Drug WarRant

In today’s get underground reporter Jake McGee asked Ralph Nader:

Do you think John Walters [ONDCP “Drug Czar”] is insane?

Now personally, I think the answer is “No. Walters knows what he’s doing.”
However, I think the question is particularly good in that it’s polite. It’s a nice thing to do — asking if insanity might be an explanation for his actions — rather than immediately jumping to the only other possibility: that he’s a corrupt liar and a destructive force in American life who is only interested in furthering a special interest polital agenda, even at the expense of the lives of some of the most vulnerable in our society.
Yes, it’s a polite question.

That’s the title of an article by C. Spencer Beggs at Fox News today. It’s a very strong statement about how the government has stifled medical marijuana research, and points out some strong conflict of interest at NIDA.
Despite a couple of major gaffes by the author (calls marijuana the “most abused recreational drug” and doesn’t question the phony stats of the “rising trend in the number of people seeking treatment for marijuana addiction”), the parts of the article that deal with the interference with marijuana research are quite good.
Check it out.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article — Protecting an Independent Judiciary — where I talked about my concerns regarding the attacks by DeLay, Cornyn et al on the Judiciary, and as part of that, I mentioned by opposition to Senate Bill 520 – The Constitution Restoration Act.
That prompted a letter from reader mushroom blue. With his permission, I’m sharing his letter and giving my response.

hi. I’m a long-time reader of the site, finally felt compelled to write
you, though.

I don’t see why you have a problem with the Constitution Restoration Act
of 2005, and moreso, why you’re using this act as some sort of example
of the bad things congress is doing. if anything, someone who is an
anti-federalist (which is what those that promote federalism are called.
seriously.) would be nothing but happy for what the bill provides.

Of course, we know this, but it’s fun to see it in a newspaper now and then.
From the Bellingham Herald (Washington): Another view: Legalized pot would save money, by Dick Startz.

Washington state would save about $105 million a year if we legalized marijuana. …

The $105 million figure comes from a study by Boston University economist Jeff Miron. Miron put together two numbers: the savings to government from not locking people up for marijuana-related offenses, and the increased revenue from taxes we could collect if marijuana were treated just like coffee or chocolate. …

An extra $100-plus million would be nice for the state budget. But an even better economic argument for legalizing marijuana is that it would move the legal line, so that relatively safe drugs like caffeine, alcohol and marijuana are all on one side of the law and the truly dangerous drugs, such as crack and meth, are on the other.

Here’s an odd one (from the Idaho Statesman):

It began Aug. 7, 1997, when Hernandez was returning to his job at a potato shed in Aberdeen from Wyoming, where he’d dropped his kids with their mom. During a traffic stop in Soda Springs, a policeman saw Zig-Zag cigarette papers on the car’s visor. Hernandez says he admitted to having a small amount of pot. With the help of a drug dog, police also found a syringe, which tested positive for cocaine.

Hernandez insisted the coke wasn’t his, but signed a plea deal. Hernandez, his lawyer, the prosecutor and 6th District Judge Don Harding agreed he would serve at least one year in prison, but no more than two years.

The critical error occurred after sentencing on June 23, 1998. Because of a mixup with case numbers, Harding also sentenced Hernandez to up to seven years, a term intended for another offender…

To their credit, a Department of Corrections officer finally caught the mistake and they are releasing Hernandez after he served an extra four years.
He’ll finally get to meet his five-year-old son Andreas for the first time.

Via Cannabis News:

Colorado — University of Colorado students this week approved a measure that asks officials to ease up on marijuana penalties.

The referendum, put forth by the Boulder-based group Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, asks that university officials make sanctions for marijuana use no more severe than they are for comparable alcohol violations.

The students have put their finger on an essential question that has been unanswered by prohibitionists — “Why are penalties for marijuana harsher than those for alcohol, when alcohol is the more dangerous substance?”
School officials say they won’t be bound by the outcome. That’s going to cause a conflict.

Libby at Last One Speaks scooped me big time with the rumor that Andrea Barthwell has been hired by G.W. Pharmaceuticals to lobby for approval of its cannabis-plant extracts in the U.S.
No problem for Andrea’s new-found flexible viewpoints.
Libby’s got the right idea when she says:

I have a feeling the prohibitionists are brewing this new strategy of keeping the plant illegal by vilifying the innocuous buzz so they can control the market with derivatives and chemical synthetics. They’ve known for decades the plant is safe but they couldn’t figure out how to keep people from obtaining the drug on their own by growing it. This lets them work both sides of the fence.

That’s certainly been the plan for the pharmaceutical companies — keep medical marijuana illegal while they patent every possible derivitive.

Lots has been happening in Texas, all covered extremely well by Scott at Grits for Breakfast, including some remarkable efforts towards restructuring low-level marijuana penalties, an attempt to ban so-called “consent searches”, going after rogue task forces and lots more.
Could this be a sign that a historical independent streak in Texans is re-surfacing? It is a conflicted state – conservative, but with libertarian underpinning – home of both Tom Delay and Ron Paul. It’ll be interesting to watch. And Grits is the place to watch it.

Absolutely horrible legislation is going through Congress. Please take a moment to email your Representative and Senators. (Via TalkLeft)

Congressman James Sensenbrenner has launched his next assault on freedom. The full House Judiciary Committee is set to vote as early as next week on H.R. 1528, which creates a new group of mandatory miniumum penalties for non-violent drug offenses, including a five year penalty for passing a joint to someone who’s been in drug treatment.

That’s right: Passing a joint to someone who used to be in drug treatment will land you in federal prison for a minimum of five years.

The “Defending America’s Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005” (H.R. 1528) was introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) on April 6, and it has already passed out of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

Senselessbrenner has been after this for a while (I mentioned an earlier version of this bill last year).
The list of atrocities in this bill are unbelievable. Here are a couple of examples:

• 10-year sentence for a second offense of distributing marijuana to a person under 21. (this would include one 20-year-old college student giving a joint to another 20-year old college student)
• Three-year mandatory minimum for parents who witness or learn about drug trafficking activities, targeting or even near their children, if they do not report it to law enforcement authorities within 24 hours and do not provide full assistance investigating, apprehending, and prosecuting the offender.
• Increase to five years the federal mandatory minimum sentence for the sale of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, college, public library, drug treatment facility (or any place where drug treatment, including classes, are held), or private or public daycare facilities – in short, almost anywhere in cities across the U.S.
• Punishes defendants for the “relevant conduct” of co-conspirators that occurred BEFORE the defendant joined the conspiracy.

There’s much more. Read TalkLeft’s full post.
Please act now.

A Palm Bay, Florida man was at work when a tornado came and ripped off the roof of his home. That’s pretty bad luck. Unfortunately, the lack of roof exposed the 54 marijuana plants in his bedroom, which were noticed by the emergency crews looking for injured victims. Police arrested him at work.
Now he’s got no marijuana plants, no roof (and probably no job).
The unlucky man’s name? Geoffrey Crook (I think it’s time to change it.)
Link.