Drug WarRant

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.

Just got this from Tom at DARE Generation Diary

Stop Congress From Expanding School Searches
Students for Sensible Drug Policy is asking for your help to stop a bill that would further curtail the rights of students in public schools all across the country. The so-called “Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006” (H.R. 5295) would make it easier for teachers and school administrators to search students’ lockers and bags for drugs and other contraband. SSDP needs your help to make sure that this bill never becomes law.
Currently, in order for a teacher to search a student’s locker they need to have “reasonable suspicion” that the student is in possession of illegal drugs. H.R. 5295 would change the standard needed for a search to “colorable suspicion,” a term that has been made up entirely for this bill. Essentially, a teacher would need nothing more than a hunch in order to search a student’s locker or possessions.
This bill is nothing more than another attack on the constitutional rights of young people by the federal government. Students should never have to check their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door.
Please take two minutes to send a letter to your member of Congress asking him or her to oppose H.R. 5295. SSDP has created a pre-written letter that you can easily send by visiting http://capwiz.com/mobilize/issues/alert/?alertID=8779706

Colorable Suspicion? WTF?
As far as I knew, a blank sheet of paper is “colorable” and that doesn’t seem to be much of a standard for searching anything. So I decided to look up “colorable”.

1. Meant to deceive; not genuine.
2. Seemingly true or genuine; plausible.

So… a suspicion that is not genuine? Or maybe one that is seemingly true?
“Well, gee, my suspicion was… plausible.”
Ah, yes, we see the direction the Fourth Amendment is heading.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. In general, people and their possessions shouldn’t be searched unless someone can come up with a plausible reason to do so.

Marcela Sanchez has an interesting article in today’s Washington Post: Bolivia’s Morales Wants to Expand Coca Use
The article covers most of the salient points about the issue that have been covered here and elsewhere, but glaringly absent is any understanding on the part of Ms. Sanchez of two critical points regarding cocaine trade:

1. Cocaine eradication and interdiction does not work.
2. Demand for cocaine is relatively inelastic.

If you understand these two simple facts (and these are not just opinions, they are demonstrable and provable), then parts of her article make no sense. Such as:

One might say that by arguing that more cultivation is needed, Morales is already recognizing defeat in efforts to stem the supply of coca leaves for the illegal market. Also, it seems naive to think that encouraging coca growers to produce crops for products yet to be marketed would be any more successful than crop substitution has been for overall reduction of illicit coca use. Meanwhile, drug traffickers, with their highly sophisticated means for developing and delivering their product worldwide, would be the first to profit from increased production.

The flawed assumption here is that the production of legal coca will somehow bail out the traffickers who have not been able to produce enough cocaine on their own or allow them to vastly increase their market. But the economics of the drug trade do not support this assumption.
Additionally, it is ridiculous to assume that marketing of new products must occur before their production (ignoring the fact that Morales has been working on international allowances, discussion of new products and working to give farmers some hope simultaneously). And dismissing the effort as one as likely to fail as other crop substitutions shows ignorance of the culture.
Morales is attempting to develop a unique market for a product that his people are particularly well-suited to supply. That deserves both support and kudos. If he is allowed by the international community to do this, it will improve the health of the legal economy in Bolivia, while reducing the fiscal power of the drug traffickers as an overall percentage of the country’s “actual” GDP.
Marcela needs to go back to school.

Via Media Matters
May 17:

O’REILLY: You know, this immigration thing is very interesting because it — it points out a lot of things, bigger issues that y’all should be aware of. You know, Mexico doesn’t care about us. Mexico doesn’t care about the United States. And, you know, it — it — we have to be friends with them. I mean, we just can’t be enemies with them. But we’re dealing with a country that is — you know — is so corrupt and so out of control that we — you know — we have to deal with them on a certain level. But we certainly can’t let their corruption infect us, and it has, particularly with the drug trafficking.
You know, when you have the volume of narcotics, millions of tons of narcotics coming across the southern border — if I’m the president of the United States — that alone makes me put the [U.S. National] Guard on the border and not 6,000 guards. I would have 30, 40 thousand down there, because the damage that narcotics do to the fabric of society — my makeup artist for the TV side — I don’t need makeup for radio, but some people say —
LIS WIEHL: Yeah, it would help.
O’REILLY: Yeah, thank you — was mugged the other day; punched in the face in Greenwich Village. Now, who does that? Drug addicts desperate for money. So, this poor woman is walking down the street trying to support her little son, some guy walks up to her, punches her in the face and takes her purse. Now, nine out of 10 of these guys are drug addicts.
So, she is a victim of the Mexican drug corruption. And — and — and all you have to do is multiply that by 10 million and you see how all of this corruption in Mexico has infected our society. Yet, you have these pinheads in Congress — see, they’re not gonna get mugged. President Bush isn’t’ gonna get mugged. All right.

It’s a wonder that his brain doesn’t just leak out his ears. It doesn’t seem to be attached to anything.

Today in the mail, I received an envelope from the Drug Enforcement Administration. What a delight! I so seldom hear from them.
It was my ticket to “A Vigil for Lost Promise” on June 8. (Sent by official DEA taxpayer mail, of course. Would they do the same for this Vigil for Lost Promise?)
The event will be at the DEA headquarters (600-700 Army Navy Drive) between the two DEA buildings. Several security checkpoints will make sure that only those with tickets get in and that their names are cross-checked with the list. Bags and purses will be searched. No signs or placards will be allowed.
Here’s the part that got me:

The following items are prohibited: glass bottles, knives, firearms, illegal drugs.

Illegal drugs are prohibited at a DEA event? What a surprise!
I’m not sure what it says about the DEA or their view of the intended audience receiving this letter… So people are coming to an event that is taking place at DEA headquarters where they know they will be searched and that the DEA has their name and address. And they’re going to think “Gee, I think I’ll bring some illegal drugs to take the edge off this bummer of a vigil”? How bizarre.

Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune

States and nations don’t seem to lose anything when they stop treating drug use as a crime. But there are gains to be had: more police time to combat violent criminals, less need to build prisons, and fewer young lives scarred by arrest and imprisonment for behavior that does no harm.

The war on drugs is an attack on rationality.[…]
Isn’t it a sign of mental disorder when distorted reasoning is unchanged by empirical evidence? What is it about marijuana that drives our politicians insane?

– Salim Muwakkil of In These Times with another reaction to the FDA statement.