Drug WarRant

Black Market In Tobacco Makes Prisons More Violent by Dwight E. Abbott

The Department of Corrections (and Rehabilitation) knew it was going to happen before it banned tobacco products from California prisons. An ‹experimentŠ was conducted for several years earlier in the California Medical Facility state prison in Vacaville banning all tobacco. Within weeks, tobacco was being smuggled into the prison by visitors and guards. One $10, six-ounce can of Bugler tobacco then sold for $50.00, gradually increasing to $300.00. Individual cigarettes or ‹rolliesŠ (400 can be made), first priced at $1.00, became $10.00 each. Three months passed, and a pack of Camel cigarettes was selling for $150.00 plus. Violence erupted as profits proved tobacco to be more valuable than drugs. Everybody wanted a piece of the action.
No matter those disheartening findings, to “improve working conditions and cut health care cost among inmates,” the DOC bulled forward: there would be no smoking by inmates or guards beginning July, 2005. The results, as expected, mirror exactly what occurred at the California Medical Facility. Black marketing of tobacco became more profitable than marijuana or heroin…

If you want somebody to not do something, prohibition is your absolute worst choice in terms of financial and societal cost-effectiveness.

If you’re in New York, John Fugelsang’s one-person off-Broadway show: ALL THE WRONG REASONS –
A True Story of Neo-Nazis, Drug Smuggling and Undying Love. It sounds like it should be scathing and funny.
Fugelsang has been a vocal opponent of the drug war. Nice to see him bringing it to the theatre.
The show opens tomorrow and runs to early May. Unfortunately, I won’t get to see it. I’m taking a group to New York in late May after it closes.
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“bullet” In other interesting theatre news… just thought I’d let you know that I’ve been tapped to do the music for “The Who’s Tommy” at Illinois State University this fall. This is the rock opera [iTunes link] by Pete Townsend and Des McAnuff, which should be very familiar to most of you (for you babies out there too young to remember The Who, it has the song “Pinball Wizard.”) I’ll be conducting the on-stage band as well as being one of the three keyboard players to go along with two guitars, bass, drums, percussion and french horn. The show will open October 5. I’m very excited about it.

This is truly unbelievable…

SAN FRANCISCO – Federal prosecutors said today they would retry marijuana grower Ed Rosenthal on cultivation charges, even after a federal judge urged them to drop the case and chastised the government for lodging charges solely to punish the self-proclaimed “guru of ganja.”
U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer demanded to know who in the Department of Justice made the decision to continue pursuing Rosenthal, who had his original conviction overturned last year.
Rosenthal can’t be sentenced to prison even if he is convicted because the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the one-day prison sentence ordered by Breyer in 2003.
Newly appointed U.S. Attorney Scott Schools made the decision, said Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan, but he was not sure if Department of Justice officials in Washington were involved.
The judge said the government’s position to go forward left him no choice but to hold a trial, which he scheduled for May 14.
“This isn’t a criminal case, this is a political case,” said Rosenthal, who appeared in court dressed in a blue wizard’s robe with a golden marijuana leaf emblazoned over the breast. “I may as well get my money’s worth and have a trial.”

Newly appointed U.S. Attorney. Interesting.
Scott Schools replaces US Attorney Kevin Ryan (who prosecuted Rosenthal for the past 4 years) and claims to be only a temporary replacement. Ryan (one of the infamous group of US Attorneys who was fired) was supposedly actually fired for incompetence (and it was Schools who “investigated” Ryan). Schools appears to be a political hack, with some history of politically motivated prosecution.
And now Schools is doing this.
So what is going on here? What possible reason is there to prosecute Rosenthal other than to make the federal government look even more stupid? Has their fear of what we can do to their precious drug war so colored their judgment? Is there a strategy here that I’m missing?
Update: Digby picks up on it, and the comments in that thread are a pleasant sight.

Update: The comment function was broken, but it’s been fixed (Thanks, Lawrence) and so you should be able to comment again.

“bullet” A very nice article about the Northeast Regional SSDP conference: A look at a war we continue to lose, which starts out…

The war on drugs has long been about heavy bombing rather than thoughtful prevention.
Jails and prisons fill up due to mandatory sentencing laws. U.S. officials tell poor farmers in other countries that they have to destroy their cash crop because if they don‰t it will eventually go up the noses of bored Americans.
And the national drug appetite continues to grow and continues to demand more and more.
I remember once sitting in a college auditorium and listening to the petite Nancy Reagan bringing her ‹Just Say NoŠ message to students who probably had done more research on the subject than she had.
The first lady presented a scene of lightweight good intentions tossed at a heavy, ugly, far reaching problem.

Great job by Matthew Palevsky and the Brown SSDP chapter (along with the National board) in putting the conference together. Wish I could be there.
“bullet” Good article: Drug prohibition – lost liberty, money by Stephen Kershnar

Even if drug prohibition didn‰t involve a dizzying lack of respect for liberty, it probably doesn‰t pass a simple cost-benefit analysis. A corollary to the harm principle is something like the following: before you restrict liberty, you should have convincing evidence that the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs.

“bullet” If you’re in Austin, go see attorney Charlie Roadman’s second annual Marijuana Law for Musicians talk next Thursday. Learn the answers to the important questions like “Can the police search your guitar case?” Sounds like a valuable and fun session.
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“bullet” Those of you in the BC area should check out the No More Drug War Film Fest this weekend, featuring Damage Done: The Drug War Odyssey and Waiting to Inhale at the Roxy Theatre in Victoria (2657 Quadra St.) on April 14 and in Vancouver at the Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St.) on April 15. Start times for both locations is 12:30 p.m.

Radley Balko has it right:

I don’t deny for a minute that racism still exists in this country… Nor would I deny that it still does real harm to real people, fairly regularly. I guess my point is that it’d be nice if all the energy spent the last two weeks expressing self-righteous outrage over a mistaken comment from a harmless old fool were instead spent on, say, the racial sentencing disparities in the criminal justice system, or the fact that a substantially higher percentage of black men are in prison in America than were imprisoned in South Africa during apartheid.

Kirsten Dunst:

“I do like weed. I have a different outlook on marijuana than America does. […]
“I’ve never been a major smoker, but I think America’s view on weed is ridiculous. I mean – are you kidding me? If everyone smoked weed, the world would be a better place.”

We’ve been trying to analyze the claim in an Australian anti-marijuana ad:

“Pot. It mightn’t kill you, but it could turn you into a dickhead”

So let’s try another one.
Can you identify the dickhead in this picture?

Right again.

Yes, it’s that time of year again. One more reminder.
Tomorrow is National D.A.R.E. Day, 2007
As proclaimed by President George W. Bush.
One nice note in this proclamation…. The President said:

I … call upon all Americans … to support all those who work to help our children avoid drug use and violence.

Since the best way to help children avoid drug use and violence is to legalize and regulate drugs, the President is saying that Americans should support… drug policy reformers.
So while the drug warriors celebrate their failure tomorrow, take a moment to celebrate your own support for the future of reform. Dare to make a change. Dare to make a difference. Dare to imagine a drug-war-free America.

Every so often, the Drug Czar’s “blog” like to justify its existence by bragging about how many “hits” it’s received. My previous critiques here and here) apparently touched a nerve, because this time they included page view numbers. They claim that in March they received a record 139,000 page views.
Now that’s a significant number. Drug WarRant gets a very respectable 15,000 page views per week, so that would mean that Pushing Back gets more than twice as much. Now, far be it from me to accuse the drug czar of lying about this, but it does make me wonder just who is reading his blog?
Generally, if there’s a site getting a lot of visitors, there’s a strong network of links to it driving business, so I checked link:pushingback.com at google. In my informal analysis of the links that came up (and not expanding to similar pages), I counted seven links from drug policy reform sites, one from a non-drug policy site that was demonstrating how absurd the ONDCP is, six links from some kind of mention relating to an ONDCP press release in a news-related site, one link from a drug prevention site, and 16 links from sites owned by the White House.
Of course, when it comes to blog links, it’s almost entirely from our side.
So all I can figure from this is that the ONDCP is thanking us for sending so many people to laugh at them. Either that, or a lot of government employees are clicking on links over and over.
Of course, I don’t mind if people read pushingback.com. I link to them on a regular basis. The truth isn’t afraid of people seeing all sides. The more knowledgeable people are, the more they support drug policy reform.

At the Rocky Mountain News: Legal Pot Activists Angry at Police
At LEAP: Heartless Feds, Apparently Heartless City Cops, Too

…two years ago Denver voters approved a city ordinance that allows possession of less than one ounce of marijuana for personal use by persons 21 years of age or older.
The measure was approved by 54% of the voters. Last fall, 55% of Denver voters approved a similar measure for state law, but state-wide the measure failed.
Since then, Denver Police Department’s arrest rate for marijuana of people 21 or older has increased – nearly 25%! DPD is going around the city ordinance and citing people with the state statute.

This is disturbing on a number of levels. More and more we’re seeing police forces acting as though the wishes and laws of their local communities can be ignored at will. And this is an attitude that has been actively cultivated by the federal government, through drug task forces, asset forfeiture kickbacks and more.
There are serious long-term implications. Decentralized police functions are essential to a free society. Police must feel that they are members of, and accountable to, their local communities. A nationalized police force has less connection to the community and so the community’s welfare becomes less important than the goals set by the police.
The weakening abuse of the original intent of the Commerce Clause has extended the reach of the federal “police” to the point of micro-policing (this seizure by the feds of less than an ounce from a legal medical marijuana patient in Montana is just one example). And at the same time they have used tons of incentives to convince local police entities to transfer local authority to state or federal… influence.
Do these look like neighbors to whom you’d turn for help? (from a local task force poster in my community)