Drug WarRant

Government Surrenders Data on Drug Law to Avoid Court Battle
WASHINGTON, DC — After being sued by one of the nation’s largest student organizations, the U.S. Department of Education has agreed to waive a hefty fee and turn over data on the effects of a law that strips financial aid from college students with drug convictions.

Way to go, SSDP!

From Colombia Journal Online

While the U.S. mainstream media widely-reported the U.S. Department of Justice’s recent indictment of 50 rebel leaders belonging to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), an announcement by the State Department the next day received surprisingly little coverage. On March 24, Assistant Secretary of State Anne Patterson told Colombia’s Radio Caracol that, while the United States would not initiate any unilateral military action to capture FARC leaders, it would intervene if invited by the Colombian government. Given that the U.S. government’s intervention in Colombia already involves everything but the deployment of U.S. combat troops, it is clear that Patterson‰s comments were intended to illustrate the Bush administration’s willingness to deploy U.S. troops to Colombia to combat FARC guerrillas.

Dangerous.

I’ve been doing a little bit of collaboration. Be sure to read Prison and the War on Drugs: Just Say No by Hypatia over at Glenn Greenwald’s Unclaimed Territory. I provided an assist, and will be helping with a couple of other drug war posts there.
If you’re not familiar with Unclaimed Territory, it’s a site worth reading regularly, if for no other reason than the outstanding coverage of the NSA warrantless search scandal.

The tragedy never stops.
(Via TalkLeft)

Link via Dare Generation Diary
NPR ran an interesting piece today on drug testing in schools, and the government’s push for increased use of mandatory testing. The piece noted that less than 1/2 of 1 percent of all schools use mandatory random drug testing.
It was noted that available statistics don’t support the value of testing and that the government has, inexplicably, failed to conduct their own legitimate study. There were some good quotes from Students for Sensible Drug Policy and school administrators saying that it makes more sense to drug test only for cause, and reduce drug use in schools through fact-based education.
The strangest part was the interview with the Drug Czar. He had much different views as to why schools don’t participate in mandatory drug testing.
According to the John Walters

1. Schools are afraid of lawsuits [Well, that’s somewhat legitimate. Lawsuits are just one of the extensive costs to schools of implementing a drug testing policy.]
2. Many are scared to death of what they’re going to find…

“They’re afraid they’re going to find kids that need treatment. We’re also going to find in some cases they didn’t get their first drug or first drink from their friends — they got it from their father or their mother or their brother.” [emphasis added]

Is the Drug Czar seriously proposing that there’s nationwide epidemic of parents drugging their kids that requires school drug testing to foil? (and we’re not talking about Ritalin, here)
How outrageous can he get? He’s saying that the government has to step in and take over parental responsibility for every child in this country because their parents are forcing drugs on their children.
Perhaps he’s worried about newspaper editorials like this one which reasonably note:

If parents want to test their kids for drugs, the kits are cheap and available these days.

So in order to justify a reason for forcing mandatory random drug testing upon all children through the schools, he has to claim that parents can’t be trusted.
Sick.
Of course, he never says how drug testing in schools will identify these drug pusher parents, or identify how students got their first drug or first drink. He also doesn’t like to talk about the fact that mandatory random drug testing is for students in extra-curricular activities, meaning that students may be deterred from participating in activities that could actually reduce their drug use.
But that doesn’t matter. It’s about control, and it’s about profitability for the drug testing industry. And to further those causes, the Drug Czar is authorized to invent any claims he wishes.

The State of Ohio, which already got a huge black eye this year from “investing” millions in pension funds with a “rare coin dealer” who was also a campaign contributor, is again being shown to have no regard for financial accountability — this time in the theft of citizens’ assets.
Greg Schwartz of the Free Times has found:

On March 1, all Ohio law enforcement agencies
were supposed to send an annual report to the state attorney general’s office listing all money and property they’ve seized in drug cases during the previous fiscal year. But since 1997, less than half have complied, according to Attorney General Jim Petro’s staff.
What’s worse, it’s not clear that Petro even cares. His staff claims that the AG’s office has “neither the authority nor the resources” to enforce such reporting, which is required by Ohio law.
Ed Orlett, a spokesperson for the Ohio chapter of Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), believes this lack of enforcement could open a Pandora’s box of potential corruption. “It’s a multi-million dollar business,” says Orlett of search-and-seizure operations. “[Authorities] seize cash and property which they liquidate, and which goes into a law enforcement slush fund of sorts.”

I haven’t talked much about this recently, but asset forfeiture is one of the major abuses that has come out of the drug war. Originally intended to go after the assets of major organized crime operations, the drug war has brought it to the retail law enforcement market, with seizures of cash, cars, houses, land — anything they can attempt to link to drug transactions, even if they don’t have enough evidence to charge the owner with a crime.
Probably the most infamous case of asset forfeiture abuse is that of Donald Scott (listed on the Drug War Victims page) — a millionaire with a large piece of land that government agencies really wanted to have. Donald was shot and killed in a raid that was intended to find some drugs so they could seize the land. A later report stated: “It is the District Attorney’s opinion that the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to seize and forfeit the ranch for the government. Based in part upon the possibility of forfeiture, Spencer obtained a search warrant that was not supported by probable cause. This search warrant became Donald Scott’s death warrant.”
There are also numerous stories of people losing their life savings or their homes. Recently, Boulder City Attorney Dave Olsen tried to seize a woman’s house for having 6 marijuana plants.
The fact that local law enforcement agencies get to keep most of what they seize (and the federal government actually helps local agencies do this, even in cases where the state government opposes it) makes this program ripe for abuse. It’s completely improper for an agency to profit from their seizure of citizens’ property, and yet that’s how the system works.
So for over half of Ohio’s law enforcement agencies to not even report what they’ve seized, and the state not hold them accountable — that’s criminal.
For more on asset forfeiture, visit Forfeiture Endangers American Rights (FEAR).

Look at all these unscrupulous thugs and criminals making big money from meth. They’ve found a big cash cow.
… and you’re paying for it.

Sometimes this guy just outdoes himself.

John Walters, White House drug czar: “Nobody says I need medicinal meth, medicinal crack, medical Jack Daniels. The fact of the matter is, and we have to have compassion for the sick and dying, but Prop. 215 is being used to suggest marijuana is good for you.”

You know, I really try to be a good person. I was raised to be a good person. I really believe in helping people and I generally don’t wish for bad things to happen to people. And yet, I must admit that there are times like this that I find a part of me hoping that the Drug Czar would find himself someday in the position of needing the relief of medical marijuana. Then I would like to be the one to bring it to him and have a nice little chat.

Via TalkLeft
The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that if one resident of the house is present and objects, a consent search is not allowed, even if another resident gives consent.
Judge Alito did not participate. Roberts, Scalia and Thomas dissented.

You can access the syllabus here; Justice Souter’s opinion here; Justice John Paul Stevens’ concurring opinion here; Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s concurring opinion here; Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.’s dissenting opinion here; Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissenting opinion here; Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissenting opinion here; and the oral argument transcript here.

Update: Just a reminder. This ruling doesn’t help you if you’re not home and your spouse/roommate give consent for a search. Which is why it’s always a good idea to pick your spouse/roommate carefully, and make sure everybody in the house knows never to consent to a search without a warrant.
And if you ask why you should worry if you don’t have any drugs, I respond: Can you be absolutely sure that none of your friends lost something out of their pocket that went behind the sofa cushions when they visited you? Are you 100% certain that there isn’t a secret compartment or stash in the ceiling left by the previous occupant? Are you looking forward to hiring a lawyer to try to prove you knew nothing about those?

Good investigative journalism by Angela Valdez of the Willamette Week, exposing the “investigative journalism” of the Oregonian.
Meth Madness — How The Oregonian manufactured an epidemic, politicians bought it and you’re paying.
Via Hit and Run