Drug WarRant

I reported a few days back on a fairly bizarre article from Virginia about (in part) the assistance that Andrea Barthwell and John Pastuovic have provided for promoting a school drug testing program in Williamsburg.
Several people contact the editor about the story, and he appears truly interested in learning more; he indicated that he intends to question Andrea and John about their connections to GW Pharmaceuticals; and he printed this outstanding letter by Charles M. Darlington.
Just goes to show that just a little bit of speaking up can go a long way. Very often, reporters simply do not know about the prohibitionists’ agendas, or about the other sides to an issue like drug testing. Not only did this letter get published, but it’s likely that the reporter will, from now on, ask more probing questions about drug testing in Williamsburg.
One great way to get involved is through MAPinc. – The Media Awareness Project (by DrugSense). This incredible site archives drug policy articles and letters to the editor from newspapers around the world. It is an indispensable research tool for me. I’m able to search for past articles when I do a story, find quotes by the Drug Czar, research reactions to an event and much more.
MAPinc also has great resources for letter-writing, including specific action alerts and tips on writing letters to the editor. They astutely note that getting a letter published is the equivalent of an expensive advertisement when it comes to column inch visibility in the paper. Letter writers through MAP have gotten letters published with a combined value of over $2 million each year. And the great thing? These are not astroturf (which I despise), but individually composed letters by real people, expressing their own views.
Not a writer? Then be a newshawk. Find articles about the Drug War and pass them on to the editors at MAPinc so they can be archived (and so I can find them there the next time I search). You’ll even have your name attached to the article as the newshawk for finding it. (If you don’t want the credit, you can always put in http://www.DrugWarRant.com as the newshawk and get me some free publicity.)
Don’t have time for any of those things? Then donate.

John Cole does a very nice riff on a throw-away post of mine. Be sure to catch the “punch line” at the end.

Egalia adds more information:

Nashville Police Bust 60-Year-Old Cancer Victim for 303 Pounds of Medical Marijuana

Also at Kos.
It looks like they’re doing some really creative weighing there (maybe they have the policeman holding the plants step on the scale…)

That’s right,

THE Quezon City Regional Trial Court [Thursday] sentenced to life imprisonment a painter for selling a 0.02 gram of shabu to a cop two years ago.

OK, I admit my first reaction was that it sounded excessive, but I had no clue what shabu was, and was thrown by the bizarre measure of .02 grams, so I needed to do a little research.
I quickly discarded the Japanese delicacy shabu-shabu — it seemed unlikely that even in the Philippines someone would get life for selling .02 grams of thinly sliced beef cooked in boiling water.
So I checked the Vaults of Erowid, where shabu shabu was listed as slang for meth. OK, that makes more sense. But life in prison? Just how much is .02 grams?
Well, .02 grams is 20 milligrams. Your basic ibuprofen tablet has 200 milligrams of active ingredient, so we’re not talking truckloads here. Again, Erowid comes in handy and tells me that 20 milligrams is one standard dose or maybe a couple of light doses of meth.
Life in prison.
Painter Salvador Sanchez, who lived in a squatter’s shanty (clearly not making huge profits from either his painting or drug dealing), claimed that he was framed by the cop.
Here was the judge’s official reason for dismissing the defense:

“The accused looks every inch a drug user and his bearing and demeanor in court — head bowed, eyes sad and dreamy and the like — do not convince,”

Ah, yes, “sad and dreamy and the like” — sounds more like the description of an artist than a tweaker.

Marty Lederman at SCOTUSblog continues to speculate about who is writing the Raich v. Ashcroft opinion (which, of course, might have some bearing on guessing the result).
His current view? Colonel Mustard wrote it using a Candlestick in the Library. Although it might have been Miss Scarlet…

Paquita writes to me:

Poor Colombia, I love that country.

The Indians are like a slice of cheese in a sandwich, the AUC on the Northen
slope and the FARC on the Southern one. No ceasefire at all, the
paramilitaries are invading more and more. A lot of killings. The indians are terribly afraid and there is a lot of displaced people.

When we bought La Luna, Mama Miguel, a shaman said:

“The birds, the animals, the nature must know that we are back, that we are going to build a Kankurua (Temple), a place to talk with them.
Then everything will be balanced…”

It was for five years…

Then the U.S. came.
Read Paquita’s Open Letter to the President of the United States George W. Bush at Guest DrugWarRants.

The editorial in the Argus:

Restricting sales of cold meds key to war on drugs

Wow. Good thing we finally figured that one out. Now we can win the war on drugs.
Second stupidest headline of the day?
The editorial in the Oakland Tribune:

Cold medication regulation key to war on drugs

A 60- year old man recovering from cancer who uses marijuana is busted for “a few baby-sized plants and a small amount of commercial weed.” Before the case is even heard, the Tennessee Tax man comes and charges him for non-payment of the marijuana tax, seizing all cash, cars, and putting a lien on the house.
Yep. This is America.
Hire a lawyer to fight it? With what?
This story is developing at the blog of a relative.
Say Uncle has been all over this so-called tax, which is really another way to pile on charges and seize assets (note that 75% of the “tax” goes to the law enforcement agency that made the bust).

This column in the Charlotte Observer by Bill Reeside, Jr. is just fun to read. It made me smile, which is important now and then.

Marijuana, tobacco, cocaine, beer, ecstasy, chocolate, Viagra, aspirin, codeine, French fries, Prozac. These are all things that people voluntarily put into their bodies to make themselves feel better. Some of these things can be bought at a convenience store. Some require a doctor’s prescription and a visit to a pharmacist. Some must be bought under cover of darkness, with cash only, and with no certainty of the purity of the product. Some can be procured by children, others after you reach age 18, still others not until 21 and a few only at the risk of government sanction. Why have we stitched together this crazy quilt of dealing with the products that comfort us?

Puts it nicely in perspective. He goes on to show how poorly this system works, and then makes some concrete suggestions, including:

Here’s what we can do on a local and state level:

Vote a resounding “No” on the bond issue that includes more money for jails. In 2004, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department made almost 3,000 arrests for drug offenses and issued more than 600 citations for drug paraphernalia. We don’t need to fill the jails with people harming only themselves.

Charlotte City Council can free the police from enforcing silly “don’t park on your own lawn” laws and “don’t make or possess a crack pipe” ordinances and have them focus on rape, murder and property crime. Don’t tell us we need more police officers while you are wasting the efforts of the current force.

This is the Australian woman who had marijuana found in her bag at customs in Indonesia (quite likely innocent, based on what I’ve read). TalkLeft has been all over this one, so go there for the full coverage. I’m sure Jeralyn’s pleased to know that bookings to Bali are already down 20%.