Drug WarRant

Via Atrios — Fred Thompson the prosecutor

But more than anything, Thompson took on the state’s moonshiners and a local culture, rooted in Tennessee’s hills and hollows, that celebrated the independent whiskey maker’s battle against the government’s revenue agents.
Twenty-seven of his cases involved moonshining — more than any other crime.
“Hell, I made whiskey and was violating the law, but I didn’t do nothing wrong,” said one of Thompson’s many moonshining defendants, Kenneth Whitehead. “I would do it again if I had a still. I can’t afford a still now.”

Just what we need. A not-too-bright fossil who likes prohibition.
Of course, other than Ron Paul (who is far above the pack), every single Republican candidate would be as bad, or worse than, the current disaster.
On the Democratic side, there would be a slight improvement. In the top tier candidates, it would probably be mostly due to a degree of comparative neglect, rather than any positive effort. The lower tier candidates — Kucinich, Gravel, Richardson or Dodd, could result in noticeable, though still minor, reform.
I do want to take a moment to highlight Chris Dodd — not for any particular stance on drug policy in particular, but because of his recent effort to oppose telecom amnesty and stand up for Constitutional rights of Americans. It’s important for us to remember that the drug war’s erosion of rights led to abuses in other areas, and authoritarian leadership in general will also result in exploiting the power inherent in escalating the drug war.
And in that regard, it is likely that the absolute worst option for our country would be Giuliani in the oval office.

The biggest bully on the block turns out to be Giuliani. That would be a sad reason to make him president.

Andrew Sullivan picks up on the story of Robin Prosser — the medical marijuana patient/activist who recently ended her life.
Sully’s post got the attention of my favorite conservative blogger, John Cole, and this is what he had to say…

I have had a couple drinks, so let‰s be blunt (pardon the pun)- and this goes out to anyone, of any political persuasion, anywhere, who had a problem with this woman using marijuana to alleviate her pain (especially the alleged ‹conservativeŠ federalists who can‰t handle the thought of states making their own drug laws):
Go fuck yourself. To death.
[…]
I am sick of the bullshit. Life is hard for most people out there, and damned near impossible for people in chronic pain. Quit making it worse, you allegedly compassionate sons-of-bitches.

Thank you, John.
(Read the rest of his post, and the comments as well.)
Update This story is affecting a wide variety of bloggers. See Memeorandum

“bullet” NJ fugitive arrested after 28 years on the run — The guy is 75 years old now. But they got him.

Jurado is being held in Philadelphia until he can be extradited to New Jersey. He served less than four months of a three- to 10-year prison sentence for drug offenses before he escaped. He will have to complete the original sentence and could get up to five more years in prison if he is convicted of escape.

So for a drug charge from 28 years ago, we’re going to pay for extradition, prison, and probably final days health costs for this 75 year old man. What could possibly make this worth the cost? Do we really need him in prison?
“bullet” Scott Morgan can quit whenever he wants…
“bullet” The Patriot Act is 6 years old today.
“bullet” Drug Sense Weekly
“bullet” “drcnet”

[Note: This is all idle speculation. I don’t know these people personally, so I can’t be in any way sure of my analyses.]

The recent announcement of Karen P. Tandy’s departure as head of the DEA (and her move to a position with Motorola) got me thinking about the various personalities in charge of the drug war.
Some have informally suggested that a boycott of Motorola is appropriate, given Tandy’s record as head of the DEA, but I’m not so sure.
You see, I don’t think she’s a true believer or a hard core career drug warrior. I think she’s simply a not-too-bright opportunist completely lacking moral values. She was ignorant coming in to the position. Note this exchange from her confirmation hearing:

Durbin: Are you aware of information regarding the medicinal benefits of marijuana (for example: an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine on [January] 30, 1997; the 1999 Institute of Medicine report “Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base authorized by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy; and the 1988 ruling from the DEA’s chief administrative law judge, Francis L. Young)?…”
Tandy: “I am not personally familiar with the sources you cite discussing the putative “medicinal benefits of marijuana…”

It appears that this lack of interest in actually knowing anything continued through her administration. I had the opportunity to have dinner with one of her assistants (also a political appointee) – a man who is sometimes sent out to talk and debate about marijuana.
We talked candidly at dinner, and I was astonished to learn that there were a number of items of common drug policy knowledge that he was lacking (for example, the fact that Bush had campaigned in favor of states’ rights regarding medical marijuana, or that Marinol can get you high). For his part, he merely saw it as a temporary job, and cared to learn just enough to do what was necessary. He wasn’t interested in the kind of extensive research that we do on a daily basis.
I suspect that any additional knowledge Karen Tandy has upon leaving the DEA she obtained by accident– and that most of her “expertise” was simply provided by career staff and speechwriters. I think her knack was the ability to unquestioningly follow the administration’s line and spout the “correct” talking points. This is probably what makes her attractive to Motorola. As someone with international connections because of her position with the DEA, and no moral compunctions or annoying tendencies to think, she’s a perfect tool.
Sure, she’ll probably be trotted out on some occasions to speak in favor of the drug war due to her status as past DEA head, but I doubt we’ll hear much from her anymore.

Tandy’s deputy, Michele Leonhart, who will most likely be put forth as head of the DEA is, in some ways, more troublesome. A career DEA agent, who finds nothing particularly wrong with lying… in court!…

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

She sees the drug war not as a temporary career advancement, but rather sees the long term power of the DEA as a good unto itself.
So how do you categorize other drug war leaders?
One that has fascinated me for some time is Andrea Barthwell. She joined the ONDCP in late 2001 as Deputy Director for Demand Reduction. I had a conversation with a treatment professional who knew her prior to her ONDCP days and thought highly of her. In fact, Andrea herself claimed that she was unhappy with the Bush administration’s focus on enforcement and was hoping to use her position in the ONDCP to advocate for more focus on treatment.
But being deputy drug czar appeared to have turned her completely to the dark side. Rather than pushing for treatment, she spent most of her time in the position extolling the evils of marijuana and pushing for drug testing. Upon leaving, her dementia seemed to deepen. Rather than pursuing a “respectable” career in the treatment field, she has pursued one hair-brained scheme after another, from her Illinois Marijuana Lectures organization (which I stopped) to promoting liquid marijuana in the pay of Sativex, to attempting to run for senate, to her con game pushing false data regarding drunk driving (which I also exposed)…
Now, Barthwell is apparently promoting some new kind of junk science treatment scheme, but she’s having a harder time getting a properly supportive audience for her nonsense. As the Windy City Times reports:

Another attendee said that the whole presentation seemed like ‹a major sales job.Š He also told Barthwell that he felt that her ‹explanation of addiction was very naive. … ” […] Windy City Times asked CCMTF‰s Jim Pickett what he thought of the presentationÖand he was not impressed. ‹I want scienceÖand most of us in the community want science before we start advocating for a treatment,Š he said. ‹I think it‰s irresponsible that they‰re pushing forward with such little science…”

The Tandys and Barthwells of this world can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time, and need to be watched closely while they’re in power, but, in the long term, they are less of a concern than the lifetime career drug warriors.

Certainly the ones who come most to mind are the current villains like John Walters and Mark Souder, and some of the ongoing heirs to the Anslinger legend, like William Bennett and Peter Bensinger. These are individuals who have decided that the drug war (and related culture wars) are something to build a lifetime around. They have decided that the rest of the world is incapable of living “correctly,” and so will do anything from lying to sacrificing innocents for their power trip. They base it around a false concept of morality to justify the immoral actions they take. For the most part, they know full well that they are living a lie, but find that fully acceptable (although it’s possible, in the case of warriors like Souder that there is also a bit of self-delusion going on).
_______
So, do I have a point in this post? Not sure.
I have, in recent years, come to the firm belief that any responsible individual faced with enough facts about the drug war must inescapably come to the conclusion that the drug war is wrong. Period. So I find a somewhat morbid fascination in trying to understand those who are in a position to know enough to oppose the drug war, yet support it anyway.
It may not be an analysis that will provide any practical use — after all, our task is not to change those knowledgeable, yet corrupt, drug war supporters. It is, rather, our job to get the vast majority who do not know enough up to speed, so they can oppose it. Still, knowledge and questioning is always good.
What do you think drives drug war administrators?

I had a great time at the SSDP meeting tonight. And thanks for the cake!!!
Welcome — feel free to jump right in.

Apparently, the secrecy in the development of Plan Mexico is threatening to give it a bumpy ride…

“There is worry about what it means to our sovereignty,” said Juan-Francisco Rivera, chairman of the Public Security Committee in Mexico lower house of Congress. “We need to first understand what this project is about.” […]
“Congress was not consulted as the plan was developed,” said Rep. Eliot L. Engel, D-N.Y., the chairman of a House Foreign Relations subcommittee holding hearings Thursday on the plan. “This is not a good way to kick off such an important effort.”
Mexican lawmakers also fumed. “The Mexican Congress isn’t participating in this,” said Cuauhtemoc Sandoval of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, a ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee in Mexico’s lower house. “The plan worries us.” […]
The leftist La Jornada of Mexico City declared in an editorial Tuesday that there exists precedents of the U.S. tendency to use such bilateral cooperation as a cover for espionage and diplomatic blackmail.

Hmmm….
Not that I think there’s a chance that it’ll be stopped, but perhaps there will at least be some hard questioning first. The taxpayers deserve a little conversation before they get screwed.
“bullet” Interesting side note. More and more, other countries are getting suspicious of drug war “support” from the United States.
Ecuador wants military base in Miami

Correa has refused to renew Washington’s lease on the Manta air base, set to expire in 2009. U.S. officials say it is vital for counter-narcotics surveillance operations on Pacific drug-running routes.
“We’ll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami — an Ecuadorean base,” Correa said in an interview during a trip to Italy.
“If there’s no problem having foreign soldiers on a country’s soil, surely they’ll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States.” […]
Correa, a popular leftist economist, had promised to cut off his arm before extending the lease that ends in 2009 and has called U.S. President George W. Bush a “dimwit”.

Reminiscent of Venezuela kicking out the DEA…

“The day that the DEA allows us to open up a floor in the DEA’s building [in the U.S.], where only Venezuelans are allowed to enter, we will allow them to open a floor where only North-Americans are allowed to enter into Conacuid, in the meantime no,” added Chacon.

“bullet” Missoula to enforce lowest priority measure:

Nearly a year after voters made the Garden City a little greener by asking county law enforcement to ignore adult marijuana offenses, Missoula’s top prosecutor has adopted an official policy to uphold the referendum.
“In the interest of compliance with the 2006 voter initiative on marijuana . we are asking law enforcement officers to stop arresting individuals or writing and submitting tickets ( with mandatory appearance dates ) where the offense committed is solely possession of marijuana in misdemeanor amounts or possession of drug paraphernalia intended for use of marijuana,” according to a draft of the policy by Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg, an outspoken opponent of the measure.
Van Valkenburg’s policy also instructs deputy prosecutors to charge misdemeanor marijuana cases on a lowest-priority basis when marijuana is the sole offense

Nice to see a prosecutor who is willing to follow the law.
“bullet” A report on a government operation to demonstrate to High School students that American have no rights.

On the morning of Friday, October 12, 2007, Steinert High School in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, was flooded by police with five drug-sniffing dogs accompanied by a prosecutor and school officials. The whole student body was arrested by being detained in various classrooms and forced to wait while the search of their lockers verified that each student was innocent of drug possession. Every locker got searched. And every student was under technical arrest until cleared of drug possession, approaching unlawful imprisonment.
The school sent us a letter home with our son saying it was a “…pre-planned search of student lockers using trained narcotics detections dogs.” It continued, “As per our ongoing protocol of ensuring a safe and orderly drug-free environment…this search was a component of our program to deter illegal activity.” There was no reasonable suspicion of any drug activity. It seems that this search was itself an illegal activity because it was a warrantless dragnet, pure and simple.

Guess how much drugs they found?
I wonder how they teach the Political Science in that school? Maybe like abstinence-only sex and drug education, they teach from a heavily redacted Constitution.
“bullet” At another High School, a student who understands rights has written a short play based on a famous Supreme Court case.

‹Bong Hits 4 Jesus,Š written and directed by junior James Dennin, is a dialogue between a student and a principal over the freedom of speech, inspired by the Supreme Court case Frederick v. Morse. […] ‹The ruling raised the question of, to what extent do students have rights,Š said Dennin.

“bullet” Alex at Drug Law Blog expresses one of my pet peeves

What he’s saying is

1. A drug has the potential to harm people.
2. Therefore, the use of the drug should be against the law.

This is pretty much the standard analysis of most folks in law enforcement, not only around salvia but around all recreational drug use. But how do we get from 1 to 2?

Yes, it’s a variation on the Underpants Gnome syndrome. And it’s extremely pervasive in this country on both the right and the left.
“bullet” Nice piece by LEAP’s Jerry Cameron: Praise for Restoring a Life

I will be leading a round-table discussion on current events in the drug war at the regular weekly meeting of the Illinois State University chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 8 pm in Schroeder Hall, room 114.

Fun with money…

The State Department is requesting $550 million to combat drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America […]
“We must provide our troops with the help and support they need to get the job done,” Bush said. “Parts of this war are complicated, but one part is not, and that is America should do what it takes to support our troops and protect our people.”

Confused? It’s just business as usual in Washington. Bush has put the Mexico drug war money in with the massive request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
You see, as soon as it’s part of the “support the troops” money, it’s free! Nobody questions it. Nobody asks how we can afford it. Nobody holds hearings*. To do so is to face the “you don’t support the troops” inquisition. So anything thrown into this pot of money — like funding mercenaries in Mexico — is… free. (Of course, we still have to pay for it.)
*(This would normally be the case with a war spending bill. But in fact, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs actually is holding a hearing: U.S. Security Assistance to Mexico on Thursday.)

Karen P. Tandy is stepping down as head of the DEA, in order to take a lucrative job with Motorola. Her ignorance, her fostering of drug war corruption, and her slavish devotion to all that is evil about the drug war will be… missed quickly replaced with someone else just as bad.
One of my very first full-length posts as a blogger was about Karen P Tandy’s confirmation process (it still is the #1 Google response for Karen P Tandy and one of the top five for Karen Tandy).
So, once again, as with Andrea Barthwell, I outlast a drug warrior — an accomplishment that is not without its downside, since both of them probably make more money in the time it takes you to read this, than I make in a week.
From her press release:

Reflecting on her 30 year career, with the last 4 years as the DEA Administrator, Ms. Tandy stated, ‹It just doesn‰t get any better than this […]”

Hmmm… maybe not for her.
But what about the poor farmers in Colombia? What about the thousands of non-violent drug offenders in federal prisons? What about the medical marijuana patients who have been denied their medicine by the DEA? What about these people?
Does it ever get better for them?