Drug WarRant

Via Scott Morgan:
New anti-marijuana ads in Australia are trying to be hip using lines like:

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

Hmmm… Is that true?
So I decided to check it out.
Can you identify the dickhead in this picture?

I thought so.

“bullet” LEAP’s Howard Woolridge has a great OpEd in the Huntington, WV Herald Dispatch: Legalizing drugs is better way to fight problem.
Update: That article appears to be gone from the paper’s website, but it’s available here.
“bullet” With friends like these… At Townhall, a rather… odd… message of support for decriminalization from Burt Prelutsky: Prison Reform
“bullet” There will be a Peaceful Potheads Protest in Philadelphia at the Liberty Bell on April 20-21.
“bullet” [blood pressure alert] Drug Warrior Joyce Nalepka writes a letter. This is the woman who also once wrote:

“Students for Sensible Drug Policy is a militant fringe of the drug legalization movement. As parents, we would treat membership in SSDP as firmly as we would treat drug use. Stop the behavior and resign from the group or pay your own tuition.”

Just in case you forgot…

TEHERAN – Ten people have died after drinking homemade hooch in a holy city in Iran, where the consumption of all alcohol is banned, the Kayhan newspaper reported on Sunday. […]
Home distilled spirits sell for far less than smuggled foreign brands and are the tipple of choice in poorer neighbourhoods, but the use of industrial chemicals in their production sometimes poses serious health risks.

If you want to somehow try to scare people into not using drugs (and it probably won’t work no matter what approach you try), the absolute worst idea you could imagine is… a wax museum.
But that’s what they did in Moscow. This is somewhat old news — the exhibit was created in 2002 and toured 20 cities in Russia with the support of the Federal Service for Drug Control.
The images are absolutely hilarious — so typically drug war over-the-top. And so typical that the supporters of the exhibit appeared unaware that their work would inspire ridicule (and probably, drug use). And…

The organizers even have liquid ammonia on hand to resuscitate anyone who faints at the sight of the disfigured faces…

Maybe they should try a “Drugs of Death” carnival ride (or has that already been done?)

Andrew Sullivan on the Drug War and Football:

More pharmaceutical double-standards with respect to pain-relief. It seems any addictive pain-killer is fine with the NFL. Oxycontin? Have a Limbaugh-sized dose. But marijuana? You’ll be suspended.

How often does our irrational prohibition of marijuana end up forcing people to take drugs that are more harmful to them?

The editorial staff at the Austin Peay State University (TN) All State like to use the word “logic,” but it’s clear that the university has utterly failed to teach their students what that word actually means.
Link
[Warning: Do not read if you’re currently depressed and frustrated about the state of education in this country, or about the intelligence of citizens.]

First they came for our baking soda. Then they came for our tomatoes.

PULLMAN, Wash. — A Pullman landlord notified police about a grow lamp in a closet, and police got a search warrant for a drug raid.
Eight officers with guns drawn surprised three roommates in the apartment last weekend and discovered they were growing tomatoes.

Yes, it is kind of funny. But it’s gallows humor, because we’re laughing at the utter insanity of our society-threatening authoritarian drug war.

In this week’s Drug War Chronicle, there’s one thing in particular I wanted to point out:
Somewhat lost in the news of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signing a new medical marijuana law, is the fact that he also signed the 911 Good Samaritan Act, which provides “limited immunity from drug possession charges when an overdose victim or friend seeks emergency medical services.” According to the Chronicle, it’s the first of its kind in the country.
It has always amazed me that the various parent groups of those who died from overdoses (the Steve Steiner and Ginger Katz crowd) seem to ignore this important means of stopping tragic deaths, and instead focus their energies on the irrelevant (to overdose deaths) issue of opposing medical marijuana. Since they ally themselves with sado-moralists (abstinence or death), it’s hard to credit their protestations that they simply wish to “prevent this tragedy from happening to another family.”
“bullet”

“bullet” Other reading:

• Matthew Holt: Is the Drug War Nearing an End?
• Only slightly off-topic.. Jon Katz’ We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason.
• All I Want is Some Cheap Mexican Weed

“bullet” And finally, I don’t know what’s more absurd. Cincinnati police claiming that having a local ordinance to jail marijuana users is somehow necessary to reduce gun violence, or the White House touting that as “Public Safety Prevails in Cincinnati.”

On March 24, I noted that Arianna Huffington had a very powerful piece in the Los Angeles Times — “The War on Drugs’ War on Minorities.”
On March 28, when pointing out that the piece had been reprinted in Alternet, I was rather disturbed that nobody seemed to be picking up on it.
Well, finally today, the piece was reprinted in the Huffington Post, and now everybody seems to be talking about it, including a number of blogs and diaries around the web, and some big guns ranging from TalkLeft to… Instapundit:

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:

There is a major disconnect in the 2008 Democratic race for the White House.
While all the top candidates are vying for the black and Latino vote, they are completely ignoring one of the most pressing issues affecting those constituencies: the failed War on Drugs, a war that has morphed into a war on people of color.

The “Drug War” is a colossal disaster, and it’s even undermining the real war. The unwillingness of candidates in both parties to oppose it is a disgrace.

Gaining traction? Hmmm…. If only Drudge would pick it up so that the networks would know it’s OK to talk about it.