Drug WarRant

Dennis Kucinich is dropping out of the Presidential race tomorrow to focus on his House race. It’s a shame not to have his drug policy reform views in the race, but quite frankly, we didn’t really have them much when he was running. He never developed any traction or real notice (except in comparison to invisible man Mike Gravel).
I’ve also been extremely disappointed with Kucinich in the House. We were so excited when he was named Chair of the Subcommittee on Domestic Policy — the subcommittee that was supposed to include the drug policy areas formerly overseen by Mark Souder when the Republicans controlled the House. But he tamely followed the leadership’s mandate and almost completely ignored drug policy. Just look at the hearings since he took over. The only advantage to having Kucinich is that he’s not Souder. And yes, the absence of Souder is devoutly to be wished, but still, it would be nice for a reformer to actually, you know, reform.
Actor Fred Thompson has also mercifully dropped out — he was wildly miscast in his role as Presidential candidate. Nobody believed his character, and he couldn’t seem to memorize his lines. I’ve got to admit that I’m glad not to have a candidate who got his views on drug policy from Law and Order.
The best chance of drug policy reform actually being discussed in the Presidential campaign continues to be Ron Paul (who Monday received the endorsement of drug policy reformer and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson). He’s got the money and the ground troops, but not the press or the voting numbers. The fact that he’s got a reasonable amount of cash on hand means that he may have some time yet to get out the message.
Of course, there is another chance that drug policy will be discussed in the campaign — and that’s if Obama is the Democratic candidate. In that case, his youthful drug use is likely to become an attack issue and it could get ugly. Then it will be interesting to see how the public responds. Will they continue to reward “soft-on-drugs” attacks?
Again, this is mostly just interesting conjecture. While I dream of reform-minded Presidents, I know that the best we can really hope for is one that will make increasing the drug war a low priority. Leadership will come from the people, not the leaders.

I don’t think anybody can look at this story without realizing that we have a case of extreme dysfunction:

Elite army soldiers took over police stations along Mexico’s border with Texas on Tuesday, disarming police, checking for unregistered weapons and searching patrol cars and personal vehicles for any items that might link the officers to drug cartels, according to an official and the Mexican media.
Special-forces soldiers wearing ski masks took control of police stations in Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, Matamoros and other cities in Tamaulipas state during the morning change of shifts, said an official and local residents who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

That’s right. Special forces soldiers in ski masks raiding police stations! Take a moment and picture that. And figure out how we got to that point. Was it because of drugs? Or the drug war?

Now over in Brooklyn, there were no ski masks, but still…

Heads rolled at the top of the NYPD’s Narcotics Division Monday night after the Daily News learned that 20 cops were benched over charges that undercover officers took sex, drugs and cash from junkies and dealers.
NYPD and law enforcement sources said 15 cops – all from the midnight crew of Brooklyn South Narcotics – have been put on desk duty as part of a five-month investigation by the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau.
That’s on top of four members of the midnight crew busted on allegations they stole drugs to pay off informants and another who was suspended on undisclosed internal charges, sources told The News.

Can you say “dysfunction”? I knew you could. This isn’t one cop. This is a whole bunch of ’em. These are the people that the community is supposed to trust to protect and serve them.
Now in Cleveland, it’s a dysfunctional relationship with the DEA, informants and prosecutors.

A federal judge decided Tuesday to free 15 men from prison because their convictions were based on testimony of a government informant who lied on the witness stand and framed innocent people.
Collectively, the men have served at least 30 years behind bars. They were sentenced to a combined 86 years. Federal public defender Dennis Terez called the release of so many people at one time unprecedented.
Fallout from the case is expected to spread beyond the federal courthouses in Cleveland and Akron, where the men were convicted of dealing crack cocaine in Mansfield.
The case is a blow to the federal justice system, which relies heavily on informant-based testimony, lawyers said. The men, some with no prior run-ins with the law, were given long prison sentences based almost exclusively on the word of informant Jerrell Bray and Lee Lucas, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent who supervised Bray.

Three different stories in one week. All examples of dysfunction so great that the entire concept of police serving and protecting the people is meaningless. The fabric of government itself is shredded.
The dysfunction and destruction screams at us. Yet the drug warriors, deaf and dumb, lurch on in their war, no longer knowing where they’re headed, yet somehow sure that if they just do… more of it, they’ll win.

Strange game.
The only winning move is not to play.

How about a nice game of chess?

In regulated markets, disputes are handled by lawyers. In the black market, disputes are handled by guns. I have no love for lawyers, but I’d rather get hit by a stray brief than a stray bullet.

---

The entire philosophy behind SWAT-style drug raids is that the death of a mother, a child, or the family pet is an acceptable risk to prevent flushing.

---

As anyone who has tried to quit smoking knows, dependence is hardest to overcome during difficult or stressful times. That must be why, when the government helps drug abusers quit, they arrest them and take away their job, possessions, and children.

---

If I wanted to win the hearts and minds of farmers in Latin America and Afghanistan, I probably wouldn’t start by destroying their fields and removing their only hope of feeding their families.

---

Those massive drug seizures you read about in the paper affect traffickers much the same way a DVD shoplifter affects WalMart — an annoyance, but part of the normal cost of doing business.

---

No government in the world can compete with the black market in financial compensation for police officers.

---

When a government uses military personnel, equipment, and tactics against its own citizens, is it time to call it a Civil War rather than a Drug War?

---

The government is good at job creation. Every arrest of a drug dealer creates a new high-paying job opening.

---

If you want to bring a community together, hold a pot-luck dinner. If you want to drive it apart, hold a drug war.

---

Americans are generally pretty brave… although some are apparently terrified of people who listen to Pink Floyd and eat Cheetos.

---

Even the characters played by Tommy Chong make more sense than most politicians.

… in some places.
One of the reasons some people have difficulties with the notion of drug legalization is that they simply do not have the ability to imagine what such a thing would be like. All they can do is parrot the prohibitionist’s nonsense scenario of shrink-wrapped heroin injection packs on sale for $1 to toddlers in the 7-11.
We probably need to be better at helping people envision a world without the drug war as it exists today.
Well, Transform’s Steve Rolles has prepared a fascinating look into the future of the UK for this month’s Druglink Magazine:

The year is 2022 and drugs are legal… (pdf)

What Steve has done in the limited space given to him is focus on three future approaches:

• Marijuana — the fully legal coffee shop model with legal personal growing and restrictions of use in public.
• Cocaine — a regulated recreational prescription model
• Heroin — the supervised maintenance model

It’s nicely imagined.
How did it come about?

The crunch moment came at the 2018 UN General Assembly Special Session when a coalition of over 20 countries, including much of Western Europe, Australasia, South America, Mexico and Canada, made it clear that they could no longer be a party to the increasingly redundant, ineffectual and often counter-productive strictures of the UN
drug conventions. They demanded the sovereign and democratic right to determine their own drug polices in accordance with their own needs

Unfortunately, Steve’s future is a little more bleak for some of us…

Different countries have adopted different regulatory models and policy is evolving rapidly. But not everywhere: old school punitive prohibition continues in the US, Sweden and Saudi Arabia

Definitely worth a read. What do you think of his scenario?

You may remember that last Monday I speculated on how John Walters would react to news that seizures sharply dropped in 2007. I had given a few options, and was about to declare #2 the winner (ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist), when he managed to come up with a whole new option:
Blame Chavez

In Unusually Harsh Criticism of the Venezuelan President, John P. Walters Blames Lack of Enforcement for an Increase in Drug Shipments. […]
“Where are the big seizures, where are the big arrests of individuals who are at least logistical coordinators? When it’s being launched from controlled airports and seaports, where are the arrests of corrupt officials? At some point here, this is tantamount to collusion,” Walters said in an interview.

“bullet” In other Drug Czar news…

The head of the RCMP’s national drug branch is debunking claims by the United States’ drug czar, who claims organized crime rings in Canada are dumping dangerous, methamphetamine-laced “extreme ecstasy” into his country’s illegal drug market.
Supt. Paul Nadeau said he doesn’t know why John Walters, of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, would make such statements in a widely distributed news release without checking facts with Canadian officials.
“I shook my head when I read the release that they put out,” said Nadeau, adding he’s never heard of extreme ecstasy.
“That term is unknown to us, certainly in Canada, and I can tell you that I’ve spoken to law enforcement people in the U.S. and they’ve never heard of it either so it would appear that it’s a term that somebody came up with in a boardroom in Washington, D.C.” […]
John Carnavale, an economist who worked for four previous U.S. drug czars between 1989 and 2000, said Walters is “cherry-picking data” to blame Canada.

“bullet” A note to all my readers: I don’t say this often enough, but I’m really grateful for all the comments and the emailed tips I get from you. Please note that even if I don’t use your tips — what I end up using sometimes is a matter of whim — I still appreciate getting them. I’m not very good at thanking everyone individually, so please accept my thanks now.
“bullet” Happy one year until inauguration day! I wonder which drug testing company John Walters will be working for.
“bullet” Bill Steigerwald in the Pittsburgh Tribune really takes it to Barack Obama

… for now it seems that — like umpteen millions of his fellow law-breaking Americans — he did his pot and coke and didn’t get caught.
Too bad. If his life had been spoiled even a little by the evil drug war, he might have more sympathy for the 1.6 million Americans who get busted each year for nonviolent drug offenses.
Then, instead of merely being the most charismatic of three indistinguishable liberals competing to see who can use Big Government to “change” America the most, he could become a real American political hero — by using his famed oratorical skills to end America’s most senseless war.

“bullet” It may not seem like that much, and it’s not as much as we’d like, but still… You’ve got to admit that in a hotly contested Presidential race, it’s a step forward when a major party candidate who advocates completely ending the drug war can come in second in a state.
“bullet” Remembering…

“Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’
Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’
But conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’
And there comes a time when one must take a
position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular
but because conscience tells one it is right.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Scott at Grits for Breakfast has a piece about a low-life named Jon Cole who has surfaced in the Republican primary for the Texas House (District 67). Apparently he’s using dishonest tactics that have angered everyone, including the Young Conservatives of Texas.
Cole’s background? Working for the Drug Czar.
According to his bio:

Working for our nation’s “Drug Czar” at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s Major Cities Team, Jon focused on the drug epidemic in Dallas, Houston, and other major cities. In his work, Jon analyzed the day-to-day efforts of law enforcement, government and citizens to help build national and local coalitions to combat teenage drug abuse. While in Washington, Jon learned firsthand the devastating effect Texas’ porous borders have on the flow of illicit drugs into Plano and Dallas.

Yeah, right. Look at that photo. I’m guessing he was an intern, with no real responsibility and one opportunity to pose with the Drug Czar — a puke kid with a political internship because of his fundraising work for the Party. (I’ve found no online presence of him working for the ONDCP except in his own bio.)
Yet still, look how warped he emerged. Here is his primary issue:

Stop Liberal Drug Decriminalization in Texas

• Renew Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs.
• Increase the penalty for those who sell to children.
• Double the penalty for those who addict children and turn them into drug dealers.
• Secure our Borders! Drug peddlers from Mexico target Plano because of the high household incomes and teenagers who are innocent to the nightmares of drug use.
• Expose and prevent liberal legalization schemes. Legislators in Austin are minimizing the rights of children and crime victims and allying themselves with liberals such as the ACLU and George Soros to decriminalize drug crimes and retroactively review previous criminal cases.

As if the Texas legislature has a history of being squishy soft on drugs.
Now, I’m guessing that Cole was never a prize catch. If you look at his main photo, he looks like the rich a**hole boyfriend in the beginning of every B-movie romantic comedy before the girl realizes what a jerk he is.
But it probably took the White House Office of Drug Control Policy to completely warp him. I’m thinking that the toxicity of the ONDCP may suck out the soul of anyone who works there. Look at Andrea Barthwell, who has constantly jumped from one dishonest scheme to another since leaving the ONDCP. Even John Walters himself got his start assisting Drug Czar William Bennett.
Ah, if only we could get the EPA to shut down the ONDCP.

“bullet” Oh, look! The Afghanistan Opium market is getting some competition. Opium fields spread across Iraq as farmers try to make ends meet
“bullet” LEAP member Judge Eleanor Levingston Shockett died last week. She was an outspoken advocate for reform who had been interested in drug policy since 1958.
“bullet” The Drug Testing Medicine Show and Flea Circus is on the road again. The ONDCP held the latest of their little one-sided information propaganda sessions for schools in Washington State this week. But they can’t get away with it. DPA’s Jennifer Kern had an excellent OpEd published in the Seattle Post Intelligencer. The ACLU urged educators to reject the idea. And at the summits, volunteers passed out copies of the ACLU and Drug Policy Alliance’s booklet: Making Sense of Student Drug Testing.
Upcoming summits:

• Jacksonville, FL, January 29, 2008
• Oklahoma City, OK, January 31, 2008
• Albuquerque, NM, February 6, 2008
• Indianapolis, IN, February 13, 2008

“bullet” Strong editorial in the National Post: Emery Should Be A Free Man

Drug policy in Canada, particularly as it pertains to marijuana, is stuck in a sort of legal no-man’s-land. Politicians want to appear tough on crime, but at the same time are loath to make criminals out of the hundreds of thousands of Canadians — perhaps as many one or two million — who are casual tokers. They tiptoe up to the precipice of decriminalization, always to scurry back at the last minute for fear of offending the United States, or the many domestic voters who oppose more liberal marijuana laws. At best, our leaders can only ever summon the courage for a de facto decriminalization: Keep personal pot possession nominally illegal, but instruct Crown prosecutors not to prosecute most offenders.
The irony is: This gutless approach undermines the rule of law more assuredly than decriminalization or full legalization ever could. […]
Permitting Marc Emery to cut a deal with U.S. prosecutors is one of those cowardly half-measure that have come to symbolize Canadian drug policy. If Ottawa wants Canadians to respect the law, it either has to enforce it as written or — as we would prefer — change what is written to conform to the prevailing social norms. Our current neither-fish-nor-fowl stand makes a mockery of our criminal justice system.

“bullet” From the DEA press release about their new reality TV show on Spike TV this spring, produced by Al Roker Entertainment:

‹This job is a calling. We love what we do and you can see that on the show through the dedication and excitement of these agents,Š said Special Agent Mary Irene Cooper, DEA‰s Chief of Congressional and Public Affairs. ‹Nothing else I‰ve seen captures the day-to-day experiences of drug law enforcement work like this series. You see the thrills, you see the anticipation, you see the chase, you see the reality.

I’m guessing none of these people will be featured on the show…
“bullet” “drcnet”

This one’s been sitting on my desktop for a week, but I didn’t want to let it go by…
You know how the government always brags about how much marijuana it seized in a bust by assigning the highest possible street value for every bit of it? This could come back to bite them.

Dickes, a 38-year-old Desert Shield Marine who suffers from debilitating pain after catching grenade shrapnel in the Gulf, says he was treated worse by Colorado police than by anyone in Iraq. In April, 2007 officers raided his home after receiving a tip from a neighbor and, according to his lawyer Robert J. Corry Jr., threw the disabled veteran to the ground, held him at gunpoint and ransacked his home. They found 71 marijuana plants, at least 65 of which they confiscated illegally, and they charged Dickes with felony cultivation. After eight months of legal wrangling, the Arapahoe County district attorney dismissed the charges, determining that Dickes was in fact a certified grower. But, by then, his plants were long dead.
Thanks to a referendum passed in 2000, Article XVIII, Section 14 of the Colorado State Constitution stipulates that “any property… used in connection with the medical use of marijuana… shall not be harmed, neglected, injured, or destroyed while in the possession of state or local law enforcement officials.” Not being equipped with the growroom or know-how to maintain them, Aurora police simply uprooted the plants and threw them in the evidence room.

So Dickes is planning on suing the suburb of Aurora for over $360,000 in damages.

It appears at this point that are attempting to properly investigate the shooting of Tarika Wilson by police in a drug raid. And Attorney General Marc Dann even went personally to talk with members of the community. Angry members. He deserves credit for that.
And it was probably good for him to do that. Because it helped highlight a critical point (one brought about by the drug war).

Attorney General Marc Dann also pledged to take a closer look at relations between police and the community after hearing from dozens of people who said they don‰t trust the city‰s officers.
‹This is not a problem that is unique to Lima,Š Dann said. ‹It is an unacceptable state of affairs that this many people in any community feels they aren‰t protected by the police.Š […]
He tried to assure residents there will be a thorough investigation.
Still, he was surprised by the amount of anger he faced. ‹Clearly, this struck a chord in this community,Š he said