Drug WarRant

Yes, there have been a lot of ridiculous columns by entertainment and sports journalists about how Michale Phelps “shames us all” for his horrible action in taking a bong hit, but it’s been entertaining to me to read the comments to most of these articles and see the journalists being torn a new one by the public.
Some of them have been quite astonished that their readers weren’t supporting them in their ritual condemnation of Phelps. Hilarious.
Here’s a couple of delightful instances where the writers got it right.
Andrew Stuttaford at National Review Online’s the corner

Look, I don’t blame Michael Phelps for apologizing. He has a living to earn, so he did what he had to do.

In the meantime, I merely note that this broken wreck of a man’s failure to win any more than a pathetic fourteen Olympic gold medals (so far) is a terrifying warning of the horrific damage that cannabis can do to someone’s healthÖand a powerful reminder of just how sensible the drug laws really are.

And then, a clear must-read is Kathleen Parker in today’s Washington Post: Phelps Takes a Hit
She’s on fire:

And the law is the law. Therein lies the problem.

Our marijuana laws have been ludicrous for as long as we’ve been alive. Almost half of us (42 percent) have tried marijuana at least once, according to a report published last year in PLoS Medicine, a journal of the Public Library of Science.

The U.S., in fact, boasts the highest percentage of pot smokers among 17 nations surveyed, including The Netherlands, where cannabis clouds waft from coffeehouse windows. […]

Other better-known former tokers include our current president and a couple of previous ones, as well as a Supreme Court justice, to name just a few. A complete list would require the slaughter of several mature forests. […]

One recent ad produced by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy says: “Hey, not trying to be your mom, but there aren’t many jobs out there for potheads.” Whoa, dude, except maybe, like, president of the United States.

Once a kid realizes that pot doesn’t make him insane — or likely to become a burrito taster, as the ad further asserts — he might figure other drug information is equally false.

Thanks, Michael, for jump-starting a national conversation by taking a hit on a bong.

If it were only that easy for the rest of us…
Update: Joe Klein at Time Magazine jumps in: Legalize it, already

Kathleen Parker has the precisely correct reaction to the Michael Phelps flap. Marijuana should be legalized and taxed. It’s costing the society way too much in terms of law enforcement and hypocrisy.

“bullet” It appears that change.org is moving into its next phase and for their Legalize the Medicinal and Recreational Use of Marijuana idea, that Marijuana Policy Project will be working with them on implementation.
You can contribute suggestions, or comment on them. I find it a bit chaotic — the few really practical suggestions as to how to build a campaign are getting buried by meaningless statements of the “why isn’t the government doing anything” or “Return our Constitutional Rights” nature and a few people are dominating by posting ad nauseam.
“bullet” NORML has been running their third annual Marijuana Law Reform Ad Contest with individuals creating and submitting their own TV ads for $10,000 in prizes.
They’ve narrowed it down to the final 25 ads for you to vote on. Pick your three favorites.
It’s an interesting group. Some were handicapped by the amateurishness of the production values, and others were way too deeply buried in “the culture” to ever reach anyone who didn’t already have a bong in their hand.
But I found it difficult to finally narrow down to three. None were perfect, but 5 or 6 had some real potential.
Check them out and vote.

This site got a huge spike yesterday with 49,986 pageviews (I usually get around 2,000 a day, which is pretty respectable for a single issue blog). The reason for the spike – a very healthy Digg of my Why Is Marijuana Illegal? page.
I’m grateful for the interest, and it was a great day for it because it fed off the Michael Phelps issue as well. Additionally, there will be increased activity for the next week or so as other sites take it from Digg.
That page has had other big spikes, along with almost constant referrals from Stumbleupon. And, due in part to the efforts of some wonderful drug warrant ambassadors, links to the page show up on messageboards all over the world (the page has had visitors from over 150 countries).
In fact, Why is marijuana illegal? is by far the most visited page on this site. Since I started using Google Analytics in June, 2007, that page has accounted for over 62% of all page views (the front page of the blog runs around 19%). And since most visitors to the Why is marijuana illegal? page are unique visitors, it’s safe to say that well over one million separate individuals have read that page.
But why? I wrote that page back in December, 2003. It was intended to be interesting and informative, but never intended to be a scholarly study (it’s all sourced, but not footnoted) or original research.
Because of the difficulty in finding definitive corroboration for some of the detail, and contradictory sources, there have been controversies over certain facts (and I’ve corrected or clarified a couple of minor things over time). But the vast majority of the readers don’t care about that at all.
So why does it continue to get such an incredible response?
I’ve been trying to get a handle on it, and I’m not sure I know the answer, but I have my guesses.
You see, for most of us, while interesting, this is all old news. We know how government works and we know the history.
However I think most of these folks were raised on D.A.R.E. and other government propaganda, yet they enjoyed smoking pot and knew from first hand experience that it wasn’t the evil drug they’d been told. Without much exposure to drug policy reform, they had a contradiction they couldn’t resolve. They wanted to believe they were right about pot, but still thought that the government might have had legitimate reasons to make it illegal that they just didn’t understand.
Reading Why Is Marijuana Illegal? immediately puts to rest any notion that the government knew what it was doing when it criminalized pot. And the arbitrary and capricious of that action makes them realize that there’s no reason why marijuana couldn’t just as legitimately be made legal again someday.
And that’s a huge relief.
But that’s just my guess. What do you think? Why is it so popular?

Link

Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided at least two Westside marijuana dispensaries Tuesday, and a spokesperson defended their actions, despite President Barack Obama’s opposition to such raids. […]
Asked about Obama’s comments that he did not want to waste Justice Department resources on raiding medical marijuana shops, [DEA’s Sarah] Pullen said that “marijuana is still illegal under federal law.
“The law is still that it is illegal to possess, distribute or cultivate marijuana in any way,” she said.

Then why aren’t you out arresting individual pot smokers? And why aren’t you out arresting Irv Rosenfeld?
Notice how she avoided answering the question.
Eric Holder was just confirmed as Attorney General, so there’s now a boss over there above Michele Leonhart. I wonder what he feels about waste and misconduct?

“bullet” April Witt’s outstanding feature, about the drug raid that terrorized Mayor Cheye Calvo’s family and murdered his dogs, seems to be making a huge impact. It’s the most viewed Washington Post article right now and has over 500 comments (only a very small handful support the actions of the Prince George’s County officials).
April Witt and Cheye Calvo had a live online discussion earlier today – here is the transcript (well worth reading). Lots of excellent questions and responses. I look forward to more from April Witt in the future.
I also learned that there is a facebook group: Friends of Cheye Calvo, which the Mayor plans to use to pass on progress regarding legislation he’s trying to get written and passed to change how decisions are made regarding the use of SWAT. (For those without Facebook access, I’ll keep you informed, of course.)
“bullet” George Obama seems to be disappearing quickly from the news. Charges have been dropped and apparently only involved him being in the same room with people who possessed cannabis anyway.
Besides, the press has the deliciously sensational Michael Phelps story to obsess about. They’re having a field day, with “journalists,” who couldn’t cross the width of an Olympic pool while wearing water wings, clucking about the disgraceful and irresponsible Phelps, who has destroyed his career while ruining his life and all the lives of everyone else in the world who looks up to him and every other athlete who has ever or ever will exist…. merely by hitting a bong. Others, who spent their college years blazing to Dark Side of the Moon, are more charitable, noting that a 23-year-old is likely to make mistakes, and even though this is a serious one, at least he apologized, so it’s possible that he might be able to be rehabilitated.
Of course, none of them (except the majority of commenters to the articles) is willing to state the truth — that Phelps did nothing wrong and certainly nothing for which he should apologize. That the only reason for Phelps to apologize is to mollify the endorsers so he can bring in the piles of cash he deserves for all the work he did preparing for the Olympics.
There were exceptions. As Ken Tucker reports about some ignorant comments by Elisabeth Hasselbeck on The View, he noted:

In response to this, Whoopi Goldberg said, “I’m gonna make an admission, I hope you all are sitting down: I have smoked weed.” She then made the point that Phelps is being paid “millions” not to “be perfect,” but “to be a spokesperson for a company.”

Perhaps the best thing about this segment of “Hot Topics” is that it compelled Barbara Walters to say the phrase “smoke weed” a number of times. This was the funniest part of the show.

This is interesting

On Wednesday in La Salle County Circuit Court, several jurors shook hands with an emotional Loren J. Swift after finding him not guilty of a marijuana charge that would have sent him to prison. […]
The five-woman, seven-man jury deliberated about two hours, giving the verdict at 1:30 p.m. The 59-year-old Swift, of rural Streator, was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver. The state police drug task force arrested him Oct. 26, 2007, at his home, saying they found 25 pounds of marijuana and 50 pounds of marijuana plants. He spent 49 days in custody before posting $10,000 bond. His record included a conviction in 2003 for possession of a small amount of marijuana. […]
During the trial, Swift testified he smoked marijuana to relieve physical pain, as well as to cope with posttraumatic stress syndrome.

Looks like nullification to me. Good for them!

8-gold-medal-winning Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps.
For some strange reason, he apologized for it (probably because of endorsements)
Radley Balko has the letter Phelps should write, but won’t. It’s a great letter – go read it. It ends…

Go ahead and tear me down if you like. But let‰s see you rationalize in your next lame ONDCP commercial how the greatest motherfucking swimmer the world has ever seen . . . is also a proud pot smoker.

The Drug Czar’s office has done a fair amount of advertising in the most expensive venue there is – the Superbowl. Hey, why not? It’s not real money – it’s just the taxpayers’ dime.
They started in 2002, just months after 9/11 — looking to capitalize on that sweet deal: fear and terror.
They ran two ads that year: the first, was a listing of prices of items a terrorist might use (specifically including box cutters to make sure the audience would get the connection) with the tag: “If you buy drugs, it might come from you.”

The second, run the same year, was even more offensive, conflating the “harmless fun” of smoking pot with killing judges.

Of course, as we all know, it is prohibition and the drug war that makes drugs profitable to criminals and is more likely to channel funds to terrorists. But it sure is fun for our government to demonize its own citizens.
The ads were met with almost universal derision. Pot smokers suggested a “Buy American” campaign. Arianna Huffington and others developed spoof ads using the still silly, but much more realistic, notion that using gas funds terrorism…

… the ad cuts to different people in their SUVs: “I gassed 40,000 Kurds,” “I helped hijack an airplane,” “I helped blow up a nightclub,” and then in unison: “We did it all by driving to work in our SUVs.”

I think that the extreme nature of the ads (and certainly the ONDCP was going for shock value, particularly in the Superbowl) ultimately negated any effect that they could have. Nobody believed them, except for the hardline drug warriors who were pretty pleased with themselves. (The DEA got on the bandwagon in 2003 with their first exhibit of Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists and You)
The ONDCP tried to get a little more mileage with it in 2003 with this haunted subway trip, but they specifically avoided use of the word “terrorists,” instead talking about the terrible things that drug money does. It was essentially the same concept as the one above, but substituting cartels for terrorists.

It was clear that they had no confidence in that message working (they had been slammed for their ads for a full year at this point), so they partnered it with an ad going in a completely new direction of absurdity: smoking marijuana makes you pregnant!

Right.
More ONDCP Superbowl ads available at Spike TV

Deadly Force by April Witt in tomorrow’s Washington Post.
This is the story of Cheye Calvo, his wife Trinity, Trinity’s mother Georgia, and “the boys” – two black Labs named Payton and Chase. And a drug war gone insane.
It’s the best telling of this story to date. Take the time to read it all the way through, but be warned — it’ll break your heart.
Thank you Washington Post and April Witt! Now millions of people will know the truth.
I’ve now added Payton and Chase to the Drug War Victims page.

CNN

George Obama, the half brother of U.S. President Barack Obama, has been arrested by Kenyan police on a charge of possession of marijuana, police said Saturday. […]
CNN Correspondent David McKenzie talked with George Obama at the jail where he is being held. Speaking from behind bars, Obama denied the allegations.
“They took me from my home,” he said, “I don’t know why they are charging me.”

In a sane world, he wouldn’t be arrested. In a sane world, the arrest of a barely known half-brother in a different country on something as minor as this wouldn’t have any effect on drug policy here.
But this isn’t a sane world. So I have no idea if this will be a non-story, or if it will be the media’s new drug policy story.
It’s already been breathlessly picked up by hundreds of media outlets, and yet when real, substantive drug policy stories come along, we sadly get excited when two of our long-time supporters in the press pick it up.
Certainly, there is a history of Presidential relatives getting in trouble. George W. Bush had Noelle, Bill Clinton had Roger, Ronald Reagan had Patti, Jimmy Carter had Billy. There’s no reason to hold the Presidents in any way responsible for the actions of their relatives.
But here’s the thing that worries me.
Right now, there’s probably a political advisor whispering in Barack’s ear: “Hey, I know it’s no big deal, but with George’s arrest, and you admitting to marijuana use when you were younger, the last thing you can afford to do politically right now is to get in a public fight with Michele at the DEA over medical marijuana. It’ll look like you’re doing it because you’re pro-pot. So just stay out of it until a better time.”
Again, I’m just guessing here. How do you think this will play out?