Drug WarRant

Harry Browne former Libertarian Presidential Candidate, died yesterday.

And on his first day in office, he would pardon all non-violent drug offenders…

The first season of the delightful Showtime series “Weeds” is now available on iTunes (the entire 10 episode series is $19.90).

OK, the story so far. In time honored Google tradition, we spread the word about Vigil for Lost Promise.org – a site that countered the hypocritial DEA’s .com site. And sure enough, Vigil for Lost Promise.org got to the top of the list for several searches.
Today, magically, Vigil for Lost Promise.org had different results in searches.

• In search for “Vigil for Lost Promise” it dropped from #1 to #17
• In search for “Lost Promise” it dropped from #1 to #97

Clearly this isn’t a case of the DEA site getting more link value, or the two sites would have just exchanged places. My vigil site suddenly lost google value. Who knows, maybe it’s something I did wrong with it.
Update: I’m hearing from others that the ranking hasn’t changed for them. Google has all sorts of unknowable search algorithms that could be in play, so I’m just going to wait and see how this works (thanks for the quick responses).

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Just a reminder — because I can’t say it often enough given how some people make assumptions — the loss of life to drugs is obviously something about which we care greatly and deeply. A vigil to remember their lives is a fine and noble thing.
What I, and others, find to be the ultimate in shameless audacity, is for the DEA to be sponsoring it. Not only are their tactics directly responsible for the deaths of innocents, and the harassment of sick people in pain (and their doctors), but they also are part of the prohibition engine that increases the risk of death to those who use illegal drugs. And they’re fine with that. They’re not interested in harm reduction. They’re interested in enforcement.
And why is the prohibition establishment responsible for contributing to drug deaths?

• Prohibition puts drug distribution in the hands of criminals, who care little for the welfare of users. Prohibition also makes criminal drug trade extremely profitable. In fact, prohibitionists are the drug traffickers best friends. Without them, the drug dealers would be out of a job.
• Prohibition adds a stigma to drug abuse that often prevents people from seeking help. It is easier to get friends to help you quit smoking cigarettes, or attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, than to ask for help in kicking an illegal drug habit.
• Stigma also interferes with seeking medical attention in the case of an overdose or severe reaction. Someone who would not hesitate to rush a friend with alcohol poisoning to the emergency room may wait a fatally long time considering what to do with a friend who has overdosed.
• The current lack of any regulation of drugs increases the risk of tainted drugs and uncertain potency, which can lead to overdoses and death.
• The resistance to providing clean syringes to drug addicts increases AIDS and other fatal blood-born diseases.
• Current law in many cases prevents organizations and individuals from pursuing other harm-reduction activities, such as providing ecstasy testing kits to make sure people don’t take an unexpected and fatal mixture.
• Illegal drug dealers want to hook clients in order to obtain future profits.
• With prohibition, since the drug purchaser is put into a situation of dealing with criminals, he or she is much more likely to be involved in violent and dangerous situations.
• Prohibition creates vast profitable criminal enterprises that settle their problems through violence, and innocent victims get caught in the crossfire.

I once heard former drug czar William Bennett mention that one thing drug legalizers couldn’t answer is what would they say to the parent of someone who died from drugs. Well, I would say: Let me introduce you to Mr. Bennett, who is partially responsible for your child’s death, through the policies he promoted.
I’ve only gotten one “opposition” letter so far regarding Vigil for Lost Promise, and I don’t even know what the person is opposing.

The call came this morning at 8:30 am, a couple who attend our parent support group had turned off the life support to their son. He was 18, started on marijuana then alcohol and then the cornicopia opened. In the end it was xanax and oxy chased with booze…a lifetime of promise lost replaced by a lifetime of grief for those left behind….if you think there is a difference between kinds of loss when it comes to substance abuse…you really don’t have a clue

You’re right, I don’t have a clue. Who are you angry at? And why?
You want to do something about it? Change the laws that put drugs distribution in the hands of criminals. Turn drug abuse into a medical problem rather than a police problem so we can help people. Save future lives.

U.S. Government:

Washington — Steadily increasing cooperation among nations led to “significant successes” in reducing international drug trafficking and criminal activity in 2005, the U.S. State Department declared in releasing the 2006 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) March 1.

However, included in the report:

• Bolivia: “Overall coca cultivation increased 8 percent from 2004 to 2005, to 26,500 hectares.”
• Peru: “The USG estimates there are 38,000 hectares of coca cultivation in Peru, including 4,000 hectares in new areas.” This represents a stunning 38 percent increase from 2004 to 2005. The combined one-year increase in Peru and Bolivia was 12,400 hectares, or 24 percent.
• Ecuador: “Ecuadorian security forces located and destroyed about 36,160 cultivated coca plants in small, scattered sites in 2005. While not commercially significant, the extent of cultivation was about double that of 2004. Together with the discovery of a small, partially harvested opium poppy plantation, they suggest that growers are testing the feasibility of drug crop cultivation in Ecuador.”

Colombia’s coca-cultivation estimate for 2005 has not yet been made public, and probably will not be for a few more weeks. If it ends up revealing that eradication failed to reduce coca cultivation in Colombia last year — as was the case in 2004 — then official U.S. statistics will show a 7.5 percent increase in coca cultivation throughout the Andean region.
Such a result would be a stark admission of failure, since Washington has spent more than $6 billion on counter-narcotics in the Andes since :”Plan Colombia” began in 2000.

Oops.

Via NORML

Senate Bill 2568, an act to authorize the medical use of marijuana for qualifying patients, will be voted on by the Illinois Senate tomorrow, Thursday, March 2. In addition, several seriously ill patients will be meeting with their state elected officials today to raise awareness of the need to allow for the legal use of medicinal cannabis in Illinois.
If you have not already done so, please contact your state Senator today and tell him or her to vote in favor of SB 2568. If approved, this proposal would allow authorized patients to possess up to two and one half ounces of cannabis and/or 12 plants for medicinal purposes. Read the full bill text here) For your convenience, a pre-written letter to send to your Senator in support of SB 2568 is available online.

[Note: This review contains spoilers.]
Conviction is a mid-season replacement by Dick Wolf about young prosecutors, which premieres Friday, March 3 on NBC. I had a chance to see the pilot episode through an I-Tunes promotion, and I wanted to check out how the Law and Order folks would portray the role of prosecutors in our society.
It was appalling.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s a well-produced slick formula series that pushes all the right buttons, and it may do well. But it’s not a bit about justice and it continues that conviction-at-all-costs, defendants-are-scum philosophy (along with sensationalism) that was developed in the 27 or so Law and Order series.
There are a whole lot of very attractive young prosecutors having sex and dealing with their personal problems along with their prosecutorial jobs, and they end up at a bar at the end of the day à la Ally McBeal. But unlike Ally McBeal, the bars are meaningless (and so is the sex).
There’s the attractive African American prosecutor who never lost a case, (and to protect his record will dump the tough ones), the sloppy guy with his shirt-tails out who’s a good prosecutor but can’t handle his personal life, the attractive brunette who’s sleeping with her boss, the idealistic young man who comes from a privileged family and will have to shed that baggage. And I didn’t care about any of them.
There was one — an Assistant DA — that gave me just a glimmer of hope that here might be a character that cared about justice (and not just conviction). But they killed him off halfway through the pilot, in an apparent manipulative shock moment to make us see that prosecutors have tough, scary lives, and so we could feel for the young prosecutors who were sorry that their boss was dead.
Now lets take a look at the cases being prosecuted. Mostly drugs, of course. The marquee event was the Escobar case. The producers wanted to be sure there would be no question which side you should be on. The drug trafficker was a sleazy guy who would entice attractive blond white women into partying at his clubs and then convince them to swallow balloons of drugs and smuggle them. When one of the balloons broke and a girl started to OD, he personally slit her belly open to retrieve the drugs, all in the presence of her friend (who oddly had been allowed to turn down the drug smuggling offer and even more oddly was left alive to tell the story).
The prosecutors were going to do anything to get their conviction.
At one point, when the witness is too scared to testify…

Arrest her.
There’s no proof she committed a crime.
Find some. A couple nights in Ryker and she’ll sing Bel Canto.

Later, they do arrest her, charging her with felony drug conspiracy and felony murder, in order to force her testimony.
The second case — the comic relief subplot case — was about a young black man arrested for selling crack.
The officer — an incredibly fat white man who looked like he’d have a heart attack if he walked 10 feet — tells the green prosecutor:

You didn’t plead him out? I appreciate your efforts, counselor, but this case is strictly N-H-I… there was No Humans Involved — it’s scum dealing drugs to scum. A less enlightened guy might say “who cares.”

The young prosecutor screws up every aspect of the case, from not knowing how to question a witness to losing track of the evidence, and the curmudgeonly judge helps her through these lapses.
In the trial, the defendant and his attorney (who claim he was framed) extensively (and rightly) ridicule the cop’s claim that he chased the defendant for 100 yards. I was convinced the defendant was innocent, and the jury seemed convinced as well. And then the young prosecutor steps up with her summation:

There’s no question that the defendent, by virtue of his charm and humor and eloquence was able to diminish the serious nature of the crime with which he’s been charged. I mean, let’s face it. He was funny. He made you laugh. He was, in a word, entertaining.
But picture him in a different setting — the street. A place where he deploys his humor and his charm and his eloquence to entice naive children to experiment with crack — the poison that he sells — the poison that decimates so many promising lives. And that, ladies and gentlemen… is not funny.
[At that point, a dramatic camera shift shows the judge, who smiles and nods — she did good]

Conviction.
Yep, it’s the “Drugs are bad, Mmmkay” prosecution. It wasn’t about witnesses, or developing a link between the evidence and the defendant. No. The prosecutor said “Drugs are bad,” and the jury said: “Well, the defendant must be guilty, then.”
Now, I understand that this is television. It’s not a documentary, and there’s no requirement that a dramatic television series reflect reality. And sterotypical exploitive criminal justice storylines are much easier to write and sell. I fully support the right of NBC to program whatever they wish and for individuals to watch it or not as they wish.
Also, the show is intended to be about the characters — the young prosecutors — and the actual prosecution is of secondary importance to the writers. And who knows — the characters may turn out to be interesting as the series continues.
But it does make me sad.
Audiences who follow this show are going to continue to get a viewpoint that the only thing that matters is conviction, the defendant is always scum, and that things like the Bill of Rights are annoyances around which the prosecution must navigate.
I’m just going to have to return to the television I can trust… on the Sci-Fi channel.

Every now and then, I like to share a letter with you…

Hello my name is Celina,iam tall and sexy looking young girl, after
reading your profile, i will like to have a relationship with you, can you write me, we can start from there, also i will send you my picture, i will be waiting because i have something VERY IMPORTANT…

Whoops. Wrong letter.
Ah, here we go…

Hmmm. You wrote an entire blog in hopes of legalizing marijuana? Only a naive fool would waste countless hours putting up a bunch of nonsense on the internet.
Why would the general public even be interested in legalizing something so harmful? Alcohol itself is a major problem in the United States. Why do we need more problems related to marijuana? Are you blind? With over 400 chemicals in the drug, it will obviously cause more harm than it does good.
Yes, I’ve read your articles on yellow journalism and everything, but you pinpoint to idiots. Of course in the government there will be idiots in there. Why don’t you make a more reasonable and legitimate arguement against the group of more intelligent members in the government? You hate the government so much that you never really talk about the positive things they have done. You mock the government through history too. About yellow journalism, racism, and the freedom that was taken away by the government.
You keep talking about freedom and everything, but take a moment and look at yourself in a mirror. You’re so into legalizing marijuana that you put up a bunch of bullcrap to prove that there are idiots in the government. Instead of blaming the government, I suggest you blame the majority of society as they clearly know the harms and little significances that marijuana has, unlike you who is pretty much ignorant and full of hatred and lack a bit of intelligence.

The writer is a 17-year-old boy, which makes me wonder why he would have such strong feelings about this at his age.
Actually — considering how high a profile I have for a single-issue blog — the thing that surprises me most is how few of these letters I get. I get tons of “thank you” letters, all of which are greatly appreciated. But in almost three years, I can count on one hand the number of letters like this I’ve received.
Update: He’s written back with an apology for the tone of the first letter, and some good serious questions. We’ve got a dialogue started and we’ll see where it goes.

Drug warriors have often tried to dishonestly link marijuana and suicide, yet marijuana users have failed to cooperate.
However, Bruce reminds me today that there is a link between marijuana and suicide. And that link is the drug war.

AUSTIN – A civil rights lawsuit announced Wednesday blames the private corrections system for the 2004 suicide of a South Texas woman found hanging in her cell after reporting that a male inmate raped her. […] Tapia, who spent nearly six months in the jail before her death, was awaiting transfer to a federal facility after pleading guilty to a marijuana possession charge…

Can anyone explain to me the value of that arrest, conviction, and imprisonment for possession of marijuana? What f***ing message did we send to the children with that one? Huh?
What about Steve Williams? (more)

Facing federal prosecution for growing 25 marijuana plants in his yard, forbidden from mounting a medical-necessity defense, and unable to use the one medicine that eased his suffering for fear of being jailed, McWilliams committed suicide on July 12.

Or how about this story from Drug War Victims?

Rather than being compelled to testify against her 70-year-old boyfriend (Byron Stamate) for cultivating the medicinal cannabis she depended upon to help control her crippling back pain, Shirley Dorsey committed suicide. She saw it as the only way to prevent the forfeiture of their home and property. Despite her suicide, Stamate was sentenced to 9 months prison, and his home, cottage, and $177,000 life savings were seized.

Yeah. It’s all about message we send to the children.

Baylen Linnekin over at To The People was a little confused by my reporting of this very ‘rare’ event (tasering a man and setting him on fire), because he thought he was reading another report of the same incident, but no, it was another guy police set on fire with a taser gun.
If taser reps really believe this:

Officials with Taser International — which manufactures the nonlethal weapon that uses a shock to incapacitate dangerous people — said they’ve never heard of anything quite like this before.
“I would call this beyond a rare fluke,” spokesman Steve Tuttle said.

… then why are we looking at this:
Wisconsin:

When officers tried to subdue him, the Taser charge ignited the pepper spray and set his head on fire.

Florida:

A Taser probe pierced the pocket of his khaki shirt — and ignited the butane lighter inside. Crouch’s pocket exploded in flames.

North Carolina:

A man pursued by Cumberland County deputies burst into flames after he was shot with an electronic Taser weapon that delivers a shocking electric current.

I’m sure in the taser companies’ controlled testing zones, those tasers are quite safe, but in real life, there’s things like pepper spray, butane lighters, and gasoline that don’t mix well with high voltage (as well as some peoples’ health).
Note: the last story had one bit of potentially confusing reporting. I was thrown by this sentence:

[Deputy Bradley] Dean shot McKinnon when the man tried to get away and rolled him on the ground to put out the flames.

For a moment, I thought it meant that the deputy saw the man on fire running and shot him with his gun to get him to stop so he could put out the flames, and I thought “That’s a pretty messed up way to stop a burning man.”
Then I realized the correct order of events. 1. Man accidentally gets gasoline on him. 2. Man tries to run away. 3. Deputy shoots him with taser. 4. Man bursts into flame. 5. Deputy tries to put out flames.
As much as this situation lends itself to jokes, the point is clear. Tasers are not some perfectly safe way of subduing criminals, and to the extent that those using it feel that it’s safe, it’s putting the lives of citizens in danger.

I knew that they were thorough and strict regarding the Olympics, but this actually surprised me.

In order to maintain my status as an eligible athlete, I am required to tell USADA where I am 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To help streamline this process, we are given quarterly updates to complete, intended for us to outline the next three months of our lives. We are instructed to put down when and where we will be living, training, working and traveling so that USADA can find us at any given moment. Although this seems relatively simple for most people, it is quite difficult for an athlete whose training and competition schedule is constantly in flux. For every wedding, family emergency, last-minute trip or unplanned change, we must submit a Change of Location form so we can be tracked at all times Ö making athletes feel as though they are under constant surveillance.
The regular tracing of our whereabouts was implemented so that USADA can randomly drug test athletes, with frequent knocks at the door at 6 a.m. or surprise tests at 7 p.m. If a Doping Control Officer arrives to perform a test and the athlete cannot be reached within the allocated time, they are charged with a missed test. After three missed tests, an athlete becomes suspended for one year, and worse, has their reputation tarnished indefinitely.
When a Doping Control officer makes contact with you, you have two hours to meet them in person, at which point they must remain by your side until you give them a successful urine sample. This process can take all day, for even though as elite athletes we are trained to perform under pressure, bladder pressure is a different story. Even the showiest of athletes get stage fright when there is someone standing 2 feet away watching you Ö completely exposed Ö urinate into a cup.

I understand the concerns about having the sport tarnished by performance-enhancing drugs (although why athletes are tested for marijuana baffles me, since pot is hardly a sport-enhancing drug). On the other hand, I know that I would never want to live a life that completely gave up your privacy in that way.