Drug WarRant

Don’t laugh. That’s what the headline says.
Apparently drugs are transported on the interstates (along with just about every other avenue you can imagine).

Since 1993, officers in Saline and Dickinson counties have poured “significant” resources into the task force, said Salina Police Chief Jim Hill, and recovered thousands of pounds in drugs and nearly $500,000 in cash.
It marks an important step into stopping what Hill believes is one of the most lucrative and overlooked markets in drug trafficking. [emphasis added]

Hmm… what that last sentence should read:

It marks an important step into beginning what Hill believes is one of the most lucrative and overlooked markets in drug enforcement.

Just about every place in this country is the crossroads or the hub or the terminus or some such B.S. whenever there’s a budget or seizure buck to be made by drug enforcement.

“bullet” Time for boomers to ‘fess up by Karen Bojar

The willingness to incarcerate large numbers of people for minor drug offenses is the shame of the baby-boom generation.
A generation of young people in the ’60s and early ’70s experimented with drugs and for the most part did so with impunity.
Many powerful and successful women and men in our society experimented with drugs in their youth. But their careers were not derailed; their families were not torn apart. Sadly, they are now willing to ignore the fact that another generation of women and men are being incarcerated in appalling numbers for drug-related crimes.

“bullet” Stupid Drug Story of the Week by Jack Slater Shafer (at Slate):

Among the first news organizations to post a sensationalized account of the story was the Reuters wire service, which titled its July 26 report “Teenagers Using Mothballs Get High: Study.” Yes, teenagers are using mothballs to get high if two young ladies in Marseille constitute a sufficient population to establish a meaningful medical plural.
The next day, CNN.com International published a version of the Reuters story under the headline “Teenagers ‘Bagging’ Mothballs to Get High.” Canada’s CBC News Web site headlined a derivative account of the story, “Teens Sniffing Mothballs to Get High, Doctors Report.” The Aussie press developed a contact high from the story: “Teens Get High on Mothballs,” screamed the country’s national daily, the Australian. The Melbourne Herald Sun, the Courier Mail, the Sunday Times, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Daily Telegraph all combine the words “teens” and “mothballs” in their headlines to announce the plague.

“bullet” Apparently drug abuse is just fine if you’re Presidential candidates and the drug is alcohol. (Via Mark Kleiman.)

In a moving OpEd in the Des Moines Register, Fran and Ray Koonz talk about their son who has served 10 years and will serve 12 more.
One of the problems with the prohibition is that even when there are individuals who seriously abuse drugs and need help, neither they nor society are served well by the drug war.

Our son readily laments that he was not a good father, son, brother or husband. Those regrets will be with him every minute of every day for the rest of his life. He longs to be where he can make at least some amends for what he’s done. He’s truly rehabilitated and is no longer a threat to himself or society.
He has received no education or addiction treatment in prison. What a waste of all resources, human most of all, but surely of dollars as well, to keep him imprisoned 12 more years. Is this overkill or just plain mean-spiritedness?

AP

WASHINGTON – U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.

President Bush:

it’s so important for Americans to know that the traffic in drugs finances the work of terror, sustaining terrorists — (applause) — that terrorists use drug profits to fund their cells to commit acts of murder.
If you quit drugs, you join the fight against terror in America.

Former DEA head Asa Hutchinson:

When an addict takes cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, or a whole host of other drugs, he is not only changing the chemistry of the body, but little by little diminishing the character of a nation.
But there’s another dimension to the abuse of drugs. Not only does it weaken the United States, but it also supports attacks against the judicial system in Mexico. It funds terrorism in Colombia and generally destabilizes governments from Afghanistan to Thailand.

Current DEA head Karen Tandy:

Americans are responsible for giving the FARC their lifeblood to the amount of $25 billion for 2,500 metric tons of cocaine. …The FARC is a terrorist organization to be sure, but they are also drug traffickers. And it is the drug trafficking that is the lifeblood of how they carry out their terrorism.

ONDCP’s antidrug campaign

September 11th has brought the complex and horrific reality of terrorism into the lives of all Americans. Many are asking, “How did this happen?” and “What can I do?” The link between terror and drugs is an important part of the puzzle, as is the recognition that individual decisions about using drugs have real-world consequences.

ONDCP media campaign:

I helped (Windows Media Format)

U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts…

Norm Stamper has an outstanding piece at Alternet: How Legalizing Drugs Will End the Violence

… Virtually every analysis of the Mexican “drug problem” points to the themes raised here: the inducements of big money and wide fame; the crushing poverty of those exploited by drug dealers; the entrepreneurial frenzy of expanding and protecting one’s markets; the large, unquenchable American demand for drugs; and the complicity of many in law enforcement.
But something’s missing from the analysis: the role of prohibition.
Illegal drugs are expensive precisely because they are illegal. The products themselves are worthless weeds — cannabis (marijuana), poppies (heroin), coca (cocaine) — or dirt-cheap pharmaceuticals and “precursors” used, for example, in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Yet today, marijuana is worth as much as gold, heroin more than uranium, cocaine somewhere in between. It is the U.S.’s prohibition of these drugs that has spawned an ever-expanding international industry of torture, murder and corruption. In other words, we are the source of Mexico’s “drug problem.”
The remedy is as obvious as it is urgent: legalization. […]

If you want to read more about the failure of prohibition and its impact on Mexico…
The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) last month released a major report by Laurie Freeman: State of Siege: Drug-Related Violence and Corruption in Mexico — Unintended Consequences of the War on Drugs (pdf)

Drug prohibition as enacted and enforced by the United States may be intended to keep drug use low, but there can be no doubt that it also stimulates and nourishes organized crime, both within and beyond U.S. borders. The consequences — richer, more powerful criminal organizations that create mayhem and flout the rule of law — are no less real for being unintended. […]

(I would have used the word “instead” rather than “also.”)

Drug-related violence in Mexico is largely a consequence of the drug trade’s illegality. […]
Like violence, drug-related corruption is a product of the black market.

CDEX is developing a “drug gun” that is expected to be available in March 2007, that uses ultraviolet light to detect trace residue of meth, heroin, cocaine, and marijuana on clothing, skin, cars, houses…
Wow! Pretty smart ultraviolet light, eh? How much you want to bet that there are 10 times as many legal substances that it also detects (as if they were illegal drugs), and that CDEX won’t be advertising that fact to the general public?
Now police won’t have to even bother with the pretense of getting a dog to point at you. Simply get the ultraviolet light excited about the detergent you used and they’ll be able to search to their heart’s content.
Soon, the police will achieve the ability to search anyone they want, anytime, anywhere, for any reason, and that pesky fourth amendment will be finally be dispensed with completely.
Won’t that be fun.

Our DEA museum response site now has its own domain:
DEAtargetsAmerica.com

An incoherent report by Stefanie Hausner in the Washington Times about a half-assed measure in Congress to bring us to a slightly improved situation regarding institutionalized racism by the government… but I guess we should be pleased.

A bipartisan group of four U.S. senators, all former state attorneys general, presented legislation yesterday to reduce the disparity in prison sentences for those caught with crack cocaine and those caught with powdered cocaine. That disparity in federal sentencing guidelines is currently 100-to-1. It would be reduced to 20-to-1 under a measure introduced yesterday by Republican Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and John Cornyn of Texas and Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Ken Salazar of Colorado. The Drug Sentencing Reform Act of 2006 would reduce the disparity by decreasing the amount of crack cocaine necessary to trigger the mandatory minimum sentencing …

[Should read “increasing the amount”]

…and introducing a “modest increase on powders,” said Mr. Sessions, who presented a similar Senate bill in 2001.

[He means a modest decrease of the amount of powder necessary to trigger…]

Currently, possession of 500 grams of powdered cocaine results in a five-year mandatory minimum sentencing. It takes only 5 grams of crack cocaine to warrant a similar sentence.
The senators propose shifting the sentencing amounts to 400 grams of powder and 20 grams of crack cocaine. The bill would bring about “tougher sentences on the worst and most violent drug offenders and less severe sentences on lower-level, nonviolent offenders,” said Mr. Sessions, adding that the measure would shift the emphasis in sentencing from drug quantity to the type of criminal act committed in distributing drugs. “This does not signal that we are going soft on crime,” Mr. Sessions told reporters yesterday.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for the effort. Much in the same way that I’d be grateful to learn that my neighbor who beats his wife is considering not beating her on weekends.

Something to brighten up your day at YouTube–
Cab Calloway sings “Reefer Man”

Thanks to everyone who helped out — between the online donations, the poster purchases, and checks in the mail, we’ve got the cost of the flyers completely covered. You guys are the greatest!
If you’re upset about missing out on the opportunity to contribute, and yet you’re not quite up to picking up the MacBook on my wish list, I’ve got another suggestion for you. Regulate Marijuana in Nevada has a ways to go for their July fundraising goal, so you might throw a few bucks their way.
As far as the museum exhibit in Chicago, even though we have the flyers covered, we still need help. Volunteers are needed to pass out flyers, and help out in other ways. The best way to get involved is through the Drug WarRant.net messageboard (where we’re coordinating efforts), or email .