Drug WarRant

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.

This is from a while ago, but seeing it today over at Radley’s place, I thought it was something important to watch if you haven’t already.

Alabama

MONTGOMERY – State prisons aren’t likely to receive a budget increase for the next budget year, so state prison Commissioner Richard Allen said Thursday he saw no reason Thursday to mention a dollar figure during legislative budget hearings. […]
For the new fiscal year, Allen said his agency will focus on how to “dampen down” the number of new inmates.
Those programs will center on sentencing reform, community corrections, new goals for pardons and paroles and a supervised re-entry program.
“The Sentencing Commission’s job is looking at new bills and telling legislators what the impact is going to be” on the Department of Corrections, he said. “Sentencing reform requires them to consider alternate means of sentence. Those are very very important.”

In the past, legislators have passed laws for tougher sentences and adding new crimes as if there was no cost. This is a good sign that those days may be ending.