Drug WarRant

If you measure the drug war like you do a product rollout, then the drug war in Mexico is a huge success. The demographics are astonishing:

There was a gray-haired, grandfatherly type who was pushing 70, as well as an avuncular figure with a neatly coiffed goatee and wire-rimmed spectacles perched upon his nose. Some of the five men who found themselves on the front pages of newspapers on their way to jail wore suits, which made them look more like bureaucrats than bad guys.
Among the greatest challenges in Mexico‰s drug war is the fact that the traffickers fit no type. Their ranks include men and women, the young and the old. And they can work anywhere: in remote drug labs, as part of roving assassination squads, even within the upper reaches of the government.
It has long been known that drug gangs have infiltrated local police forces. Now it is becoming ever more clear that the problem does not stop there. The alarming reality is that many public servants in Mexico are serving both the taxpayers and the traffickers.

Starbucks would kill for that kind of market penetration.
Speaking of killing for market penetration, the drug war, as we all know, is also profitable for a number of related industries, including prison, law enforcement, and now:

Mexico’s drug wars are fueling a boom in the funeral industry near the U.S. border as undertakers capitalize on soaring murder rates and gruesome killings.
As Mexicans gather in cemeteries Sunday to place marigolds, candy skulls and candles on tombs for the Day of the Dead festival, a spike in drug violence means more bodies are bound for funeral parlors.
‹We’ve seen a big increase in the number of clients because of the drug war, especially since September. It’s gone from a few (bodies) a week to one or two every day,Š said Fernando, a funeral home owner in Tijuana across the border from San Diego, California.

Isn’t it delightful to see such success? Congratulations to the drug war for creating a self-sustaining international giant of an industry that touches so many people’s lives (not to mention touching the lives of their surviving family members).

Such naivetÚ, such trust in government sources. How nice it must be to be young. Trinity Sophomore Gregory Morrison writes:

As the military wins land, production of cocoa decreases. As production decreases, so does the revenue for the terrorists. As their revenue decreases, so does their violence. As violence decreases, the military wins more control of rebel-held areas. With our help ( at least, the help of all of us who pay taxes ), Uribe has broken a cycle of terror, violence and misery.
To the surprise of many, Colombia is becoming a better place.

No wonder I’m having such a hard time finding Colombian cocoa in the stores.

This sign comes via the “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks.

Of course, it’s an example of completely inappropriate use of quote marks, and yet… unintentionally quite accurate.
After all, it’s never really about a “drug free” workplace. Caffeine is just fine. So are plenty of other drugs. And when they test you, they don’t care if you were anywhere near the workplace when you were using or influenced by illegal drugs, so again, it’s not about a “drug free” workplace.
So maybe whenever you see a “Drug Free Workplace” sign, add some quotation marks around “Drug Free.” Make it obvious that you added them intentionally.
It’s just the kind of subtle protest that might intrigue a couple of eggheads at your place of employment.

Happy Halloween!
“bullet” Flex Your Rights and others have been protesting in Washington DC about the new random bag searches in public transportation. Their efforts (which are really about informing citizens of their rights) have been getting some good press.
“bullet” Chicago taking a new direction in the war on drugs? at WindyPundit covers this article in the Chicago Tribune about Chicago Police Superintendent getting smart on drugs.

Ultimately, the priority to reduce violence trumps the department’s need to combat drugs, he said.
“Life has become extraordinarily cheap in some neighborhoods,” Weis said. “If a gang is dealing drugs and not killing anyone . . . that’s not on our priority list.”

“bullet” Who’s getting rich off prohibition? NORML discusses Prop 5 opponents. See also Arianna Huffington’s piece.
“bullet” “drcnet”

The Drug Czar goes to Michigan to speak out against medical marijuana. Watch at your own risk (I only made it to the one minute mark).

There’s an interesting article in the Irish Examiner about a speech by Father Peter McVerry at an Addiction Training Institute conference.

The Jesuit priest, who has worked with homeless young people for 30 years, said he had seen the “devastation” caused by illegal drugs, particularly heroin and cocaine.
“I spend much of my time helping young people to come off drugs. As a priest, I bury, on average, one young person a month who has died from a drug overdose, some of whom I would have been very close to.”
But he said there was a massive difference between drug user per se and drug misuse.
“I do it along the lines of alcohol. Many people use alcohol but it doesn’t have any dire consequence for themselves or for anybody else and people can use drugs without it having any dire consequences for themselves or anyone else, whereas the misuse of drugs is where drugs have consequences for oneself, one’s family or one’s community.”
He said 98% of those who experiment with drugs do not go on to misuse them.
“If you want to find out why young people take drugs, go into any pub any night of the week and ask the adults why they take alcohol. The reasons are the same. Adults would say we take alcohol in order to relax, as a focus for socialising, in order to escape from the pressures of life and to alter our moods. We take alcohol because we enjoy it. Young people take drugs for exactly the same reasons.”

Here is someone who has seen devastation from drug abuse and understands that it is critical to not only understand the difference between use and abuse, but to understand that criminalization isn’t the answer.

Fr McVerry said public discussion of drugs was dominated by either a climate of fear or a moral climate.
“It would appear to me that the legalisation of drugs must be, at the very least, on our list of policy options to be discussed. If we accept that drugs are here to stay, as I think we must, then our priority ought to be ‘controlling the supply of drugs’.”

The dreaded “403 Forbidden” screen has been rearing its ugly head again sometimes when people attempt to leave comments.
Please know that this has nothing to do with you. You are not forbidden! There’s a somewhat clunky commenting software that comes with this blogging system. The software has a built-in spam filter, and if it detects anything that somehow has been flagged as possible spam, it simply returns a 403 Forbidden screen, instead of posting.
I’m asking the tech staff to give me a better idea of what is being blocked, but right now, I have to guess (and yes, I get ‘403 Forbidden’ blocked on my comments as well).
Here are a couple of guidelines…

• Avoid mentioning the pharmaceutical products that are always showing up in your email junk filtered folder.
• If you’re linking to something with a .info suffix and it won’t go through, try going to tinyurl.com and get a replacement url for it.
• If you can’t get it posted, send it to me, and I’ll find a way to post it for you.

The latest bizarre glitch is that the software is blocking the word “socialism.” Why? I have no idea. But hyphenating it (social-ism) works.
Sorry for the difficulties. I hope to get it working better.
I really appreciate all the comments and excellent discussions we have here, and want to keep that going.
Update: Turns out that you can’t spell s-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-m without c-i-a-l-i-s. Didn’t even think of that. It’s getting fixed.

There are a lot of reasons for ordinary people to not get drug policy reform, particularly if they haven’t spent much time thinking about it or studying it.
But there’s a point…
You listen to a prohibitionist who spends a lot of time dealing with drug policy, and there’s a point when you realize that there is no possible way that a reasonably informed person could make such a statement.
That leaves only one question: evil or stupid?
Sometimes it’s obvious, but not always.
…
Bonus question (proceed with caution if stoned):
Is it possible that a prohibitionist could be so stupid that she listens to what I have to say and concludes that no reasonably informed person could say that, and then truly believes that I must either be evil or stupid… ?

And the winner, in a knockout…
There’s no point in me excerpting this one. Transform’s got the whole thing. Go read it.
It made my day.

“bullet” Via Radley Balko comes a letter from Kent Corbett – a Milwauke police detective and former SWAT officer – who defends the actions of police in the horrible raid on Mayor Cheye Calvo and his family (where the dogs were killed and the innocent family terrorized with no investigative work by the police). Corbett writes:

As a former S.W.A.T. team member and a current homicide detective with the Milwaukee police department, I must take issue with the tone of a paragraph in ‹The WeekŠ (September 1). The piece addresses the Cheye Calvo incident, in which police raided a Maryland mayor‰s home looking for drugs, killed his dogs, and restrained him and his mother-in-law. It turned out the man was innocent.
I have personally been involved in the execution of no-knock search warrants, the killing of dogs during those executions, and the investigations of numerous drug-related homicides and officer-involved shootings. Yes, no-knock warrants are issued to avoid the destruction of evidence such as drugs, but they are also issued to protect the officers executing those warrants. In addition, each warrant requires a judge‰s authorization, and obviously the available evidence satisfied the judge in this case.
Sorry if Calvo and his mother-in-law were ‹restrainedŠ for ‹almost two hours.Š Would you rather have them be comfortable for those two hours, and risk officers‰ lives and safety? Calvo should be able to understand what the officers did and why they did it.
Municipal police departments do fight a war on the streets of this country daily. This incident should not be considered overkill (to take a word from Reason‰s Radley Balko), but sound police tactics. As soon as some police administrator starts to second-guess the training and experience of the officers charged with doing these types of investigations, someone will get hurt or killed. Drug investigations are inherently dangerous, and so is the Monday-morning quarterbacking you are doing.
Kent Corbett
Milwaukee, Wis.

What kind of system allows such a malignant tumor to exist within our law enforcement ranks unchecked? This is such a perversion of America – a repudiation of everything for which we stand. Does Kent Corbett put out an American flag on national holidays? Does he know what it means?
“bullet” Here’s one that’s a little subtler, but a sickness nonetheless.

JOLIET — Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Knick, a member of the Drug Prosecution Unit, and administrative assistant, Kathy Kearney, the secretary supervisor for the unit, were recognized by the Illinois Metropolitan Enforcement Group Directors’ and Task Force Commanders’ Association, Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow announced.
Knick and Kearney were honored for their work in processing 858 narcotics cases during 2007 and 2008. The conviction rate for these cases was 95 percent.
“I congratulate Mike Knick and Kathy Kearney on receiving this prestigious honor and for going above and beyond their duties to fight the war against drugs in Will County,” Glasgow said. “Mike and Kathy, along with my entire Drug Prosecution Unit, have worked tirelessly with the Metropolitan Area Narcotics Squad ( MANS ) and our local police departments over the past four years.
“The unit has seen a 50 percent increase in the number of search warrants granted to detectives who are conducting narcotics investigations.”

The sickness here is using the benchmark of quantity in dealing with drug issues (or criminal justice issues in general). And we see that far too often in campaigns for prosecutors and Attorneys General. All about the numbers of people prosecuted and the numbers of convictions achieved, like points in a basketball game.
In prosecuting, it takes more than scoring points to be a true success, and prosecution “points” are costly, both in terms of the financial cost to taxpayers of prison and prosecution, and in the effect on lives, sometimes innocent ones.
I would like to see a prosecutor running for office who says:

I was a good steward of your money and your trust. I made efficient use of jail time and prosecution resources to lock up the most dangerous criminals, while finding alternatives for non-violent criminals when possible. I refused to waste your tax dollars on cases that didn’t deserve to be in a courtroom, and I made extra effort to insure that innocent citizens were not convicted nor put through a damaging criminal justice process.

But I don’t hear that much. What I hear is prosecutors bragging about breaking scoring records, as if that means they get to go to the regional finals.