Drug WarRant

This USA Today editorial agreed with the recent FBI decision to re-think whether they could accept job applicants who had used drugs at some time in the past…

It’s an obviously logical policy change that anyone with half a brain could see immediately makes perfect sense. The FBI is an important agency, and you don’t want to limit your talent pool unnecessarily.
I mean, you’d really have to find an outright moron to oppose this…
Enter Mark Souter with his rebuttal.

Only a moron would believe that giving the FBI a wider pool of applicants would result in a lowering of standards. And that’s what we have Mark around for.
Of course, this also fits Mark’s profile as a sado-moralist. He hates the notion of someone using drugs responsibly and not getting punished for it.

Police who are in the business of going for drug seizures on the highways need some justification for pulling over a car they want to check out. Officer Joe Brown apparently thought he’d come up with a new one, now that many areas outlaw driving while talking on a cell phone. But…

Guess Joe Brown has to find some other way to lie about pulling people over.
Link

Former director of the DEA Asa Hutchinson is running for Governor of Arkansas. In this article, he starts off on the right track:

Good for him. But I didn’t really expect him to get it, and sure enough…

Notice the conflation of “drug offense” with “drug problem.” And the statement completely ignores the reality of how financial aid works. If a student’s grades fall, he or she will lose their financial aid — no need for this provision. The whole point of denying financial aid for a drug conviction is to punish the good student. That’s right. They’re after the low income students who get good grades despite using pot, but had the bad luck to get caught.
I have worked with thousands of students. Each one is different. Some can’t handle the stress, or the alcohol, or the freedom to watch soap operas all day. Some succeed despite the problems of the world being thrown at them. I have seen straight-A students who were leaders in student organizations and graduated with stacks of awards and honors despite smoking pot every single day they were in college.
Asa gets the big picture wrong. The HEA financial provision should be repealed in its entirety.

Truth Laid Bear is putting out a call to bloggers to take a stand on Miers, so here’s mine:

I am neutral on the Miers nomination.

Not much of a stand, I realize, but here are my reasons:

1. I’d like to see what actually happens in the confirmation process, on the off-chance that we might learn something about her.
2. I have to look at this specifically from the perspective of drug policy, and it’s really hard to anticipate how a future justice will rule in these areas (take a look at the schizophrenic if not psychotic behavior of the justices in Raich). TalkLeft has said some encouraging things about her regarding criminal justice on one side — her apparent loyalty to the executive branch is a potential downside. Everybody else wants to see how she’ll vote on abortion — I want to know what she thinks of the fourth amendment.
3. So far, the Miers nomination has been quite entertaining, and I’d hate to see it end.

Via TChris at TalkLeft comes this:

Although this was a ruling in relation to the state constitution, it has relevance to an upcoming Supreme Court case dealing with the same issue. (Georgia v. Randolph, Scott)
The Supreme Court has already ruled in US v. Matlock that if two people control a home, the one at home can give consent to search, and the absent one is out of luck. So if you have a roommate and you’re not there, your roommate can consent without a warrant and anything found can be used against you. However, Georgia v. Randolph, the issue is when both are home and one consents to the search while the other refuses — ie., can the officers “shop around” for someone in the house that will give consent?
The New York Court of Appeals in People v. Cosme ruled:

My view is that nobody else can waive my rights and consent to a warrantless search of my person, house, papers or effects, simply because they are a roommate, spouse, or otherwise share a location with me. I get that notion from the Constitution of the United States, which says, in part:

I’m hoping that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the 4th Amendment in Georgia v. Randolph, but they haven’t had a very good track record with that amendment.
Regardless, if you share your home with someone, you might want to stop by Flex Your Rights with your roommate(s) and maybe pick up a copy of “Busted” while you’re there.

For a fascinating, yet disturbing weekend read, check out Crackpot Crackdown by Jordan Smith in yesterday’s Austin Chronicle.

It’s a story of racism, a district attorney who runs the county, and drug convictions with absolutely no evidence.

The new Department of Justice US Prison Population report (pdf) is to be released tomorrow. Here are some of the key figures in the report (thanks to Common Sense for Drug Policy, and jackl):
State Prison Inmates in 2002:

• 21.4% were drug offenders — 265,000 out of 1,237,500.
• 31.5% of all women in state prison were serving time for drugs — 25,100
  out of 79,800 women total.
• 25.1% of all blacks in state prison were serving time for drugs — 126,000
  out of 501,700 blacks.
• 27.4% of all Hispanics in state prison were serving time for drugs —
  61,700 out of 225,000 Hispanics.
• 14.8% of whites in state prison were serving time for drugs — 64,500 out
  of 435,100.

Federal Prison Inmates 2003:

• Total: 158,426 Inmates
• Drug offenses: 86,972
• Violent offenses: 16,688
• Property offenses: 11,283
• Public-order offenses: 42,325 (includes immigration and weapons)
• Other: 1,158

At Drug WarRant, I always welcome those who have opposing viewpoints. In fact, it’s often refreshing to have someone actually have the guts to debate us about drug policy reform. (Note how recently we had a discussion that went on for hundreds of posts with “Jake.”)
So I feel the need to explain why I have deleted some comments recently. We have had a commenter here for quite some time who is quite involved and supportive in drug policy reform. Then another commenter recently showed up using the same name, with a very different viewpoint — ie, a series of random disconnected inflammatory comments, including insults thrown at other commenters here at Drug WarRant. As I did not feel at the time that this second person had any intention of actually discussing anything, I deleted most of his comments.
In the past day, he has actually asked some questions and made some posts that were relevant, and so those will stay. As long as he is actually discussing and not disrupting, he is welcome.
It still leaves the question of two very different commenters with the same name — perhaps one of them will choose to make a slight alteration.

Earlier this year, I mentioned Jeff Trigg’s experience with jury duty, and how telling the truth (that he believed in the principle of jury nullification) caused him to be excused. (Parts 1, 2, and 3 )
Now Baylen Linnekin has gone through a similar experience in being called for jury duty for a drug case.
Read his story. What would you have done?

A nice little overview article at About by Andrew Somers is now online: How do we end the War on Drugs?. The recommendations:

1. End the black market by ending prohibition.
2. Regulate the manufacture, sale, and distribution of soft substances using the alcohol model.
3. Use taxation, and spread the revenues so generated to education and treatment efforts.
4. Provide addicts with clean supplies to demolish the black market, and greatly increase the availability of treatment options for them in a non-criminal setting.