Drug WarRant

Remember Avi Green — the comics guy who was so upset that Kirsten Dunst admitted to being pro-pot?
Well, now he’s written an… exposÚ about… me (and Radley Balko and a few others tossed in for fun).

A few days later, three or four other sites, including a ludicrous, pro-drug site called Drug War Rant, run by a strange man named Peter Guither, whose name sounds German, took a swipe at the post, […] For example, get a load of just how loathsome little Mr. Guither looks in the picture on the side in this profile page. Oh, and if Guither is reading this, just to let you know, you won’t be doing yourself a favor by dressing up like that! Even some junkies might admit that it’s even more frightening that any hallucinations illegal drugs themselves might cause!

Note how much difficulty he has in identifying the obvious sarcasm in the quote about Buckley.

The cover article in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine is huge. Very powerful piece by Tina Rosenberg about the issue of pain management and how the drug war has interfered with proper medical procedures. If you have access to the Sunday paper, pick one up this week to reward them for running it. Or write them a letter.
You can read it now online: Doctor or Drug Pusher

This is just… so…

The Mexican border city of Tijuana, mired in drug violence, hopes to recall brighter days this summer by tossing three tonnes of Caesar salad, the dish invented in the town’s U.S. prohibition-era glory days.
The salad was born in 1932 in the kitchen of chef Cesar Cardini, according to the current owners of Caesar’s Hotel in Tijuana, a city that flourished as U.S. tipplers flooded its bars and casinos in search of legal alcohol.
While still drawing hordes of U.S. party-goers too young to drink across the border, Tijuana has been plagued by dozens of killings in recent years in a drug cartel war — an image locals hope a record-breaking side dish will help shake off.

I’ve really got to do something about all those head-shaped holes in my walls.

It seems like a constant stream of these events now.

Law-enforcement officers raided the wrong house and forced a 77-year-old La Plata County woman on oxygen to the ground last week in search of methamphetamine.
The raid occurred about 11 a.m. June 8, as Virginia Herrick was settling in to watch “The Price is Right.” She heard a rustling outside her mobile home in Durango West I and looked out to see several men with gas masks and bulletproof vests, she said.
Herrick went to the back door to have a look.
“I thought there was a gas leak or something,” she said.
But before reaching the door, La Plata County Sheriff’s deputies shouted “search warrant, search warrant” and barged in with guns drawn, she said. They ordered Herrick to the ground and began searching the home.
“They didn’t give me a chance to ask for a search warrant or see a search warrant or anything,” she said in a phone interview Thursday. “I’m not about to argue with those big old guys, especially when they’ve got guns and those big old sledgehammers.” […]
Deputies asked Herrick if she knew a certain man, and she said no. Then they asked what address they were at, and she told them 74 Hidden Lane.
Deputies intended to raid 82 Hidden Lane – the house next door.
While Herrick was on the ground, deputies began placing handcuffs on her. They cuffed one wrist and were preparing to cuff the other.
“I had gotten really angry, and I was shaking from the whole incident,” she said.

And she should be angry. But it’s this part that really makes me steamed:

Raiding the wrong house was a mistake, but it’s one the task force has been learning from, [Southwest Drug Task Force Director Lt. Rick] Brown said. The mistake could have compromised the investigation and deputy safety.

Yeah, right. Forget the public. Who cares about real people in our homes? The real problem is that this mistake might have messed up their drug war or their own safety. Virginia was lucky, I guess. She survived.
Oh, and by the way, the drug task force had supposedly been investigating drug activity at 82 Hidden Lane for a month. Maybe somebody in the task force should get access to Google and look up the addresses. Or better yet, do some police work.
When I go to visit somebody for the first time, I’m paranoid about checking the number to be sure I’ve got the right place before I knock on the door (and the worst that my mistake could do is make someone answer the door unnecessarily). Would that not be even more true if you’re about to destroy somebody’s life and maybe take it?
The fact that these events happen so often not only is a factor of simple percentages (given the extraordinary number of home invasions authorized in the name of the drug war). It also seems that drug warriors have stopped thinking about the public as citizens meriting concern for their safety, but rather as part of an enemy populace.

“bullet”

Link

MEXICO CITY, June 14 (Reuters) – Mexico’s government, which complains violent drug cartels are battling each other with firearms bought in the United States, slammed slack U.S. gun laws as absurd on Thursday.
Mexico complains most of the often high-powered weapons used by warring Mexican traffickers come from gun shops in the United States and Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said there was not enough control over their sale.
“I think the American (gun) laws are absurd because they … make it very easy for citizens to acquire guns,” he told a meeting of academics and businessmen.

This appears to be a politically odd move on the part of Mexico. Blaming the U.S. and alienating the conservative American anti-gun-control groups doesn’t seem very smart. But then again, Calderon’s government has screwed up in a major way by escalating the drug war. Since the escalation has been a disaster and he has no viable exit strategy, he needs to find someone to blame — even if it’s his allies in the United States.
Colombia’s Uribe government is taking a different tack, threatening an increase of cocaine on U.S. streets unless we pay them BILLions of dollars.

Colombia’s defense minister warned Thursday that cocaine production would rise sharply if Democrats in the U.S. Congress proceed with plans to cut military aid to the South American nation, the world’s largest producer of the drug.

Somebody needs to tell them that we’re already getting all the cocaine we can possibly consume, despite/thanks to all the eradication and interdiction efforts. Kind of an empty threat.
Of course, neither country is interested in actually solving their problems because it would involve cutting off funds for their drug war completely.

With the Bong Hits for Jesus case set to be determined by the Supreme Court any day now, comments today by Justice Alito at a luncheon are interesting…

“I’m a very strong believer in the First Amendment and the right of people to speak and to write,” […] “I would be reluctant to support restrictions on what people could say.” […] “it’s very dangerous for the government to restrict speech.”

Via Transform, check out this OpEd by Michael C. Chettleburgh in Canada’s National Post: Put the Gangs out of Business: Legalize Drugs

The street gang and associated drug trade problem in Canada won’t be solved by a get-tough, criminal-justice-system response, nor should we expect young homies to just say no. Look to the United States for proof of this. […]
Today, things are so bad that the FBI has made street gangs and the underlying drug trade their number one priority, even over domestic terrorism. The failure in this campaign is a testament to the abject failure of the U.S. war on drugs and gangs. […]
Canada has the opportunity, but perhaps not the courage, to employ a different approach on street gangs. To be sure, we must tackle the underlying socioeconomic causes of the street-gang problem, including poverty, income inequality and persistent discrimination. At the same time, we must equip our police agencies with the resources they need to take out the hardcore 20% or so of all street gangsters who are responsible for the majority of Canadian street violence. We must spend much more money on early prevention and diversion, because this is not a problem that we can arrest our way out of.
Finally, we need to embark upon drug legalization, which will starve gangs of their principal oxygen supply and serve to upset the attractive risk-reward proposition that every new gangster now faces. [emphasis added]

That is the message. Powerful stuff, and so incredibly true.
He goes on…

There is no contradiction in being pro-drug-reform yet anti-drug use. In its present form, the war on drugs is both bad public policy and a fight we cannot win. All drug users should have the right to harm themselves if they so choose. Recognizing that we cannot eliminate their demand, I would much prefer that drug users purchase their wares in a controlled setting rather than from young gangsters, who effectively control what gets sold, where it gets sold and to whom it gets sold. […]
Drug reform will not solve the drug problem entirely. But it will go a long way to solving what has been termed the “drug-problem problem,” which is the pull of the gang and its associated crime and violence

This is a really great OpEd, and it should be circulated widely.
It’s so refreshing to hear such voices of sanity making powerful statements.
While we’re talking about sane statements, Transform also reminds us of this one back in 2002, endorsed by 108 Members of the European Parliament, where they proclaim that:

“…the drug prohibition policy stemming from the UN Conventions of 1961, 1971 and 1988 is the actual cause of the increasing damage which the production, trafficking, sale and consumption of illegal substances inflict on entire sections of society, the economy as well as public institutions, thus undermining health, freedom and individuals’ lives”
[and call for] “a system for the legal control and regulation of the production, sale and consumption of substances which are currently illegal.”

NEW YORK Ö Twinkie lovers, get ready to go bananas.
The sweet treat known for its golden spongy cake and its creamy vanilla center is returning to its roots with banana-creme filling _ the flavor that first made the snack a hit with sweet-toothed people more than 70 years ago.

I don’t know why I posted that here.
It just… seemed right, somehow.
Update: Mmmmm…. twinkies.