Drug WarRant

Now, some of you all may be old enough to remember the days of Prohibition. I’m not. (Laughter.) But remember, we illegalized whisky, and guess what? People found all kinds of ways to make it, and to run it. NASCAR got started — positive thing that came out of all that. (Laughter.)

– President George W. Bush (January 11, 2006)

Sigh.

Update: Great response from kaptinemo in comments:

The historically obvious irony regarding the War on (Some) Drugs implicit in his statement flies so far over his head he can’t even see the contrail…

I was pessimistic, but hopeful, but it appears that the 8th Amendment is the latest one to bite the dust in the service of the drug warrior.

Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Link

A federal appeals court has upheld a 55-year prison term imposed on a Utah man with no criminal record who was convicted in 2003 of selling several hundred dollars worth of marijuana on three occasions.[…]
The sentence properly reflected the will of Congress, the court said, and was not cruel or unusual punishment.

Right.
Oddly, the Federal Appeals court also apparently chose to repeal the 6th Amendment.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

How did they do this? By taking the word of the prosecutor that Weldon Angelos was a “bad person” without the facts being judged by a jury.

The court also said that Mr. Angelos’s lack of a criminal record appeared to be more about luck in not getting caught than any indication of innocence.

Yep, part of their decision had to do with the fact that they figured he probably did a lot more than he got caught for, so it’s OK to get a long sentence. That’s sort of like giving somebody a $50,000 speeding ticket and saying: “Hey, you’ve probably been going over the speed limit lots of times when we didn’t catch you.”
Hey, at least the 3rd Amendment is still intact.

Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

…so far.

Update: Via TalkLeft, Professor Doug Berman has related concerns at Sentencing Law and Policy (check out the comments for a fairly lively debate).
Oh, if we only had some “activist judges” who would rule that the Constitution matters more than the perverted desires of the executive branch.

Governor Murkowski can’t seem to accept the Alaska State Supreme Court’s ruling (possession of up to 4 ounces of marijuana in your home isn’t enough of a public danger to over-ride the state constitution’s privacy provision). It just burns him up to think that Alaskan citizens can sit in their homes with a small amount of marijuana and he can’t throw them in jail at taxpayer expense.
Link

A bill to re-criminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana at home will pass out of the Senate Finance Committee Thursday, according to co-chair Lyda Green.
Green held an unannounced hearing on the bill today and said she would not delay the schedule to allow for testimony by scientific experts who spoke before other committees last session.
The Murkowski administration, which asked for the bill, contends that the potency of marijuana has increased so much since a key court ruling in 1975 that judges today would permit such legislation, even though it appears to violate recent rulings on the constitutional right to privacy.

Yep, wouldn’t want facts, or those pesky scientific experts to mess up plans to arrest pot smokers.
Update: Edited for clarity

Tobacco companies have gotten all sorts of heat for supposedly marketing their products to children, with images like.. Joe Camel. They’ve got nothing on the drug warriors, who continually screw up by creating anti-drug ads that become cult hits (egg and frying pan), are unintentionally hilarious (marijuana smokers support terrorists), or just plain make drugs fun!
Link

Fast forward to 2005 and the image is of small schoolboy singing a nursery rhyme.
Bah bah black sheep, have you any E? Yes sir, yes sir, first hit’s free. They push it on the children, they push it every day. They push it on the little boy that lives down the way. Bah bah black sheep, have you any E? Yes sir, yes sir, first hit’s free.
Very clever. One problem. This pleasant little ditty is now being sung by school children who heard it on the television, and think it’s cute. Do they understand what they are saying? No. Would they be singing these words with this message without the help of this public service announcement ( PSA )? No.

Another ad brought to you by drugfree.org includes the Alphabet song:

A, B, C, D, PCP, E or X and THC, Special K and LSD, Gs and H and GHB. Now I know my drugs you see, next time won’t you sing with me?

So let’s see… The drug warriors make selling drugs profitable to black-market criminals to insure a guaranteed steady supply of competitively-priced (tax-free) drugs, avoid regulations that would restrict sales to children, prevent the use of harm reduction education programs, and then go out and actually market drugs to small children on television (along with reminding them about drugs at every opportunity).
Should we be apprehending the folks at drugfree.org and putting them in jail for child abuse?

Surprise — an article about drugged driving that doesn’t blame marijuana or promote zero-tolerance drug testing (neither of which are the problems in real drugged driving).
Experts Concerned About `Drug Driving’, by Maggie Shepard in the Albuquerque Tribune focuses on — get this — those who are actually impaired when they drive.

Just before Christmas, a woman who says she was taking only the prescribed dose of her pain killer and anti-anxiety medication blacked out as she was driving to the grocery store.
She lost control of her SUV and caused a crash that killed Natasha Ruth, 69, according to Rio Rancho police. […]
New Mexico law does not differentiate between impairment from alcohol, legal narcotics or appropriately used prescription drugs.
“Impairment means impairment,” said Franklin Garcia, program director for the state Traffic Safety Bureau.

Exactly. And law enforcement should deal specifically with thoe who are impaired, regardless of the means of impairment.
In the article, the Police Lieutenant (Conrad Murray) called for more training for officers to be able to deal with identifying this kind of impairment. He didn’t call for more drug testing, or stricter laws based on identifying trace elements of illegal drugs in the bloodstream as we so often see.
Refreshing. Perhaps Murray really wants to make the roads safer, rather than following the Drug Czar’s political motivations.
We need more of this attitude. Sure, having to actually identify impairment on the road or in the workplace, in the context of the situation, requires skill and judgement. It takes more work than a blood test, or simply demonizing marijuana users because that particular drug happens to leave evidence in the blood longer.

The health section of today’s New York Times has a fairly decent article (not well written, but very informative to the lay person), about the challenges of treating chronic pain these days, and isn’t very nice to the DEA

Now the federal government, and especially the Drug Enforcement Administration, is working overtime to make it even harder for doctors to manage serious pain, including that of dying patients trying to exit this world gracefully.

The article even addressed the fact that most people (and even some doctors) don’t understand the difference between addiction and dependency:

An addict uses a drug to get high, becomes tolerant and needs ever-increasing amounts to maintain that high. Patients taking narcotics for pain don’t get high; they get relief from their pain, and when larger doses are needed, it is usually because their pain has become more intense, as often happens in patients with advanced cancer or degenerative diseases.

Always nice to see a major paper take on an issue like this.

Talk about a disconnect from reality…

VANCOUVER — The federal government argued yesterday that Steve Kubby and his family should be deported to the United States because there is no evidence he will be denied marijuana to cope with his cancer, even if he is put in jail.

Link
The judge is expected to make a decision this week.

From the Narco News Bulletin: Leaked Memo: Corrupt DEA Agents in Colombia Help Narcos and Paramilitaries

The drug war is supposed to follow a very clear script: According to the official screenwriters, the U.S. justice system is pitted against corrupt players in foreign countries who are trying to flood American streets with illicit drugs. The narco-traffickers, crooked cops, and thieving politicians in the drug war are always over there, in Latin America, and elsewhere, and U.S. law enforcers and government officials are always the good guys battling these forces of evil.
But what happens when evidence surfaces that turns that script on its ear? What happens if proof emerges that it is the U.S. justice system that is corrupt? A document obtained recently by Narco News [pdf] makes those questions more than hypothetical queries. In this document, Department of Justice attorney Thomas M. Kent claims that federal agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s office in Bogot½, Colombia, are the corrupt players in the war on drugs.

Surprise, surprise.
(The author does sacrifice some clarity in that last sentence, however. It should probably read: “federal agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s office in Bogot½, Colombia, are also corrupt players in the war on drugs” since there is certainly no shortage of corruption within the Colombian factions.)
More on DEA corruption in Colombia here.

I’ve been spending the day upgrading to Tiger, so here are some things to check out elsewhere:
“bullet” The Austin Chronicle gave its Top 10 Drug War Stories of 2005 in The Chronic Goes On
Scott at Grits for Breakfast responded with his own Top 10 list focusing on Texas.
“bullet” Loretta Nall has been getting some respect in her bid for the Alabama governor’s mansion, getting a mention on Alabama Public Television, a bid to participate in a candidate forum, and is working hard toward the ultimate goal – participating in debates.
“bullet” John at High: The true tale of American Marijuana is getting close to finishing his film and has a new poster up at his site. Provocative!
“bullet” thehim, as always, has an excellent drug war roundup for the week

I had the distinct pleasure yesterday of being interviewed for a television documentary exploring contemporary political debates regarding Constitutional rights. Matt Ehling and the crew from ETS Pictures came to my home town to talk to me about Raich and the drug war as they relate to the Commerce Clause and the Fourth Amendment.
The local paper actually covered the filming, if you’re interested.
They hope to have the documentary ready for release by the end of the summer– I’ll let you know when it’s going to air.
Welcome to any new local visitors who stopped by because of the article. If your interest is in the Raich case, I have a page here.