Drug WarRant

Via a friend in Seattle…
I think I would have really enjoyed a program that was held at the University of Washington this evening: “Marijuana, the Unnecessary War,”, featuring travel writer Rick Steves along with Roger Goodman, director of the King County Bar Association’s Drug Policy Project.

Steves isn’t worried what people think of his stoner stance. He doesn’t need to get elected, he said, and doesn’t care if people boycott his travel books and shows.
The truth is, he hardly smokes anyway.
“If I wasn’t working so hard, I would smoke,” he said. “I’m kind of a workaholic. I smoke overseas with European friends.”
Alcohol leads to other things, Steves said. Sex leads to other things.
“Pot causes us to enjoy the Beatles.”

Link

LASHKARGAH, Afghanistan (AP) – Afghanistan will encourage its powerful drug lords to invest their illegally earned profits in the war-shattered country, according to the governor of the nation’s top opium-growing region.
The offer comes amid warnings of another bumper poppy crop that will fuel a booming narcotics trade, which already accounts for 35 percent of the impoverished country’s income.
“We as a government will provide them the opportunity to use their money for the national benefit,” Helmand Gov. Mohammed Daud said during a trip to the region this week by U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann.
“They must invest in industries. They must invest in construction companies,” he said.
But he said that so far the government has had no success in attracting the drug traffickers to open new businesses and that most of the money is being sent overseas.

Yep. Kind of like legalization. Of course, Gov. Daud is really just looking for any way to get money. Not so long ago, he was begging the international community for more money for eradication efforts. Still, going after investment from the drug lords might be a more attractive option for Daud.
The U.S. ambassador seemed unsure how to comment, which may be a sign that U.S. hard-line diplomacy regarding Afghanistan and drugs may be running into serious difficulties.

Via Americans for Safe Access:

This morning, in a cruel act of harassment and intimidation DEA agents, along with Riverside County Sheriff’s officers, raided a small medical marijuana collective grow outside of Palm Desert, California.
When the DEA knocked on the door, patient Gary Silva went to open it. DEA agents proceeded to kick in the door, dislocating Gary’s shoulder and causing lacerations to his face. Gary uses medical marijuana for degenerative disk disease and nerve damage. He is currently being treated in the emergency room of a local hospital.
Agents confiscated less than 80 plants and dry medicine, which were grown for several patient collective members. Patient records and equipment were seized as well. No arrests were made. DEA agents repeatedly told Gary that they would not be charging him, and that he would only be charged if he grew again.

Emergency action information is available at their site.

You may be aware recently that a couple of radio stations in Wyoming had been running some medical marijuana Public Service Announcements from MPP, until a local police chief complained and they pulled them.
MPP’s Bruce Mirken responded with this wonderfully written piece in the Jackson Hole Star Tribune.

A couple of editorials in my morning reading caught my attention. One good, one bad.
“bullet” A good one from the Colorado Spring Gazette, also published in the Sedalia (MO) Democrat
The article talks about the border violence near Nueva Laredo, and continues…

These latest victims can be added to the rising costs of an American drug control policy that does little to keep drugs off the streets in U.S. cities, while racking up huge bills.
Drug warriors in this country like to trumpet their successes in the media, posing with large caches of drugs and weapons they’ve taken from smugglers and dealers. And for that dangerous work they are to be lauded. But the larger picture shows that for all the foot soldiers’ risky work, the supply of available drugs seems little changed. Don’t blame that on the folks on the front lines; the fault lies further up the chain of command and is the result of a faulty premise.
The drug war is based on the idea that if the government wishes something to go away, it can simply outlaw it. Apparently those in charge of the nation’s drug policy were absent from history class the day Prohibition was covered. It didn’t work in the 1920s and it’s not working now, because it ignores one of the basic tenets of freedom: so long as the rights of others are not harmed, what one does with one’s own body is not the business of government.

Excellent points, and well-said.
“bullet” Now, an editorial to read for the delicious stupidity of it. Kat Stromquist is the Views Editor of the Tulane Hullabaloo. She’s a senior, majoring in Political Science, and isn’t much of a spokesperson for the academic strengths of Tulane.
She writes the most convoluted editorial I could imagine on the recent Supreme Court case that ruled that the government did not have a compelling interest to prevent O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao De Vegetal’s use of the hoasca tea in ceremonies. Her editorial: Courts Try to Take Stand, Stumble Drunkenly
I can’t even make out her position in some places (it’s that incoherent), but let’s play with a couple of passages for fun.
She mentions that the decision “startled and complexed many observers” (I’m not sure who) and then characterized the Supreme Court decision:

The Court is an institution of unpopular stances, but this statement is almost perverse.

Perverse? Let’s see why.

To allow religious individuals special privileges is to deprive non-religious individuals of those same privileges. The religious freedoms we are guaranteed include the freedom to have no religion at all, so subscription to any particular faith should not carry benefits nor status.

Almost sounds like she’s upset that the court didn’t rule that everyone should be allowed to used the hoasca tea. But I guess if she wants to follow this “no benefits” ‘rule’ for religions, she’ll be leading the charge to eliminate tax-exempt status for churches. Right, Kat?

With this ruling, the court also defines something many consider immoral, or at least a vice, as something to be identified with religion. Religious practice is one of the more sacrosanct institutions of society.

Well, the court merely clarified the government’s reach under the law. But there’s something odd about her wording. It apparently can’t be religious, because she has identified it as a vice.

The open exercise of religion provides a haven for the pious and a shrine for believers.

???

If religion is defined as a loophole by the court, the declaration of religion is bound to be abused.
Hate crimes could easily be redefined by racist zealots as ritual sacrifices. Cruelty to animals, our society’s most defenseless members, can be committed as part of some sort of dietary practice.

This is so unbelievably ignorant, that Tulane should immediately request an investigation of her transcripts to date. The court has not declared religion a loophole — it was interpreting the scope of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed by Congress, and according to FindLaw (which Kat might have considered reading before spouting inanities):

RFRA prohibits the Federal Government from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion, “even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability,” … except when the Government can “demonstrat[e] that application of the burden to the person (1) [furthers] a compelling government interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that … interest,”

Obviously, the bogeyman conjured up by Kat’s vague allusion to “hate crimes” committed by “racist zealots” isn’t in danger of coming to pass due to the Supreme Court’s ruling. And as far as the potential “cruelty to animals, our society’s most defenseless members” as some sort of dietary practice, have you ever visited a commercial chicken farm, Kat?
Back to the quotes:

The protection of illegal activities as instruments of religion endangers religious freedom for those with genuine beliefs; the advantageous will not let this ruling be ignored. [emphasis added]

So, Kat, will you be the one to tell the church members that their beliefs are not genuine? And how have you determined that?

To find religion is a sort of fortune.
Christians speak of gold-paved streets and pearls when describing their kingdom of heaven, and for many, a blessing that great is offered to them in their lifetime by their faith.
Many others spend their entire lives seeking something.
We seek faith in an innumerable quantity of places: in spring days that almost hurt with their vividity, in music and dancing, in falling in love. As regrettable as it may be for society, some look for the answer with drugs.
If we are to hold that drug use is a valid method of religious epiphany and that the achievement of religious faith is an essential good, there is no reason to criminalize drug use for those who are not already members of a particular religion.
It cannot be true that the use of psychoactive substances can only work on people who have a particular belief.

OK, once you get past the bizarre mumbo-jumbo, now Kat is saying something with which I wholeheartedly agree: “there is no reason to criminalize drug use for those who are not already members of a particular religion.” Absolutely. Let’s legalize drug use. (But I fear Kat didn’t really mean that.)

A decision made without regard to social consequences is no decision at all, only the flip of a coin on the Court’s lunch break.

Actually, it’s a pretty radical notion that the Court is to make every decision in terms of social consequences.
And finally, the winner of the tortured analogy competition:

These justices are not acting as architects. They are merely standing on site, hammer, wood, and nails in hand, but no blueprint.

Hey, I realize that more people are probably reading her editorial through this site than would otherwise — Kat’s editorial just isn’t worth this amount of time, but we all have to have fun now and then.

Via TalkLeft comes this article at the BBC.
The Institute of Psychiatry has identified a gene variant that may increase the likelihood of dependence on cocaine.
This is not a particular surprise to me. There’s always been some evidence that susceptibility to abuse of various substances (alcohol and other drugs) has been linked to genetics. It’s important to note, however, that genetic predisposition seems not to be automatic, but may rather influence a person to lean a particular way.

On Thursday, Congress reauthorized the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
These are the principled members of Congress who voted against:

• Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
• Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA)
• Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)
• Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA)
• Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)

The rest of Congress likes spending taxpayers’ money on ineffective, racist, un-American, and wasteful government agencies.

Mike Krause, veteran of the Coast Guard, and director of the Justice Policy Initiative, writes in the Denver Post: Drug war trumps port safety

The top objective of the U.S. Coast Guard’s anti-terrorism strategy is to protect what’s called the “U.S. Maritime Domain,” including American ports.
But it is hard to take seriously the idea that ports are being effectively protected when the Coast Guard spent more tax dollars last year fighting the war on drugs than has been spent in total on port security since Sept. 11, 2001.

So the Coast Guard spends its time and our money on headline-grabbing drug seizures that don’t make a dent in supply, while leaving the ports alone.

So not only does cocaine interdiction distract the Coast Guard from its port security mission, cocaine interdiction itself is failing.
Most disturbing is that Congress, the Coast Guard and the drug czar all seem fine with this – and, in fact, want even more of the same.

Link
Condoleezza Rice and Bolivian President Evo Morales met to discuss the drug war.
Now, you might think that this would be a big thing — after all, there are huge differences in policy. U.S. pushes for complete eradictaion, Morales wants to preserve coca growing, etc., and there have been significant tensions between the two countries.

On the plane en route to Chile Rice had stressed the importance of meeting with Morales.
“President Morales has said that he is also concerned about the security issues associated with the drug trade and so I think that gives us a good starting point for discussion,” Rice said.

So the two of them had this important discussion. So I’m wondering… was this a three-day summit? A packed full-day meeting?

Rice and Morales talked for about 15 minutes, discussing a shared problem: the illegal drugs trade. […]
Rice and Morales did not immediately comment publicly on their discussion.

15 minutes? You can’t have a discussion in 15 minutes. All you can do in 15 minutes is issue an ultimatum, or say “Hi.”
So what was the purpose? A photo-op? If so, Evo Morales won that one big time, with a skillful move that demonstrated that the United States’ drug policy is ridiculous, and that the U.S. government has no understanding of the cultural background of the countries with which it deals.

Morales, dressed in black leather embroidered with traditional motifs, presented Rice with an unusual gift that set the US delegation aback: a small, traditional guitar decorated with lacquered coca leaves.
Rice, an accomplished pianist, graciously accepted the five-string “charango” and strummed it for a few seconds.
But a member of the chief US diplomat’s delegation indicated the guitar may not pass through US Customs. Though the coca leaves are legal in Bolivia, they are forbidden in the US.

Makes the U.S. delegation look downright stupid.

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