Drug WarRant

Bush appointee DEA Head Michele Leonhart flipped a going-away bird at science and the medical marijuana movement by rejecting the formal recommendation of DEA Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Mary Ellen Bittner, and refusing to end the government monopoly on marijuana research.
The decision was over 100 pages of dreck dressed up as legal opinion, mostly regurgitating government arguments that had been rejected out of hand by the Administrative Law Judge, and to some extent, casting negative aspersions on the applicant.
This is typical of the drug policy that we’ve come to expect over the past decade (or longer) from our government. Stall, stall, stall, send it through administrative hoops, stall some more, stall, stall, finally be rebuked by a judge, stall, stall, and then when you can stall no more, say “Fuck you. We don’t have to abide by the law. We make it.”
This, from Michele Leonhart, who once famously defended perjured super-snitch working for the DEA thusly:

“The only criticism (of Chambers) I’ve ever heard is what defense attorneys will characterize as perjury or a lie on the stand.”

That’s right – it doesn’t matter if informants lie to get a conviction. It doesn’t matter if the DEA ignores the rule of law and their own administrative judges.
Just keep the drug war going at all costs.
The one consolation – Michele Leonhart will likely be leaving soon, and when she does, just as now, when she puts her own name in Google, the first article she’ll see is mine.

So on Monday, President-elect Obama will be visiting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon. I don’t expect much of real value to come from this meeting.
But still, the lede in the AP story appearing in papers all over the country was depressingly, yet unsurprisingly, incoherent.

MEXICO CITY Ö With violence spilling over the Mexican border into the U.S., President Felipe Calderon should have little trouble securing support for his battle against drugs when he meets U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Monday.

Even ignoring the nonsensical “battle against drugs,” there’s quite a disconnect in this sentence. Note that AP writer Alexandra Olson didn’t say “Given Obama’s pro-prohibition statements, Calderon should have little trouble securing Obama’s support for his drug war.” That would be depressing, but factual and reasonable.
No, she says “With violence spilling over the Mexican border into the U.S. as if it was the fact of the violence that should, obviously, mean that Obama would support the drug war. and that makes no sense at all.
The structure of the sentence is as follows:

1. Violence in Mexico was at level x
2. Calderon instituted plan M.
3. Violence increased dramatically as a direct result of plan M to level z, spilling into the U.S.
4. Violence of this level is undesirable.
5. Therefore, Obama will support plan M.

Right.
In the meantime, just in case the violence “spills” into the U.S., Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, known for supervising such tactical masterpieces as the U.S. response to Hurricane Katrina, and the banning of shampoo on domestic flights, is prepared to provide a “surge” (whatever that means), which will include bringing in the military.
Yeah, that’ll end well.
You see, violence won’t simply “spill” over the border and manifest itself like British Redcoats marching to war where we can simply have our military take them down. No, the spillage will be the victims of violence. Those who commit the violence will find ways to enter undetected and commit violence from within (they’re not completely stupid). And that’s when having the military “surge” against the violence is going to mean putting a lot of innocent lives at risk for no gain.
…
Another great letter in the El Paso Times: U.S.-Mexico drug war: We’re clucking like chickens by Joe Muench. Very well done.
And, of course, the expected comments didn’t take long:
Comment #9: Legalizing drugs will just mean more business for the drug dealers. Period.
And some really, really bizarre:

Everybody knows you jews are faking those doctor
prescriptions and taking advantage of legalize mari j for medical use.That is the only reason you idiots are always pushing for legalization. […]
I guess you forgot what happened in Miami and Columbia during the 80Å´œs when we got tired of this s#$t. I am glad that these spineless elp politicians were not leading our country during WWII.

The good news is that the only pro-drug-war folks left on these threads are the ridiculous ones.

“bullet” You may have noticed a new thing on each post – the “share” button at the lower right. If you pass your mouse over it, it drops down to give a number of options for sharing the post with others. You can email it to a friend, post it on your Facebook profile, Digg it, etc. This is now also on most of the story pages.
“bullet” I’ve updated the Using this Site page — it’s available at the “Problem Commenting?” link at the top left of the home page. I’ve now included a full section about the problems some people encounter commenting here.

If you try to leave a comment and get a message with 403 FORBIDDEN on it, don’t panic. You haven’t been banned, and you aren’t forbidden.
It just means that the stupid comment software thought it saw something that might normally exist in a spam comment, and decided to block it.
As you know, people are always sending messages for via-gra, and po-ker, and cia-lis, etc. Well, the comment software once blocked the word “socialist” because it contained the word “cia-lis” in it! (that one got fixed).
It also sometimes doesn’t like links with a .info suffix, and will often block posts with links to URLs that are in the same domain as your listed Home Page (spammers usually link to their own site, that’s why).
So if you get the 403 message…

1. Look for trigger words and try hyphenating them (“po-ker”) or leaving them out.
2. If you have links to .info sites, try replacing them with a short link from tinyurl.com
3. Leave your homepage blank (or replace with tinyurl version) if you’re posting a link to your own article on your home site.
4. Send the comment to me and I’ll try to post it for you.

“bullet” RSS Feed. No changes here, but a reminder that this site has an RSS feed. You can click on the RSS that usually shows up in the address bar above, or on the RSS feed link at the above left.
This allows you to subscribe to all the posts if you use a newsreader (which is the only way I can keep track of the hundreds of sites I check each day). I use NetNewsWire, which is absolutely fantastic! It’s free and syncs the news feeds on my home computer, office computer and iPod touch.
“bullet” DrugWarRant Tips. Finally, a reminder that reader tips are invaluable to me. I really appreciate all the emails with tips, ideas, suggestions, and corrections. And I apologize if I don’t respond. I’m often terrible at getting back to everyone who writes, but I read every one. Thanks!

LEAP’s Terry Nelson has an excellent guest column in the El Paso Times: Legalized drugs only way to halt cartels.
Naturally, that’s started the comment thread again — this time the stupids seem to be focusing on #3 (no point legalizing – the cartels will just go into other crime).
I got a great letter from Mark, an El Paso local who gave some helpful insight into the area, including the fact that El Paso has a major drug war enforcement industry there (including EPIC – The El Paso Intelligence Center). This could explain, in part, why so many of the commenters are hard core drug war supporters. As Mark says “It‰s paying the rent & plenty more for a lot of local families.”

Propaganda spoof from the “Dazed and Confused” DVD (running time: 4:20)

Via NORML and D’Alliance
“bullet” January 16 on NBC: Dateline. Hour-long profile on the tragic death of Rachel Hoffman.
“bullet” January 16 at 10 pm (Eastern) (tentative) on ABC: 20/20. Feature on convicted medical marijuana provider Charlie Lynch.
“bullet” January 21 22 at 9 pm (Eastern) on CNBC: Marijuana, Inc: Inside America’s Pot Industry
“bullet” February 10 on PBS: Tulia, Texas
That’s some line-up.

This time delivered by incoming Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in a five minute video.
So, the big question — how did they manage to avoid talking about drug policy this time considering all the top-rated questions that were asked on the subject?

Since there were so many popular questions in so many categories, we tried to pull out some of them that had been addressed previously by the President-elect of vice-President-elect in order to focus the video portion on questions that haven’t been as specifically addressed during the Transition.

And then they listed the marijuana question from the first round and the pathetic answer.

‹Will you consider legalizing cannabis/marijuana/hemp so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a multi-billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?ŠÖDJ C, Chicago, IL
Open for Questions Response, 12/15/08: ‹President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.Š

Yep. That’s it.
Hey, at least they let us ask. And other people got to see the questions. And a lot of people got to see the strength of interest.
They can still dodge it for now, but they won’t be able to forever, and I’m betting that they fully realize it.
Now go pester your Representatives!

Lots of stuff going on and some great stuff to read.
I usually include the Drug War Chronicle in my Friday Open Threads, but I want to make sure you don’t skip over it this week.
The feature article: DEA Rejects Yet Another Rescheduling Petition, But the End Game Lies Far Down the Road is an excellent view of the current efforts to reschedule marijuana, with the recent, but expected rejection by the DEA of Carl Olsen’s petition.
Also don’t miss the open rebellion by Chess players regarding the stupid drug testing rules.
“bullet” Why Head Shop Raids Are Unfair and Unjust at Alternet.

An enlightened mayor might have called the chamber of commerce or invited a community discussion to discuss alternatives. The mayor might have used code enforcement and local ordinances to mandate zoning changes. Instead, he called and asked the feds to do what her own city cops were not allowed to do.

“bullet” Taking the fun out of pot

The lower rate of pot smoking in the Netherlands would certainly seem to indicate that the way to solve our drug problem is to legalize drugs. Soon, even prohibitionists will have to admit this is the case. It is a concept that certainly warrants further consideration.

“bullet” Editorial: Confidence Must Be Restored In Drug Forfeiture Process

While the actions of the local DTF and prosecutor’s office were particularly egregious, the origins of the situation can be traced to the state and the Indiana General Assembly. Legislation governing the handling of confiscated drug-related funds and property is vague, and officials in most counties are unsure exactly how the money is to be handled. With few guidelines, they have for the most part created their own procedures. The fact no money apparently has ever been sent to the designated state education fund is particularly telling.

“bullet” Editorial: No deaths, this time

But Procedures That Make It Hard To Identify Police At The Door Should Be Reviewed […]
Pardon us if we doubt the officers waited even two or three minutes for residents to pull on clothes ( if necessary ), come to the door, ascertain who was there and ask to read the officers’ warrant.
For that matter, wouldn’t the chance of violence have been reduced — in a home where police should have known young children were present – — if someone had simply telephoned the home, explaining police were approaching the door with a warrant … preferably during daylight hours?
Some will say such a procedure would be naive — drug dealers could use the time to flush their product down the toilet.
But no cocaine was found — and a dealer who can eliminate all his product in one toilet flush isn’t really very big-time, is he? […]
The drug war has taught us to accept as “normal” police procedures — even in the case of a man alleged to have dealt quantities of drugs worth only a few hundred dollars — which increase the risk of violence and death in our neighborhoods.
Just as in cases where some jurisdictions have found overall fatalities could be reduced by having ambulances obey stoplights, it is those “standard” procedures that are in need of a serious new review.

“bullet” Commenter Steve Clay thoroughly fisks the latest Ask the White House session by the drug czar (where some of our commenters managed to submit questions)
“bullet” Don’t forget to make sure you’ve voted at Change.org (Marijuana legalization is currently #1 and End the drug war is currently #3) and also at Change.gov’s Open for Questions (where drug policy questions appear to be #2,4,5,6,9 in Additional Issues and 1, 5, 6 in National Security)
“bullet” “drcnet”

The recent comments to various articles in the El Paso story yesterday reminded me of one of the frustrating parts of being in drug policy reform and, well, having a brain.
It’s the incredibly stupid arguments that reappear time and time again.
There are plenty of reasonable concerns expressed, and I don’t mind answering them — how would legalization occur, what kinds of regulation might be involved, would there be more or less damage from drug abuse, etc.
But here are the three that always annoy me:
1. Legalized drugs would be great for the cartels./If you’re a legalizer, you’re probably getting donations from the cartels./Legalization will profit the criminals.
I realize the cognitive dissonance at work here. They’re thinking: Drug war=stopping cartels; therefore legalization=anti-drug-war=good for the cartels=profit. Of course, there’s a lot of faulty logic there, but it keeps them from actually thinking through logically what would happen to cartels in a legalized market.
It’s funny to imagine, actually. Think about a legal market in marijuana in the United States, with companies growing it, packaging it, selling it in stores and imagine a Mexican cartel trying to compete with that financially.
2. Why don’t you legalize murder and rape while you’re at it?
This one really bothers me and I don’t yet have the best quick response, largely because it’s so amazingly stupid that it requires a lot of remedial explanations to bring the person up to the level of sentience. And I find myself wanting to simply say: “No. You have the brains of a rock.” Which is petty, even if true.
One quick response often used is that drugs are a choice of the user and only affect the user, while murder and rape are actions that infringe on others. Then the moron responds that drugs do so affect others because druggies beat up people and steal, and… And then you have to explain that the drugs don’t do that – and that we arrest people who beat up people regardless of whether they’re on drugs, but by then you’ve lost everyone’s attention. It doesn’t matter that any basic understanding of natural and Constitutional rights would empirically know that there’s no comparison between drug use and murder/rape, but explaining that?
Another response is to note that if you arrest a dealer, it just creates a job opening for another drug dealer, while that isn’t true for murderer or rape. While true, this usually just confuses them.
If anyone has a good, solid, concise response for this one, I’d love to hear it.
3. Legalization won’t solve anything. The cartels aren’t going to go away and we’ll still have all that crime and violence.
This one I actually find rather funny in its blissful naivetÚ. I mean sure, they understand that violent criminals won’t suddenly become choir boys, but they seem to forget that without the drug profits, they’ll have a hard time recruiting new cartel members.
Howard Wooldridge gave a great answer to this one in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday:

Ronald Shafer (Letters, Dec. 30) worries about what drug dealers would do without their prohibition-generated jobs. The one million teens who sell drugs would begin flipping burgers and mowing yards. Serious thugs will rob banks where we will capture or kill them. Or was Mr. Shafer suggesting to continue prohibition as a jobs program for bad guys?

Exactly.
So what are the stupid arguments that drive you up the wall?

In October, DC Metro began a random search program without public input. Flex Your Rights stepped up and started passing out flyers at subway stations informing people of their rights not to consent to a search, and got a lot of positive media coverage. In the next month, Metro refused to debate the policy and has been challenged by the Riders Advisory Council to come up with justification for their policy.
Backed in to a corner with no justification and bad publicity, what does Metro decide to do?
Threatens to sue Flex Your Rights for using the “M” logo (yes, the one shown in this post) on their information flyer.