Drug WarRant

The rural Lahontan Valley News came out in favor of Nevada’s marijuana legalization initiative

It’s time to pass this multi-pronged approach to marijuana regulation and end years of speculation and fruitless debates.
What the initiative offers is a chance for voters to change a decades-long war on marijuana that has failed to curb its prevalence among Nevadans of all ages. Long compared to the country’s failed prohibition of alcohol in the 1930s, current marijuana laws foster an illegal market. Nevadans who use marijuana legally for medicinal purposes are forced to grow their own or obtain it through illicit sources.
Detractors of the initiative argue that marijuana is a gateway drug that leads to use of more dangerous substances. But the same could be said of caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, gambling, sex or any other activity that stimulates the brain’s pleasure zones.
Some of the above mentioned activities are legal and regulated in Nevada. In fact, the state’s most powerful industry caters to those same visceral pleasures.
In a state where prostitution is legal in certain counties, bars are not required to close and children can legally possess and use tobacco, objections to marijuana legalization on a moral basis seem hypocritical. Education and parental involvement affect a person’s decisions more profoundly than state policy.

Good stuff. And it caught the attention of the AP, which has been running a story about the editorial.
Kudos to Regulate Marijuana.org for their efforts so far.

Nicholas Sarwark at Hammer of Truth has it right.

Interesting article by Nathan Riley in the Gay City News about upstate New York District Attorney David Soares, who has made quite a bit of news lately.
The important point in this article is noting that here is a drug policy reform politician who stuck to his guns, despite the usual sound-bite attacks, and seems to have succeeded. It’s a lesson for other politicians who believe in drug policy reform, Democrat or Republican — there’s no need to run from the fight.

I was beginning to despair as to whether any of the non-blog media would cover the real story about the aftermath of Len Bias’ death, but a couple have come through.
Kevin Litten of the University of Maryland’s Diamondback had contacted me about Len Bias, and I was able to steer him toward some alternate directions than what all the sports writers were doing. He managed to touch on the harsh mandatory minimums and got some good information from Eric Sterling, but neglected the racial implications.
The Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page did better. In Bias’ unintended legacy: Basketball star’s overdose hijacked by war on crack cocaine. Page repeats some of Dan Baum’s description of the hysteria at the time, and comments both on the fact that the new laws especially targeted crack (despite Bias using powder) and how the result was racially disparate.
___
Note: The drug czar’s office didn’t particularly distinguish itself with its (hopefully unintended) headline: Len Bias: A Stunning Death Remembered

Radley Balko’s got a good piece at Reason: Buffalo’s Stampede Against Privacy —
City of Light’s finest bomb houses, arrest scores, kill dogs, and achieve nothing

I’ve started reading a novel with a refreshingly different perspective.
I’ve gotten used to, but still bothered by, the whole notion that the drug war is very popular subject material for fiction (books, movies, etc.). The typical approach is the evil drugs theme, with the good guys going after the drug dealers, and eventually prevailing because they didn’t bother themselves with things like citizen rights. At the end, the bad guys are dead and the community is saved forever from the scourge of drugs. Hooray!
Hey, it’s fiction, so I don’t worry about it too much. But the complete lack of reality, of understanding how the drug war works, of the importance of the Constitution, sometimes gets a little tiring to me.
So I’m really looking forward to this one. “Condemned” by John Nicholas Iannuzzi — a novel by a trial lawyer and adjunct professor of law who explicitly calls for the legalization of drugs.
I’ll write more when I’ve had time to read it (don’t hold me to a time limit — I’ve got a number of projects in the works), but I wanted to share with you this interview with the author that came in the press kit from the publisher. Definitely got me interested in his book!

The Legalization of Drugs: An Interview with John Nicholas Iannuzzi

Q. Do you really think that legalizing drugs will eliminate drug trafficking?
A. Absolutely. You have to realize that there are two very distinct and very separate drug problems in our world. The first, and most pernicious, is drug trafficking. The other is drug addiction. It is the first, trafficking, that causes all the violence, corruption, smuggling, and vast sums of money being made by criminals. This is even more relevant now, being that Al Queda and terrorists in Afghanistan are involved in trafficking. Once legalized, where drugs can be controlled, as is alcohol, in state controlled stores, the vast profits will be eliminated. Without profits, the trafficking will stop overnight. No drug traffickers will bother to smuggle drugs if there shall be no profit. Once the trafficking is stopped, addiction will become a medical problem, treated as alcoholics are today.
Q. Are you in favor of all drugs being legalized?
A. Absolutely, all drugs, across the board. Otherwise, whatever drugs aren’t legalized, shall encourage continued drug trafficking.
Q. Don’t you think that that will lead to more, not less drug abuse.
A. First of all, we don’t know how large our present drug addiction problem is because it has been criminalized; much of it is behind closed doors and underground. Once legal, addicts will come “out of the closet” and can be treated. If they don’t care to be treated, if they don’t care to get help, they can drug themselves privately at home, like a closet drinker. But at least trafficking shall have been eliminated and the addicts’ substance abuse problems shall not endanger the whole of society as they do today.
Q. Where does the name of your novel, Condemned, come from?
A. From a quote from Santayana: “Those who fail to remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.” We are in the midst of repeating what Franklin Roosevelt called the Stupendous Blunder of Prohibition. Laws that were intended to regulate and eliminate an allegedly evil substance, actually created an industry — illegal alcohol — which, in turn, brought forward Al Capone, the Valentine’s Day massacre, illegality, and corruption in the same forms we now have as a result of prohibiting drugs.
Q. Do you really think the government can regulate drugs? How do you see this being done?
A. Absolutely. In the same manner the state governments regulate alcohol.
Q. You mean, you think the states will go into the drug business?
A. No, but they can license stores and outlets on a very strict basis, in the same fashion that they regulate alcohol.
Q. What about pilots in planes? Are you going to allow them to take drugs and then fly?
A. First of all, notice, you have already accepted the fact that legalization will eliminate trafficking, and are now asking questions about addiction. In connection with those questions, you can answer all of them yourself by thinking of how alcohol is sold or controlled. Do we allow pilots to drink and fly? No. Nor drivers of cars. Nor youngsters under the age of 21. However alcohol is regulated, that’s the way drugs will be regulated.
Q. You keep talking about alcohol. Don’t we have a lot of alcoholics?
A. Yes. But we don’t have any rumrunners, or violence, or people worrying that the derelict on the corner is going to mug them to buy a pint of wine. Alcoholics exist. And they can be treated, not as criminals, but as a patients. People won’t have to worry about being mugged or having their homes burglarized so that junkies can buy an expensi ve fix.
Q. So then your concept of eliminating drugs hasn’t accomplished anything?
A. On the contrary. It isn’t the addicts that cause the violence, corruption, the money laundering, the couriers, and the smuggling. That comes from the traffickers. They’d be eliminated.
Q. Are there any other benefits from legalization of drugs?
A. Absolutely. At the moment, our government, and governments around the world are spending untold billions to interdict and stop drug trafficking. That is a needless expense. Moreover, the profits from the drug business currently go to criminals and terrorists. If legalized, drugs will be a legitimate business, just like brewing beer or selling alcohol, run by large corporations who will be paying taxes, employing people, who, in turn, pay more taxes. In addition, half our jails will be empty. Corrections officers will not be necessary, or police personnel in undercover capacities, nor judges or lawyers dealing with drug cases. Today, half of our criminal justice system is involved with regulating drug traffickers. That will all be eliminated, and the tax dollars saved shall be used to better serve the community.

I want to point out two absolutely amazing posts by friends of Drug WarRant. These are situations where they are taking on ignorance or emotional blockage of facts. In both cases, they faced an impossible challenge of cracking open a welded shut mind, but the quality of their debate is worth reading, and learning from, for its own sake.
“bullet” First, check out thehim (him of the wonderful drug war roundups at Kos) at Blog Reload, as he debates one of the Vigil for Lost Promise mothers in a series of emails.
What patience! What clear rational thought (his)!
“bullet” Now we go over to Political Crossfire Forums, where someone at the forum was trying the old prohibitionist trick of faking the numbers to attempt to link drugs and violence. Brian Bennett came through with an outstandingly researched point by point rebuttal.
Check them out.

Today, June 19, is the 20 year anniversary of the death of Len Bias, and there are hundreds of stories in the newspapers remembering him. They are stories of lost promise, of what might have been, of basketball and of individuals who have been influenced by the Len Bias legend.
But few even touch on the real story — the fact that Len Bias’s death triggered a (possibly unintentional) near-genocidal attack on the African American population in the United States. Or at the very least, the systematic disenfranchisement of African American males.
Surprised? Skeptical? Read on and see what you think.

Here’s a great opportunity for everyone who reads this to get involved and make a contribution (without spending any money).
Back in 2004, I worked on a voting guide based on drug policy issues and managed to complete guides for 19 states, but I ran out of time to collect the information for the rest. Yet even those 19 state guides seemed to reach a lot of people, based on the email I got (and the large number of google-related visits).
This year, I’ve put together a voting guide framework using a wiki (a website structure that allows any registered user to make changes and add information, similar to Wikipedia).
The easy address to get there is http://voting.drugwarrant.com
How it works
Register for a free account (you don’t have to use your real name, but you do have to use an actual email address of some kind in order to complete your registration — to prevent spammers). Then, when you’re logged in, simply go to the state page you want to change, click on “edit,” type your information, click on “save.” That’s all there is to it!
There are special ways of coding things in a wiki that are different from other web applications (for things like bold or italic, etc.), and that information is available there as well. But if you don’t like dealing with that kind of thing, don’t worry about it. Just type. Someone else will come along and “pretty it up.”
Afraid of messing things up? Don’t be. Each page keeps past versions, so even if you mistakenly delete the whole thing, we can fix it.
What to enter?
Eventually, we’d love to have as much drug-policy-related information as possible on every race for Governor, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House, along with relevant state-wide initiatives. Depending on the interest within a state, we could continue on to State Senate and State House races — that’s really up to those adding information.
In some cases, you may be particularly interested in a single race (maybe because you’re working on it) — and that may be all that you enter. Or you may want to take on a state and start working on getting information entered. Or take a state that somone else started and expand on it.
There are lots of good sources of information that you can use. Vote-Smart.org provides detailed information on the candidates in each race, starting with who’s running (just getting that info entered is a huge help). Over the next few months, they will also be encouraging candidates to fill out position surveys on a variety of topics. The Senate and House candidate survey includes the following statements and asks if the candidate supports the statement:

• Reduce prison sentences for those who commit non-violent crimes.
• Support mandatory jail sentences for selling illegal drugs.
• Expand federally sponsored drug education and drug treatment programs.
• Decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana.
• Allow doctors to recommend marijuana to their patients for medicinal purposes.
• Increase border security to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.
• Eliminate federal funding for programs associated with the “war on drugs.”
• Increase financial support to Colombia to combat “the war on drugs.”

Those surveys should be helpful once they’re available.
Additionally, at the voting guide, we have some other sources of information, such as the Drug Policy Alliance 2005 Voter Guide (which lists how House members voted on specific bills or amendments). And of course, if you’re ambitious, you can use old-fashioned sleuthing — everything from reading their web-sites to calling their office — to get more information.
Finally, if even typing the information in the wiki is confusing, or you’d rather not register, feel free to email information to: voting@drugwarrant.net
We’ve got a little over 4 months to put together some useful information for voters. After all, when it comes to the drug war, we already know that the voters are ahead of the politicians. Let’s give them the information they need to put the politicians on notice.

In comments below, Terry at US Marijuana Party mentions this story from back in April in Buffalo:

A loud “flash bang” concussion device is detonated inside a Kensington Avenue house as Buffalo Police SWAT officers, clad in black armor and brandishing automatic assault rifles, storm a lower apartment.
“Buffalo Police. Search warrant. Buffalo Police,” the officers yell to the now temporarily stunned occupants inside.
Within seconds, there are multiple shotgun blasts. At the same instant, another officer cradles a 1-year-old boy out the front door and down a flight of steps to safety.
When the smoke clears, three large pit bull terriers lay dead, in pools of their own coagulated blood. Five people are in handcuffs.

So first you deafen the occupants. Then you announce yourselves. Then you kill the dogs. This must be what Scalia was talking about when he said “we now have increasing evidence that police forces across the United States take the constitutional rights of citizens seriously.”
Right.