Drug WarRant

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.

There were some significant unintended consequences to legalizing pot…

Letters to the editor at the El Paso Times, mostly from locals, on the City Council controversy.
Very interesting to see the contrast (and the mental disconnect on the part of most of the city council opponents).

Change.org (not to be confused with Change.gov) has completed it’s series of votes on ideas and came up with the top 10, which includes:

Legalize the Medicinal and Recreational Use of Marijuana.
“Marijuana has been proven to relieve the suffering of the chronically ill, as well as disabled patients undergoing chemotherapy, and other forms of medical treatments, yet using it for medical purposes continues to be a crime in most of the country. We should make it legal not only in medical cases, but for recreational use as well.”

This idea, along with the other 9, will be presented to the new President and will also be given a national campaign.
Right now, they’re soliciting suggestions for how to implement a national campaign to promote the idea.
So go over there and suggest.
Note: The individuals over at Change.org who are clogging up the suggestion board with complaints that the top 10 issues are presented unranked (instead of with marijuana at #1) are not helping. They sound petty and are distracting from the important next step.
Here’s the suggestion I made.