Drug WarRant

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No need to track down drug traffickers or deal with the hard work of ripping up plants in the fields of Afghanistan. Opium is so plentiful in that country, that the DEA could pick up 20,000 pounds of it in the offices of the provincial governor.
A bit embarrassing, don’t you think?
Still nobody willing to state the obvious — the drug war is a failure there (as well as here), and needs to be scrapped.

Kirk Tousaw has a good overview at Cannabis Culture on the future proceedings in the Marc Emery case.
Here’s the real interesting part: When it comes time for the Canadian courts to decide on the extradition:

One of the key sections is 44. That lists reasons why the Minister SHALL NOT order surrender:

44. (1) The Minister shall refuse to make a surrender order if the Minister is satisfied that

(a) the surrender would be unjust or oppressive having regard to all the relevant circumstances; or

(b) the request for extradition is made for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing the person by reason of their race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, language, colour, political opinion, sex, sexual orientation, age, mental or physical disability or status or that the person’s position may be prejudiced for any of those reasons.

Obviously we will be arguing that both subparagraphs apply. Marc is a victim of political persecution and the US system is the poster child for unjust and oppressive laws. Another reason the Minister may deny surrender is if it would shock the Canadian conscience.

There’s a long way to go on this case, and it’s going to cause some waves.

In the London Free Press: America Targets Emery

The arrest of Canadian pot activist Marc Emery is being used to advance the agenda of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, a London friend charges.

“Someone needed to made an example of (him) to further the agenda of the American drug enforcement agency,” said Teresa Tarasewicz, co-owner of the City Lights Book Shop.

OpEd by Connie Fogal, Leader, Canadian Action Party

The arrest of Marc Emery and two others on July 29, 2005 in Canada to serve the questionable USA War On Drugs is a wake up call for Canadians. Marc Emery is a serious activist promoting the legalization of Marijuana use in Canada. The significance for Canadians of his arrest is not about anyone’s personal attitude to the legalization of marijuana. The significance speaks to the core of being Canadian, being a sovereign nation, being able to make decisions we choose in our interest, in our own time, on our own terms.

From an article by Dana Gee in the Vancouver Province:

SANTA MONICA — Tommy Chong thinks the Drug Enforcement Agency’s plan to prosecute pot advocate Marc Emery should go up in smoke.

The former Vancouver resident and one-half of the stoner comedic partnership of Cheech and Chong was shocked when told of Emery’s trouble with the DEA.

“They’re going to extradite him down to the [U.S.] for something that’s not really a crime in Canada,” Chong said at a party here Friday night. “If Canada goes for that, they really suck.”

Last year, Chong ran afoul of the U.S. war against drugs when he was jailed for nine months after being found guilty on one count of conspiring to sell drug paraphernalia across a state line.

“Look what happened to me for a bong,” said Chong. “Imagine if I had a seed in it — I’d still be in jail.

“The DEA, their budget, it depends on pot busts. Pot busts are the simplest, because we are the most harmless.

“What they did to me and what they are doing to a lot of people is violating their civil rights. What they are really looking for is diversion — these guys are up to their eyeballs in wars and thievery, Haliburton and Enron.”

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“The drug czar has blood on his hands for blocking the humane and medical use of cannabis for sick, disabled and dying people,” Kubby said.

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red”
— Macbeth

[Update: Link fixed.]

Jacob Sullum properly points out the hysteria behind the latest unfounded crack baby: the meth baby. He quotes from an open letter from physicians and drug treatment specialists:

Despite the lack of a medical or scientific basis for the use of such terms as “ice” and “meth” babies, these pejorative and stigmatizing labels are increasingly being used in the popular media, in a wide variety of contexts across the country. Even when articles themselves acknowledge that the effects of prenatal exposure to methamphetamine are still unknown, headlines across the country are using alarmist and unjustified labels such as “meth babies.”…

Although research on the medical and developmental effects of prenatal methamphetamine exposure is still in its early stages, our experience with almost 20 years of research on the chemically related drug, cocaine, has not identified a recognizable condition, syndrome or disorder that should be termed “crack baby” nor found the degree of harm reported in the media and then used to justify numerous punitive legislative proposals.

The term “meth addicted baby” is no [more] defensible. Addiction is a technical term that refers to compulsive behavior that continues in spite of adverse consequences. By definition, babies cannot be “addicted” to methamphetamines or anything else.

I’m out of town and missed the news until today, but as the many contributors who wrote me said… this needs to be posted:
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EMERY EMPIRE RAIDED AT REQUEST OF UNITED STATES
Cannabis activist and two others arrested
By Jennifer Garner

Canadian police acting under orders from US officials raided the headquarters of the British Columbia Marijuana Party (BCMP) in Vancouver today (Friday, July 22).

The search warrants were authorized at the highest levels of the provincial government in concert with a cross-border US-Canada law enforcement pact authorized by the a US-authored Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters treaty (MLAT) between the US and Canada.

The US has issued extradition orders for Marc Emery, who was arrested while traveling in Halifax to a hemp festival, as well as two others who work with Emery on television productions and other endeavours.

American officials accuse Emery of “a conspiracy to produce marijuana and distribute marijuana seeds, and money laundering.”

The DEA and other agencies are claiming that by selling seeds to pot-growing Americans, Emery is engaged in a criminal enterprise with the growers.

“Their activities resulted in the growing of tens of thousands of marijuana plants in America,” claims US federal attorney Jeff Sullivan. “[Emery] was involved, allegedly, in an illegal distribution of marijuana in [the United States.] He is a drug dealer.”

Vancouver police armed with a search warrant raided the legendary store in the heart of Vancouver’s “Vansterdam” district.

Chris Bennett, manager of Pot-TV who was onsite when the BCMP center was raided today, said he is particularly angry that Canadian police were acting as enforcers of American drug laws.

‹They’re taking him down to face charges in the United States of America, where sentences are much harsher that one would face in Canada,” said Bennett.

More at:

• Cannabis Culture Forums
• Last One Speaks – start at the top and keep reading.

Thanks to Tim and others.

This is nothing new — something I’ve railed about for some time as it relates to drug task forces here in the states, but this article from Canada just kind of drove me a little nuts.

It was a drug raid that came close to going tragically wrong.

As armed narcotics officers got set to barge through the door of a suspect’s home in Spryfield, other officers peering through a window were horrified to see a man inside levelling a rifle at the door. […]

“We go through a door and sometimes those inside are wired or stoned.” […]

“Almost inevitably, when we go through a door, we know there is going to be weapons of some sort inside,” Staff Sgt. McTiernan said. […]

“A lot of these guys are not always sure who is coming through the door.

“If they know it’s the police, it’s not normally an issue because they know we are not there to harm them.”

But it can be a different story “if they think it’s someone else coming in to rip them off.” […]

“A lot of times when we go through doors, we don’t always know what is in there and we find loaded firearms,” he said […]

“They know their door could come down and they could be arrested at any time. […]

Isn’t anyone going to ask: “Why the hell are you going through the door?”

Make sure you read Radley Balko’s latest at Fox: Justice Often Served by Jury Nullification

The doctrine of jury nullification (search) rests on two truths about the American criminal justice system: (1) Jurors can never be punished for the verdict they return, and (2) Defendants cannot be retried once a jury has found them not guilty, regardless of the jury’s reasoning. So the juries in both the Rosenthal and Paey cases could have returned a “not guilty” verdict, even though Paey and Rosenthal were undoubtedly guilty of the charges against them.

This may sound radical, perhaps even subversive, but jury nullification serves as an important safeguard against unjust laws, as well as against the unfair application of well-intended laws. It’s also steeped in American and British legal tradition.

As the legislature continues to act in ways that are far outside the wishes of those they represent (particularly in terms of the drug war), and the courts seem willing to defer to the legislature, and the executive is eager to go after doctors, sick people and pot smokers, then it may fall upon the individual to correct the government perpetrated injustices, by refusing to convict based on bad law.

Via NORML’s ezine comes this ruling: (I’m quoting extensively, because it’s pretty important)

Traverse City, MI: The presence of cannabis’ primary metabolite, THC-COOH, is insufficient evidence of impairment to warrant a conviction under the state’s “zero tolerance” per se drugged driving law, according to a recent ruling by the Michigan Court of Appeals. The decision upholds a trial court ruling that found the “prosecution must prove that the presence of a controlled substance in a defendant’s body is proximate cause of an accident resulting in death or serious injury” in order for the defendant to be guilty of violating the state’s two-year-old drugged driving statute.

Michigan is one of ten states that have enacted so-called “zero tolerance” drugged driving laws. Under Michigan’s law, it is a criminal offense for an individual to operate a motor vehicle with any detectable level of a Schedule I substance present in his or her bodily fluids. (In six states – Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, and Utah – individuals may be criminally prosecuted if they operate a vehicle with any level of a Schedule I drug or drug metabolite in their system. Three additional states – Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Virginia – have enacted per se drugged driving standards, prohibiting individuals from operating a motor vehicle if they have levels of Schedule I drugs present in their body above a specific threshold.)

In the case before the court, the defendant tested positive for the presence of the THC metabolite THC-COOH (a non-psychoactive compound produced during the body’s biological process of converting THC into a water soluble form), but maintained that she was unimpaired at the time of her accident. The prosecution argued that it was not required under Michigan’s “zero tolerance” drugged driving law to establish that the defendant’s impairment caused the accident, only that she had an illegal substance present in her body. The appellate court upheld the trail court’s ruling, affirming that marijuana’s metabolite is neither psychoactive nor classified as an illegal substance, and that the prosecution had failed to prove a causal relationship between the presence of a controlled substance in the defendant’s body and the accident.

Michigan’s Supreme Court had previously held that the legislature did not “intend to impose strict liability on an individual” involved in a driving-related accident, the appellate court determined. Rather, the legislature’s intent is to criminally punish only individuals whose impaired driving causes another person’s injury.

“The defendant’s purposeful operation of [a] vehicle while under the influence must have been a substantial cause of the victim’s death,” the court of appeals determined. It further found that the “legislature did not intend to include [the cannabis metabolite] as a Schedule I controlled substance because it has no pharmacological effect on the human body … and its levels in the blood correlates poorly, if at all, to an individual’s level of THC-related impairment.”

As a result, the appellate court ruled, “Imposing a penalty on a driver when the … accident would have occurred regardless of that intoxication would … fail to serve the purpose of the statute.”

An excellent ruling. These zero tolerance laws are ridiculous, becuase they proclaim to be about safety, yet the levels being tested have absolutely nothing to do with impairment.
It would be the equivalent of saying that if anyone had ever seen you take a drink in the past, then you’re now guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol.
Let’s hope that this kind of sanity continues in other court cases. Legislatures and law enforcement must be held to a standard of actually proving impairment (or a reasonable expectation of actual impairment) if they’re going to enact/enforce substance-related driving laws.

Great article in the Rolling Stone by Robert Dreyfuss

America’s long-running war on drugs has, literally, gone to pot.

More than two decades after it was launched in response to the spread of crack cocaine — and in the midst of a brand-new wave of methamphetamine use sweeping the country — the government crackdown has shifted from hard drugs to marijuana. Pot now accounts for nearly half of drug arrests nationwide — up from barely a quarter of all busts a decade ago. Spurred by a Supreme Court decision in June affirming the right of federal agents to crack down on medical marijuana, the Drug Enforcement Administration has launched a series of high-profile raids against pot clinics in California, and police in New York, Memphis and Philadelphia have been waging major offensives against pot smokers that are racking up thousands of arrests.

By almost any measure, however, the war has been as monumental a failure as the invasion of Iraq.

Harsh. Nice. (Although I’d say that the drug war is worse failure.)

“For Walters, it’s all marijuana, all the time,” says Graham Boyd, director of the Drug Law Reform Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. “He is reinforcing the atmosphere that marijuana is the drug we should care about, and that the government will do everything it can, including locking everyone up, if that’s what it comes to.”

Good one, Graham. And true.
The whole article is worth a read.