Drug WarRant

In case you missed it, the DEA conducted a raid yesterday on a medical marijuana dispensary in South Lake Tahoe, California. That’s right – in the second full day of the new administration that had promised to end the raids.
Keep in mind that Michele Leonhart is still head of the DEA. My gut instinct is that the DEA is acting on its own, ignoring Obama’s campaign promises and pretending ignorance and business as usual, without anything concrete in place yet to deter them. It really shows the rank stupidity of the DEA leadership.
To conduct a raid right now does nothing but motivate the medical marijuana community in huge ways at a time when the Obama administration wants to focus on other things. It calls attention to everything that’s wrong with the DEA, and puts it up in big glowing neon letters.
I could be wrong, but my guess is that Michele has already gotten a stern call from Rahm.
But just to be sure, it would be great if everyone lit up the switchboard at the White House.
I got an email from Cheryl…

I just called Obama at 202-456-1111. They have no computers and are taking hand-written notes. The VOLUNTEER who answered the phone for me said, I wasn’t the only one to call him about this and there are over a dozen volunteers and the phones are ringing off the hook. I told him about the DEA raid yesterday & asked for Obama to keep his promise about ending DEA raids on medical cannabis patients and hoped he would end them for medical cannabis providers as well. He speculated that the DEA may have been trying to get one last raid in before the transition is complete. All the notes will be gathered into “subject” and given to the call-center boss and may be reported to Obama. Please call. Let your voice be heard. If you get a busy signal, try again. Leave a voicemail or speak to a real person.

Excellent advice.
By the way, the no-computers thing is another part of the stupidity of our government.

“It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs. […]
One member of the White House new-media team came to work on Tuesday, right after the swearing-in ceremony, only to discover that it was impossible to know which programs could be updated, or even which computers could be used for which purposes. The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software. Laptops were scarce, assigned to only a few people in the West Wing. The team was left struggling to put closed captions on online videos.

This could be very good news.
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton spoke to State Department employees this afternoon, and they announced that Ambassador Richard Holbrooke has been named “special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

[Clinton:] Ambassador Holbrooke will coordinate across the entire government an effort to achieve United States’ strategic goals in the region.
This effort will be closely coordinated, not only within the State Department and, of course, with USAID, but also with the Defense Department and under the coordination of the National Security Council.

So who is Richard Holbrooke?
Well, for one thing, he’s the author of this OpEd in the Washington Post last year: Still Wrong in Afghanistan

Karzai and much of the international community in Kabul have warned Bush that aerial spraying would create a backlash against the government and the Americans, and serve as a recruitment device for the Taliban while doing nothing to reduce the drug trade. This is no side issue: If the program continues to fail, success in Afghanistan will be impossible.
Fortunately, Bush has not been able to convince other nations or Karzai that aerial spraying should be conducted, although he is vigorously supported by the American ambassador, William Wood, who was an enthusiastic proponent of aerial spraying in his previous assignment, in Colombia. Wood, often called “Chemical Bill” in Kabul, has even threatened senior Afghan officials with cuts in reconstruction funds if his policies are not carried out, according to two sources.
But even without aerial eradication, the program, which costs around $1 billion a year, may be the single most ineffective program in the history of American foreign policy. It’s not just a waste of money. It actually strengthens the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as criminal elements within Afghanistan.

Someone who understands that aerial spraying is counterproductive! And he’ll be coordinating our entire Afghanistan/Pakistan efforts.
And make no mistake about it. He understands.

The program destroys crops in insecure areas, especially in the south, where the Taliban is strongest. […]
Everyone talks about “alternative livelihoods” and alternative crops as the solution to the drug problem. This is true in theory — but this theory has been tried elsewhere with almost no success. Poppies are an easy crop to grow and are far more valuable than any other product that can be grown in the rocky, remote soil of most of Afghanistan. Without roads, it is hard to get heavier (and less valuable) crops to market — and what market is there, anyway?

And while he didn’t go so far as to jump on board the Senlis proposal, he seems open to new ideas.

Solving this problem requires bold, creative thinking. Consideration should be given to a temporary suspension of eradication in insecure areas, accompanied by an intensified effort to improve security, build small market-access roads and offer farmers free agricultural support.

And finally, in a completely different vein, here’s the clincher in my mind. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke appeared on the Colbert Report, brokering a settlement between Colbert and Willie Nelson over their competing ice cream flavors, and at one point:

Colbert: Have you met Willie Nelson?
Holbrooke: No, no. But he sings better than you…. I just visited his trailer, and I breathed in, and you know I feel very good… [Big grin from Willie]

Here, our new Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, while not a good singer, even joins in a song with Stephen Colbert and Willie Nelson!

A guy like that? That’s someone I like representing the U.S. out there in the world.

Marijuana, Inc. is on tonight on CNBC at 9 pm and 1 am Eastern (8 pm/midnight Central)

While it may not be traded on Wall Street any time soon, marijuana has become a booming cash crop. CNBC’s Trish Regan goes behind the scenes to explore the inner workings of this secretive industry, focusing on Northern California’s “Emerald Triangle,” now the marijuana capital of the U.S. In this scenic pocket of America, the pot business, much of it legal under state law, now makes up as much as two-thirds of the local economy.

There is a poll on decriminalization at the CNBC site (Update:: as of showtime, with 14,000 votes, the poll is running 97% in favor of decrim vs. 2.8% against).
Trailer:

Review at New York Daily News

“Marijuana Inc.” adds up to a solid special with a well-supported and inescapable conclusion: The commerce is unlikely to change and the law has only a slim chance of doing more than containing the most violence-prone offenders.
When it comes to marijuana, a whole lot of people voted some time ago to just say yes.

Watch it, and then discuss it here.

Would the government try to make coffee illegal if you made it sound scary?
Check out this video of how to create freebase caffeine.
This Swiftian modest proposal is a fascinating intellectual exercise.

Essentially, his challenge to policymakers is this: criminalize coffee. Naturally, after coffee is criminalized will inevitably come the next food that can be purified, and so oná This is the argument of absurdity (reductio ad absurdum); how ridiculous could we theoretically make policy before policy has become too absurd to take seriously?

In a sane world, the reductio ad absurdum would work. Here, I don’t know. After all, we’ve already seen legislators try to outlaw plastic bags, baking soda, and baggy pants. Policy has already become too absurd to take seriously.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for an alternative to freebasing crack, try Starbucks Italian Roast (although it’s a lot easier just to drink it).

As Scott says, there are certain things that it’s just nice to actually see in print at a site with a whitehouse.gov domain, such as:

President Obama and Vice President Biden believe the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine is wrong and should be completely eliminated. […]
The President also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users.

Of course, we’ll wait for deeds, not words, but again these are not bad words for a President these days (nor is this draft order for closing Guantanamo).
We’re not going to see marijuana legalization on WhiteHouse.gov. I don’t even think we’ll see ending medical marijuana raids on there (if they stop, they’ll stop quietly).
But sentencing reform and needle exchange is a nice start.

Wyatt Cenac: “The nerds go into politics and they stick it to the cool guys by outlawing pot. Today that shameful chapter in our nation’s history is finally over.”
Hey Jon. Jon. Quick question for you. You got any pot?
Jon: No. I don’t have any pot.
Wyatt: Aw, that’s too bad. Barbara Boxer had some Portuguese Red here with resin that was like superglue. She is so cool.

In the February 2009 issue of Playboy (not available online, sorry), I found an interest/depressing feature article: “The Drug Coast” by Christian Parenti. It’s about Guinea-Bissau, a country in Western Africa that I must admit I barely knew existed. It’s almost completely a failed state, with a corrupt government and military that is funded by the European Union to stop the drug trade and funded by the Drug Trade to facilitate the drug trade.
The entire reason for Guinea-Bissau’s status is that coca is grown in Latin America, that cocaine is consumed (in part) in Europe, that Guinea-Bissau is conveniently located between the two, and (most importantly) that cocaine is illegal.
Guinea-Bissau itself doesn’t even have much of a drug problem. It has a being-in-a-convenient-location-in-the-drug-war problem.
I read stories like this and I’m blown away by how massive is the damage caused by the drug war, in so many ways — from creating failed states in Africa, to encouraging a 16-year-old crack dealer in the UK, to demolishing houses in Canada, to destroying farmers’ livelihood in Afghanistan, to locking people up for life in Southeast Asia for possession, to people losing their heads in Mexico.
And that’s just this week’s news.
“bullet” UK: Crack Dealer Aged Just 16 Goes to Jail
“bullet” Ontario:
“Hamilton police will examine an initiative where it can demolish homes used for marijuana grow operations.”
“bullet” Representative Mark Kirk (R-IL) is pushing for aerial herbicide spraying in Afghanistan. He actually points to Colombia as a good example of the effectiveness of the program (somebody should tell him that total cocaine production in Colombia has increased).
“bullet” 3 heads found in ice box in northern Mexico
“bullet” Cambodia to work out new law to punish drug traffickers

Drug traffickers will receive harsh punishments for possessing small quantities of illegal substances if a new draft law to be worked out in March, national media reported on Wednesday. […]
The draft, written with the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) as advisers…

… and complete sentences.

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Good words. And to insure that they’re heeded, we the people must hold the government accountable.

What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

And that is the challenge to us in the drug policy reform community. To seize gladly our duty to reform government, to hold it accountable, to end the drug war, to restore liberty. It’s a difficult task, but we will not falter.

Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back, nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Bye.
A special few of those propaganda distributors who won’t be missed (including some who have been gone awhile): :

• Scott Burns, former Deputy Director, ONDCP
• Andrea Barthwell, former Deputy Director, ONDCP
• “Dr.” David Murray, former Policy Analyst, ONDCP
• Bertha Madras, former Deputy Director, ONDCP
• Karen Tandy, former DEA Administrator

Unfortunately, Acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart will be staying for a little longer.
Update: Walters no longer listed on the staff bios page.

As his last act as President, George W. Bush commuted the sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean.

Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year prison terms, respectively, for the Feb. 17, 2005, incident near Fabens, Texas.
After a high-speed chase, a smuggler named Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila abandoned his van, which held 743 pounds of marijuana. The agents shot him as he ran away. They didn‰t report the shooting, and they threw all the shell casings they could find into the river. Only later did they claim they‰d spotted a gun.

That’s right. They shot at an unarmed man running away, eventually hitting him in the rear, then realized that they were in the wrong, so they let him go and tried to cover up the shooting.
Apparently President Bush was concerned that the sentences were overly harsh. After all, all they did was, under color of authority, shoot at an unarmed man and then cover it up. It’s not like they did drugs or anything.