Drug WarRant

… well you may have to visit him in prison for the next 10-20 years.
Check out this must-read post by Micah over at Dare Generation Diary about the honor student and his friend who brought some marijuana-spiked muffins to the teachers lounge at school as a prank. Prosecutors are now looking to upgrade the charges to 2nd degree felonies — up to 20 years.

A Deadly Heroin Mixture Is Claiming Dozens of Lives
This story has been picking up steam in recent days as more and more people are dying around the country from this mix of heroin and fentanyl.
This is a serious problem and is a fault of prohibition.
Remember:

Under prohibition, we have given the right to the criminal of

• who’s going to supply the drugs to the United States,
• what kind of drugs are going to be supplied,
• how much those drugs are going to cost,
• how they’re going to be produced,
• how potent they’re going to be
• what age levels they’re going to sell to,
• and where they’re going to sell.

And if they decide they’re going to sell to 10-year-old kids on our playgrounds, by God that’s where they’ll be sold.

– Jack Cole [of LEAP

And, of course, that means that we have given full control over the safety and purity of drugs to the criminal as well.
The government should know this full well, since this is not the first time we’ve faced this problem. Think back to the ‘good old days’ of alcohol prohibition:

There were few if any production standards during Prohibition, and the potency and quality of products varied greatly, making it difficult to predict their effect. The production of moonshine during Prohibition was undertaken by an army of amateurs and often resulted in products that could harm or kill the consumer. Those products were also likely to contain dangerous adulterants, a government requirement for industrial alcohol.
According to Thomas Coffey, “the death rate from poisoned liquor was appallingly high throughout the country. In 1925 the national toll was 4,154 as compared to 1,064 in 1920. And the increasing number of deaths created a public relations problem for . . . the drys because they weren’t exactly accidental.”[18] Will Rogers remarked that “governments used to murder by the bullet only. Now it’s by the quart.”

“bullet” Weed Control by Jessica Winter in the Boston Globe. A fascinating article about the effort to free up research marijuana from the NIDA monopoly — this article also touches upon a laundry list of other issues related to the history of medical marijuana and current research. (Not a whole lot new to us, but a great primer article for the general public.)
“bullet” Uribe wins easily in Colombia

Law-and-order President Alvaro Uribe was re-elected in a landslide Sunday in Colombia’s most peaceful elections in more than a decade, strengthening the U.S. ally’s mandate to crack down on armed groups and drug traffickers. […]
Colombia remains the world’s largest producer of cocaine. Uribe, a key ally in U.S. drug-interdiction efforts, is urging the United States to beef up an aerial-fumigation fleet of 20 planes that spray coca crops.

“bullet” Editorial: High School Drug Tests Not A Panacea — in the Peoria Journal-Star (very close to my area).

Testing is not a panacea and is no substitute for attentive, responsible parents. […]
The 500 kids it can test – – those involved in baseball, chess, cheerleading, etc.æ – may be least likely to experiment with drugs.æ Those points were raised in a 2002 U.S.æ Supreme Court case.æ Though the justices narrowly upheld the legality of random urine tests, dissenters worried they might discourage participation, which can itself be a drug deterrent. […]
Though it may be legal to test, that doesn’t necessarily make it right or effective.æ A 2003 University of Michigan survey of 76,000 adolescents found almost identical rates of substance use regardless of whether their schools tested.
We appreciate that these policies can give parents peace of mind.æ Still, we prefer the voluntary, tough-love approach of Bartonville, which distributes at-home drug and alcohol tests to families.æ Engaged moms and dads are the most effective deterrent.

“bullet” More opting for jail over treatment. Via The Drug Update comes this note that many drug offenders in Calaveras County are choosing jail over treatment because they know the jails are so overcrowded that they’ll generally get a shorter sentence in jail than in treatment.
“bullet” Check out Rehabology.com.

What we are attempting, in our own small way, is to
not only tackle the big headline stories about drugs but also try and focus on
the faces behind the stereotypes and the people who don’t make the front pages.
In addition we would like to explore the connections between those who produce
and consume drugs, legal or illegal, as well as those who campaign for or
against their use.

Check out Alabama gubernatorial candidate Loretta Nall’s story of her opportunity to speak to The National Coalition of 100 Black Women. What a wonderful moment she had.

I don’t have a lot to say about the FBI visit to Congressman William Jefferson’s office. Certainly it has the potential to raise interesting Constitutional issues, but I don’t know enough about the warrant, or the circumstances around the search of his office.
However, the response by Congress has been… disturbing. Suddenly, Democrats and Republicans are outraged at the notion that they might be subject to a search. Welcome to America.
As Glenn Reynolds said (thanks, Allan):

At any rate, members of Congress who are offended by an unannounced late-night raid on an office might profitably be asked what they think about late-night unannounced raids on private homes, which happen all the time as part of the Congressionally-mandated War on Drugs. If anything, it ought to work the other way. I think if you searched 435 randomly selected American homes, and 435 Congressional offices, you just might find more evidence of crime in the latter. . . .

Exactly. These politicians live in such an insulated bubble completely separate from the United States of America, that they have no clue what we’ve been screaming about for years.
Interestingly, the party lines are bizarre in this mess. Red State notes some quotes showing Republicans Lott, Boehner and Hastert outraged at the search of the Democrat Congressman’s office, with Democrat Reid supporting the FBI.
That doesn’t take the Democrats off the hook, however.
Particularly disturbing is the reaction by the Congressional Black Caucus when Pelosi suggested that Jefferson vacate his committee seat during the investigation.

Outraged that one of its members was being picked on even though he has not been charged with a crime, the Congressional Black Caucus had intended to issue a defiant statement against their leader but agreed after the meeting to pause, at least briefly, for reflection. […]
Most lawmakers would not comment afterwards, but a CBC aide summed up some members’ frustration, saying, “Congresswoman Pelosi, by preemption without any legal justification, has now created a new precedent for how members are going to be treated. Unfortunately, she’s chosen to single out an African-American for this honor.”
Then the aide added an electoral threat, saying, “The African-American community, which overwhelmingly backs the Democratic Party, will not take this lightly. I hope she enjoys being minority leader.”

If only the CBC would get even a little bit outraged when African-American citizens are targeted in the Drug War. They have power and could use it, but have been relatively silent about the impact of the Drug War on the African-American community. While they have talked about mandatory minimums and racial profiling and actually seemed to be a little bit interested in the drug war back in 1998, the drug war isn’t even mentioned in the CBC current list of priorities.
Since our politicians have no clue what it’s like to be citizens in the criminal system they’ve created, it would be nice if we could just declare them to be illegal aliens and have them deported

Fayetteville Observer Editorial”

… We have been at this for decades. Americans are now the most imprisoned people on the planet. The pace is picking up. And we seem to have no other main-line defense in prospect.
That burdens supporters of the lock-’em-up ideology with the duty of answering a few questions. Is this what we’re supposed to regard as success? Have we taken back the streets? Won the “war” on drugs? Made our homes safe from invasion and our families safe from deranged people and drug-crazed brutes?
Maybe this is the best we can do, and we should tone down the extravagant predictions and trudge onward. But even if there’s no alternative, nothing that would do away with the need for prisons, there are other approaches to lawmaking and sentencing. Wouldn’t it make sense, for the sake of public safety and government economy, to explore those with the same kind of vigor we display in cheering the latest conviction and mandatory prison sentence?

The news about the study showing no cancer connection to marijuana smoking is getting some wide coverage.
Here’s a few so far: Boston Globe, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Scientific American, Reuters, Reuters, UK, FOX News, ABC News, MSNBC, BioX, China, Thanh Nien Daily, Vietnam, and Science Now (with the cute title: Mary Jane Trumps Joe Camel).

We’ve been aware of this study for a little while now — but still it’s nice to see it showing up:
WebMD

Pot Smoking Not Linked to Lung Cancer
Study Shows No Increased Risk for Even the Heaviest Marijuana Smokers
By Salynn Boyles, WebMD Medical News
Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD on Tuesday, May 23, 2006
May 23, 2006 — People who smoke marijuana do not appear to be at increased risk for developing lung cancer, new research suggests.
While a clear increase in cancer risk was seen among cigarette smokers in the study, no such association was seen for regular cannabis users.
Even very heavy, long-term marijuana users who had smoked more than 22,000 joints over a lifetime seemed to have no greater risk than infrequent marijuana users or nonusers. […]
Studies suggest that marijuana smoke contains 50% higher concentrations of chemicals linked to lung cancer than cigarette smoke. Marijuana smokers also tend to inhale deeper than cigarette smokers and hold the inhaled smoke in their lungs longer.
So why isn’t smoking marijuana as dangerous as smoking cigarettes in terms of cancer risk?
The answer isn’t clear, but the experts say it might have something to do with tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which is a chemical found in marijuana smoke. […]