fewer repercussions for those who use it in states with liberal marijuana laws.

OK, that’s stretching a point a bit. Yes, it’s true that the big problem with any decrim-only effort is that it doesn’t remove the black market, and it’s also true that a certain amount of Mexican marijuana may get diverted into the medical marijuana market despite the state laws allowing caregivers to grow their own. But to say that eliminating federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries is going to enrich Mexican gangs is reaching – we’re not talking about eliminating laws here – merely allowing the states to enforce their own in this one area.
So now, wade through six or seven paragraphs about the violence in Mexico (including the now obligatory “violence means we’re winning” meme, this time by Mexican Attorney General Medina Mora), and you get the real point that O’Grady appears to want to make — hidden at the very end.

To really change things for the better, Latin American countries need the Americans to cut funding to the bad guys. Mr. Medina Mora estimates that drug consumers north of the Rio Grande put some $10 billion into the pockets of the cartels annually. This is how they either buy, intimidate or annihilate many of those who get in their way.
More interesting is Mexico’s estimates that half of all cartel revenue comes from the marijuana business. That means, by my calculation, that if you lift the prohibition on trafficking pot alone, it would cut mob income by half. It also means that if the U.S. adopts a wink-wink policy of tolerating marijuana use but keeps it officially illegal, the thugs are going to get richer.
It is considered politically risky in the U.S. to argue for lifting the ban on marijuana. But that’s no excuse for Mr. Obama’s policy, which will harm Mexico further. The country has already paid enough for American hypocrisy on drug use.

Interesting how she used “lift the prohibition on trafficking” and “lifting the ban” as tortured euphemisms for “legalize.”
Come on, Mary. Don’t hold back. Come out and say it. You know you want to!
Talk to your co-editors and get the Wall Street Journal behind legalization — not buried in the article, but in the headline and the lede. It’s the right thing to do.

This is a great time for drug policy reformers. There’s a lot of buzz out there, and there are a ton of drug policy issues being discussed. We need to take advantage of the opportunity and keep the discussion going.
Write a letter to the editor. Strike up a conversation with friends or co-workers about a story in the news. Or even simply comment on news stories in the comments section of your local paper.
In addition to commenting on the drug policy stories out there (Mexico, California legalization, New Jersey Medical Marijuana, etc.), another trick is to show people how so many different stories come back to drug policy reform. Your paper reports on the 15-year-old girl who was beaten by a cop? Forget that it wasn’t about drugs – point out that the drug war has created a dynamic where many cops look at citizens as the enemy.
A story on the economy? (There are lots of those these days.) Point out the massive amounts we’re spending on the drug war while making things worse. The drug war is a stimulus plan for criminal job creation.
A story about a pot bust? Throw them a curve. Compliment the officers on doing their job, but point out that in an hour the pot dealer will be replaced by another one and the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill for enforcement, prosecution and jail.
Use facts and reason. Take the high road. Don’t ramble or get angry, and avoid phrases like “Free the Weed!”
If you want help in writing Letters to the Editor, go to MAPinc – the main resource for getting published.

“bullet” Rob Kampia of the Marijuana Policy Project discussed marijuana legalization on Glenn Beck’s show. Crooks and Liars covered it (and has the video):

One person in this conversation was calm, reasonable, had an abundance of facts at hand, and actually made pretty good sense. The other person was incoherent, meandering, silly, made a lot of irrelevant observations from outer space, and relied on dumb stereotypes and non-facts.
And Glenn Beck was not the former. On top of that, his nonstop sneering at Kampia made him look like a real sphincter.
In fact, this entire clip generally makes a convincing argument in favor of the marijuana advocates. If the best the opposition can come up with is this kind of gaping stupidity …

“bullet” Report: Bush’s drug office lacked broader focus

The nonprofit National Academy of Public Administration says the $1.2 million study, which it planned to release Thursday, found that the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George W. Bush relied on selected data to show progress in combating illegal drug use by youth.
The office did not highlight less positive results among adults or pursue a comprehensive anti-drug strategy across age and demographic groups, the report found.

Well, duh!
“bullet” Just a couple of days ago, Caldron said that he vows to win the drug war. Now it turns how that “Calderon vows to win Mexico’s drug ‘cancer’ fight”

“It’s as though the patient told the doctor ‘my stomach hurts badly’ … And when he is operated on to remove what was thought to be an appendicitis, an already widespread cancer is found instead,” Calderon told Milenio TV.

Hmmm… doesn’t sound like a very good doctor.
“bullet” 10 years ago, the UN was proclaiming “A Drug Free World – We Can Do It.” Their new slogan seems to be “Hey, after 100 years, the drug problem has been contained, so we’re winning.” Apparently “contained” is a flexible term (Yup – we’ve got that problem contained, all right. It’s no bigger than it is.) and the damage caused by these “containment” efforts isn’t something to worry our pretty little heads over.
“bullet” If you haven’t already, please check out our own Allan Erickson’s OpEd “Legalize It,” published in the Eugene Weekly. Very nicely done – even though he did kind of ruin the punch line surprise of my stop sign joke by reversing it. 🙂
“bullet” Drug Sense Weekly
“bullet” “drcnet”