Drug WarRant

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. […]

Nell Bernstein, author of “All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated,” writes in We Are All Prisoners Now:

One of the basic functions of incarceration is invisibility: We place our prisons in remote rural counties, build high walls and lock out the media. Then we fortify those walls with stigma, so that those who have been there, or seen family sent there, will keep that journey secret.
But an elephant can grow only so large before people start remarking on its presence in the living room. One in 10 American children has a parent under criminal justice supervision today — in jail, in prison, on probation or parole. The number does not include those who have had this experience at some point in their lives, or those who will. Those who have lived or worked inside a prison, or seen a family member spirited away, have seen what we are hiding from ourselves, and they are beginning to speak out. I have to believe that it is their voices, their experience, that will turn back the tidal wave that incarceration has become.

The question is, what will prevail…

1. The voices of the families of the prisoners? or
2. The financial and political interests of the drug war and the prison system?

A victory for pain sufferers in the Government’s war to inflict pain upon them —
Via Radley Balko:

Erie, PA- Nearly one year following his splashy perp walk courtesy of Attorney General Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, physician Paul Heberle, D. O. was cleared of all charges by an Erie jury earlier today.
Citing a lack of evidence, the jury acquitted on the 14 controlled substances charges and the 12 Medicaid fraud counts that purportedly stemmed from Heberle’s “criminal” prescribing. One controlled substance charge and one Medicaid fraud charge were dropped at the beginning of the trial which began a week and a half ago.
“Initially, the case was a combined effort by the DEA and the state of Pennsylvania but the Feds pulled out when we got involved. More and more we are seeing that they only follow through on prosecutions that they are certain they are going to win,” said Siobhan Reynolds, President of Pain Relief Network, the organization credited with coordinating tactical support for the defense effort.
“Without the Pain Relief Network we would have been lost,” said Christine Heberle, Dr. Heberle’s wife.
“It isn’t going to end here,” Mrs. Heberle vowed “the world must come to understand what the state of Pennsylvania did to these patients, how they covered up evidence of actual drug diversion in order to ‘get’ Paul… and all the other terrible things going on here. They shouldn’t be allowed to just do this to these doctors and patients.”
Reynolds added that PRN will be calling for a formal investigation into the agents’ conduct and that of the attorneys of the Attorney General’s office. ” Once people come to understand the degree to which this whole thing was an elaborate set up, designed it seems, to score political points, we hope that these prosecutions will be seen for what they are; government attacks on our most vulnerable population, those in severe chronic pain.” […]

I really got to know more about this despicable case through the extensive segment on Dr. Paul Heberle in John Holowach’s film High: The True Tale of American Marijuana.
It’s nice to see Dr. Heberle exonerated, although it’s already too late for some of his patients, and the destruction caused by this malicious witch hunt has been extensive.

“bullet” Cosmic Tap on Marijuana Muffins, Reefer Madness and Drugging Kids
“bullet” LastOneSpeaks on an an annoying puff piece about Karen Tandy
“bullet” Disturbing Statistics: 1,000 jailed per week; 62% of those in jails not convicted.

There’s a couple of articles that I’ve been meaning to discuss, but others have done a good job of taking them on, so I’ll link instead.

• thehim properly trashes a really stupid article on “drugged driving
• Radley parses and dissects Jonah Goldberg’s rather bizarre What if Mexicans were Crack piece.

I’m off to play a gig in Iowa. Back in a couple of days.