Drug WarRant

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)

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.”
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“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.”