Drug WarRant

A 79-year-old widow’s cottage is raided for growing tomatoes in the window boxes.

Mrs Matheson told the Daily Mail: “I got a terrible fright and I couldn’t understand what they were doing here because I knew we had nothing more than tomatoes in the window. I don’t know what the neighbours must be thinking.”
Her 47-year-old son Gus, a former driver, was looking out of the window when he saw police cars stop outside.
He said: “I wondered what on earth was going on. I opened the door and they more or less barged past, saying that I was growing cannabis on the windowsills.
“I started laughing because I knew they were tomato plants but it wasn’t so funny when they frisked me and then started tearing the house apart.”
Mr Matheson said he was held in the bedroom while officers searched the furniture and under the mattress. He also said that the police impounded the family’s pet dogs.
“They even ‘arrested’ Zac, our black labrador, and Moby, our Jack Russell, putting them in the back of one of the cop cars,” Mr Matheson added.
“And I just couldn’t believe it when they brought sniffer dogs all the way from Alness, which is about two hours away.”

Apparently the police everywhere now automatically assume that anything that looks like a plant, with stems and leaves, is cannabis.
There do appear to be some differences in the drug raids between the UK and the US. In the former, they apparently arrest the dogs, instead of shooting them. (I guess maybe over there they get a trial, first?) And, in the UK, they barge past you, instead of slamming you to the floor and handcuffing you in your dogs’ blood.
But neither country has the slightest understanding of freedom.

Hope you have a wonderful day, and that you’re one of the lucky ones who get to spend it with family and friends.
Many will not.
Here’s a story for Thanksgiving from five years ago.
Still important today.

Orrin Hatch is one of the top drug warriors around. He’s also apparently the one to know if you get in trouble.
TalkLeft has the bizarre connection with one of the recent Bush pardons. The drug offender knew Carly Simon kid, and Carly Simon had recorded one of Orrin Hatch’s songs, so… voila!
And remember, it was Orrin Hatch who used his influence to spring record producer Dallas Austin from drug charges in the United Arab Emirates.
So… maybe you want to introduce yourself. It couldn’t hurt.

Only in America can two men, who manufactured a fake penis, be charged with… conspiracy to defraud the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which administers federal workplace drug testing programs.
And yes, they face up to 9 years in prison.
The drug war is such a failure that the feds have to go after the Tommy Chongs and Whizzinators (not to mention grandma in her wheelchair), and legislators are constantly outlawing things like glass tubes and plastic bags and cold medicines and false compartments in cars and cash.
The drug warriors should be hiding in abject embarrassment. But apparently, they feel no shame.

Interesting lines in an OpEd by Ronald Fraser

Advertised as an effective drug control policy, America’s harsh drug laws only give the illusion of progress. […]
Perhaps the non-performing drug war programs are not really expected to deliver on their publicly stated goals, but continue because they serve a very different purpose.
They give the politically useful illusion of “controlling” crime and allow morally righteous members of society to impose their values on the actions of others. Instead of ending the drug war, each year Washington drug warriors issue a new round of optimistic forecasts to keep the illusion alive, to justify another round of funding from American taxpayers.

Taking a moment to recover…
“bullet” A very special thanks to those who chipped in to help out with the trip to DC. Every little bit is much appreciated.
“bullet” Must-read. Radley Balko’s response to a pretty ignorant post by Chris Roach, regarding the death of an FBI agent in a military-style drug raid.
“bullet” Police don’t find marijuana, so they take the Xbox.
“bullet” Drawing the line on drug testing.
“bullet” Dutch mayors call for Licensed Marijuana Growers

The remainder of the Sunday sessions have been useful advocacy workshops, including the Elevator Arguments workshop that David Guard and I conducted, and some lunch networking groups (I helped facilitate one on education).
I was too busy being actively involved to do much live-blogging today.
For those in my workshop who stopped by to get a copy of the information, you can download the Elevator Arguments page (pdf).
All in all, a great SSDP conference. Lots of dedicated and enthusiastic students working to make a difference. Go to it, folks!
Update: We made it back safe, despite dealing with about 8 hours of non-stop rain from Maryland to Indiana.

Eric Sterling (Criminal Justice Policy Foundation) started off the Sunday Advocacy Skills Training Day with a motivating talk to get students excited about being advocates.
A few of the points:

• Write succinctly
• Be entertaining
• Don’t be too self-critical
• Work as chapters to evaluate what you do
• Share with others (passion, praise, respect)
• Be persistent (bring it back up to the top of the in-box)
• Ask for help
• Talk to people who disagree with you

He says he had 11 points, so obviously I missed a few.

Party!
We had a great benefit party last night at Rob Kampia’s house in DC. Tons of people – lots of fun.
Sorry, no pictures or descriptions here.
…you’ll just have to imagine it.

Drugs for Sale! A Discussion of Post-Prohibition Drug Markets

Tim Lynch is very pessimistic about what seems to be happening so far with the Obama administration, given his early appointments.
He asks a very good question: What will the Obama administration do about the recent case when an FBI officer was killed in a drug raid. It should be self-defense. Will the administration pursue a conviction against the woman who defended her home?
Tim is more optimistic in the medium and long term about overall drug policy reform, in part based on looking at what alcohol prohibition reformers faced. It took less time to reform than they thought it would.
Difference between the alcohol and drug prohibition is that alcohol prohibition was repealed at the federal level and the states kept, in some cases, prohibiting until ready. However, in drug policy, the states and other countries will lead, and the feds will bring up the rear.
He talked about different models for a future policy

• Full legalization
• The alcohol model
• Decriminalization (he talked about the Portugal model of decrim, which I need to analyze further (and is apparently going very well), although it doesn’t change my position that decrim ignores the elephant in the room– the black market)

Good point: If politicians are unable to come up with the courage to change laws themselves, then what they need to do is step aside and let states and other countries do so (serve as the laboratory, so to speak).
Keep the nirvana fallacy in mind when debating — don’t let prohibitionists compare potential problematic legalization options with a nirvana of drug free America. The comparison must be with the horribly flawed realistic situation that exists in our prohibition world.
Nice job by Lynch. Very smart and knows his stuff.
Ethan Nadelmann talked about his early history as a reluctant legalizer and how he moved to the necessity of legalization, then trying to identify a model that would work.
What naturally comes to mind is that:
The best policy is the one that most successfully

• reduces the harms of drugs AND
• reduces the harms of drug prohibition

And so he talked about a group he worked with analyzing models from various sides, such as starting with things like the health model on one side and starting with the Supermarket (everything available at any time to anyone) model on the other side and see if there was a way to make them meet.
The question is, should there be some kind of gatekeeper (perhaps in government) to in some way control access.
This is the compromise model that his group came up with.
The Right of Access Model

1. Everybody has the right to possess and use any drug in any form
2. Everybody has the right to obtain this substance from a reliable provider who is civilly liable for providing safe and clean substance.

(For more detail, read the linked article)