Drug WarRant

or: “Mommy, why is that man throwing rocks at the blind lady?”

There have been some recent veiled (and not-so-veiled) attacks on the judiciary by powerful elected officials.
While these have not specifically been about drug policy, there are potential long-term ramifications that require me to speak.
Generally, I find the political litmus tests over the selection of federal judges distasteful, regardless of the party, and often wish that the two sides could get together and really find some top notch judges without them having an agenda either way.
However, I must admit that I’d probably have my own litmus test of a sort: a commitment to judicial independence and protecting the separation of powers, plus protection of individual rights from government overreach. This is not a test you see applied often in confirmation hearings, but if you’re lucky, well-qualified judges will rule properly in these areas naturally (often despite the wishes of their sponsors).
Regardless of my distaste for the partisan bickering over judges, I accept it somehow as part of political reality (and hope that each side is prevented from getting all their wishes by the other side).
What really scares me recently is the threats by some to curb the power of the judiciary itself — an attempt to make it subserviant to the legislature.
Now the drug war is one of the prime arenas in which government steps all over the rights of individuals. There are plenty of decisions by judges that I’ve found horrible, yet I hold hope that the judiciary will, at times, step up and balance the power, recognizing our rights in the constitution. (I don’t know how Raich will turn out, for example, but I have hope.)
Without an independent judiciary that’s willing to step in when the legislative or executive branches overreach, there’s too much potential for corruption and abuse of power. For example, Ernest Istook had no qualms about drafting a blatantly unconstitutional provision requiring metro systems to deny advertising that called for a change in marijuana laws. Because of political realities (and the fact that it was tacked on to a larger appropriations bill), it was passed by Congress and signed by the President. Fortunately, the courts were there to stomp on it (and even the Justice Department was too embarrassed by it to appeal to the Supreme Court).
As it is, too much has happened to centralize power in the United States’ legislative and executive branches. In 1919, it was assumed that the federal government had no power to outlaw alcohol sales without a constitutional amendment. (At that time, the judiciary regularly placed the tenth amendment in the path of congressional regulation of “local” affairs, and direct regulation of medical practice was considered beyond congressional power under the commerce clause.) No such perceived limitation has arisen in later years when it comes to outlawing marijuana.
The government has actively tried to silence one of our legitimate forms of checks and balances — jury nullification, and prosecutors have been given way too much power, particularly in the area of sentencing. Government agencies have become adept at providing multiple layers of approval processes in their systems to delay and prevent judicial involvement (particularly in Controlled Substances Act issues).
We need to protect the notion of independent, counter-balancing branches of government. When it comes to the drug war, reformers must be able to attempt redress through all avenues (and we are).
Now we come to the troubling part. Take a look at some recent statements:
Representative Tom Delay:

Mrs. Schiavo’s death is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today.

And then more Tom DeLay:

“We have unaccountable, out of control judiciary. We are after them,” DeLay said.

“The Constitution gives us (Congress) the responsibility to create courts. If we can create them, we can uncreate them,” he said.

Uncreate them?
DeLay was the keynote speaker (cached page) at a recent conference that shouted:

THIS WILL BE AN ACTION-ORIENTED CONFERENCE SEEKING SOLUTIONS,
AS WELL AS THE BEGINNING OF A BROAD-BASED EFFORT TO
SAVE AMERICA FROM THE JUDGES

And, also from Texas, there’s Senator John Cornyn (more of the text available at the link):

And finally, I — I don’t know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that’s been on the news. And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in — engage in violence

I guess he thought if he expressed it as speculation, he could safely threaten judges with violence.
Some of these statements could be chalked up to misinterpretation or irresponsible emotionalism if they were spoken by an average person (or a blogger), but these are public statements by members of the United States Congress (and in Cornyn’s case, delivered on the Senate floor).
Then you have Senate bill S-520, sponsored by Senator Trent Lott and others, which is aimed at actually preventing the federal courts from being able to rule on certain types of issues, or using certain criteria in their decisions (note that the bill claims to promote federalism, but all it promotes is giving more power to the legislature).
Remember, these are not attempts to merely select judges of a particular type (although that’s part of it). This is an attack on the independence of the judiciary itself. Cornyn even said that the Supreme Court should merely be “an enforcer of political decisions made by elected representatives.”
It’s important to understand that, while most of those involved in this coup d’etat (and yes, to an extent, that’s what it is) are Republicans, they do not represent the large numbers of conservatives who believe in limited government, states’ rights, individual responsibility and morality (and a number of prominent writers on the right have started to express their dismay).
But they are also not fringe players. DeLay is the majority leader and has built an extraordinarily strong power base that will not brook dissent.
It’s going to take all of us on the right, left, middle, libertarian, etc. to keep these few from giving themselves more power at our expense. If they succeed, we will have less ability, as individuals, to correct governmental abuse — particularly in areas like the drug war.

“bullet” First of all, just a reminder that The Agitator is always a good read and should be on your regular list. Radley’s recent “There ought to be a law” series has been outstanding.
“bullet” Radley has a piece at Cato, Bush Should Feel Doctors’ Pain

Unfortunately, despite frequent robberies and burglaries of pharmacies, doctors’ offices, and warehouses where prescription medications are stored and sold, the DEA has focused a troubling amount of time and resources on the prescriptions issued by practicing physicians. It’s easy to see why. Doctors keep records. They pay taxes. They take notes. They’re an easier target than common drug dealers. Doctors also often aren’t aware of asset forfeiture laws. A physician’s considerable assets can be divided up among the various law enforcement agencies investigating him before he’s ever brought to trial.

Over the last several years, hundreds of physicians have been put on trial for charges ranging from health insurance fraud to drug distribution, even to manslaughter and murder for over-prescribing prescription narcotics. Many times, investigators seize a doctor’s house, office, and bank account, leaving him no resources with which to defend himself. A few doctors have been convicted. Many have been acquitted. Others were left with no choice but to settle.

This is a continuing travesty that deserves a lot of attention.
“bullet” Finally, Radley reports on yet another death of the fourth amendment. Remember the case where the Supreme Court ruled that a suspicionless search of your car was allowed on the word of a dog? Well, I mentioned at the time about the case of David Smith, whose conviction was based on a dog sniff outside his garage.

David Gregory Smith challenged his Texas conviction for drug possession based on evidence obtained after a police dog sniffed outside his garage and alerted authorities to possible drugs inside. After the dog’s alert, police obtained a search warrant and found methamphetamine in his bedroom, far from the garage.

On Friday, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
I’m surprised and pissed off, but not quite as pessimistic as Radley about the ramifications. While it does let the lower court ruling stand, as SCOTUS Blog reports, there actually are conflicting lower court cases, with the Nebraska Supreme Court ruling the other way in State v. Ortiz. So while the Supreme Court refused to hear the case now, they could hear a future case that involves this to resolve the differences.

This startling story:

Nine students were sent to a hospital after eating caffeine-laced mints taken to class by a 13-year-old boy. The boy was suspended from school for 10 days.

Yep. Dangerous stuff. Definitely deserving of a suspension. What were these drugs? Blast Mints.

According to the label, a single serving is six mints, which contains 15 milligrams of caffeine. That’s about half the amount of caffeine in a regular can of soda.

Good thing they don’t have any soda machines.

This came to me via the Eurodrug group, regarding a school bust in Norway:

Friday 50 police officers and some toll officers with dogs, sealed off
an entire High School / College, refusing free movement and scaring 1700
students in a surprise forced drug clamp down. The result was 2 grams of
hashish found at the school, 13 arrested people and a lot of (1689)
innocently scared students and quite a few angry people in the
aftermaths. The student bodies reported the event to the media. The
school was sealed off with fences with sharp points, the police went
systematically from class room to class room with dogs, picking out 11
“problem pupils” they had on a list and then afterwards lined the entire
1700 student body for drug dog sniffing, before allowing them to leave
the school grounds through the fenced gate. The public protests have
been many, and even some pro-prohibitionist are shocked.

The media tell a slightly different story, given that the police claim in their release that they seized “kilos” of drugs, but there’s no evidence given that it was even connected to the school bust.
The eurodrug poster went on to say:

Half a kilo marihuana was found by accident in a car
in the somewhere near by the school, containing half a kilo – owned by a
40 year old man with no connection to the school – later the police
raided his home adress and found one more kilo of marihuana – this the
police thus called the operation a success, emphasing that they had
found “nearly 2 kilos of hashish” in their press release. On the school
only 2 grams of hashish from an entire population of 1700 was found, one
in at the toilet and one gram on a person

Based on what I’ve seen so far about this incident, it looks like the police are trying to “improve” the story of their massively over-the-top approach.
This kind of attack on school kids is unacceptable anywhere.

(From CNN: Report: Colombia drug war failing.)

A new White House report showed that a massive aerial spraying offensive last year failed to dent the area of coca under cultivation in Colombia.

But President Alvaro Uribe vowed on Friday to press ahead with U.S.-financed fumigation of cocaine-producing crops.

The war on drugs in Colombia, the world’s main cocaine-producing country and a major supplier of heroin, has cost more than $3 billion in U.S. aid here since 2000. Critics of Washington’s effort say the report indicates the Colombia and U.S. governments are losing the war.

“The U.S. government’s own data provides stark evidence that the drug war is failing to achieve its most basic objectives,” said John Walsh, of the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank critical of U.S. drug policies in Colombia.

The report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said that despite a record-setting aerial eradication offensive, 281,694 acres of coca remained in Colombia at the end of 2004 — an increase from the 281,323 acres left over after spraying the year earlier.

Walsh also pointed out that prices of cocaine and heroin have been steadily dropping over the years on U.S. streets, indicating availability of the drugs has not diminished.

What do you do when what you’re doing doesn’t work? Why, keep on doing it, of course.

But President Alvaro Uribe vowed on Friday to press ahead with U.S.-financed fumigation of cocaine-producing crops.

And if you’re the Drug Czar’s office, you just make up stuff.

David Murray, a top official in the White House drug office, insisted there were positive signs…
The White House drug office said that while the area under coca cultivation remained “statistically unchanged” over the previous year, the fumigation diminished the potential production of cocaine…

“bullet” Jacob Sullum on the conviction of pain doctor William Hurwitz in Dose Response

Misconceptions about pain treatment could put a doctor in prison for life

“bullet” In a potentially related story, UNM Doctors Discover Way to Measure Pain.

Interesting, if true.

“bullet” The Bitter Pill at Wired.

Buprenorphine could end heroin addiction, curb disease, and cut crime. But bureaucrats, doctors, and much of the treatment industry are just saying no. A case study in why the best technology doesn’t always win.

“bullet” In The Mirror: Heroin for Health

A New Scientific Study Investigates the Potential Benefits of Giving Hard-Core Addicts Their Daily Doses

“bullet” Why Drug Task Forces Must Go 101 — Grits for Breakfast.
“bullet” Reefer Madness

What is it about medical marijuana that makes everyone act so funny?

A powerful expose on some local media malfeasance in the medical marijuana story.

“bullet” Flag Firefighters Contest City’s Drug-Testing Policy

Flagstaff firefighters absolutely refuse to submit to random drug and alcohol testing.æ It’s a violation, they say, of their constitutional rights.

Good for them! Now a judge will decide.

Amazing news, and about time! From the New York Tribune:

April 1, 2005. WASHINGTON DC: President Bush today announced the administration’s decision to change the classification of cannabis (marijuana) under Controlled Substances Act (CSA) scheduling. While there had been some speculation that a re-classification from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2 might be possible to allow controlled use of so-called “medicinal” marijuana, the President surprised experts by removing marijuana from the CSA entirely.

“The federal government has more important things to do than waste a lot of time and money on marijuana enforcement,” said the President. “There are terrorists out there who hate our freedoms, and our efforts should be focused on them.”

When asked if he really intended that marijuana should be declassified not only for medical purposes but for recreational purposes as well, President Bush replied. “Well, that’s up to the states, as it should be. I believe that each state can choose that decision as they so choose.”

Some critics charge that the decision is simply a matter of the President pandering to the traditional conservative base that supports states’ rights. Complaints that the Republican leadership had abandoned federalism had been threatening to cause a split within the party.

Legal scholars are scrambling to figure out how this decision may affect the upcoming Supreme Court ruling in Raich v. Ashcroft.

Hmmm, I think I’ll find out where the nearest National Park is.

While waiting for the Supreme Court decision in Raich, it’s still fun to do a little speculating. So I was interested to read Mike’s post at the Ashcroft v Raich category of the Crime and Federalism blog, discussing the government’s market argument.
While Mike disagrees with the reasoning of the market argument, he claims that it will prevail with the Justices (9-0 or 8-1). Here’s how he describes it:

1. Congress has chosen to enter the broader market of regulating controlled substances.æ Once of these controlled substances is marijuana.
2. Every time a person purchases medical marijuana, he does not turn to the illicit drug market.æ Because fewer people purchase drugs illegally, demand for illegal drugs decreases. This decreased demand causes the prices to go down.æ In a similar vein, Judge Posner observed: “[L]aw enforcement activity raises the cost and hence price of illegal drugs and as a result of the price increase reduces their consumption.”
3. Since the price of illegal marijuana has decreased, people who could not have afforded marijuana, can afford the reduced price.æ Thus, there are more drug users.
4. Congress has a legitimate interest in keeping drug prices high (as part of its scheme to keep drug usage low).
5. Therefore, Congress may regulate non-commercial marijuana use to keep prices high, and thus demand, low.

Strangely, this is a fair representation of the government’s market position, which I find completely absurd. Here, for example, is an exchange during the oral argument:

JUSTICE KENNEDY: If we rule for the Respondents
in this case, do you think the street price of marijuana
would go up or down in California?

MR. CLEMENT: I would be speculating, Justice
Kennedy, but I think the price would go down. And I think
that what — and that, in a sense, is consistent with the
government’s position, which is to say, when the
government thinks that something is dangerous, it tries to
prohibit it. Part of the effort of prohibiting it is
going to lead to a black market, where the prohibition
actually would force the price up. And there is a sense
in which this regulation, although not primarily designed
as a price regulation — the Controlled Substance Act, I
think, does have the effect of increasing the price for
marijuana in a way that stamps down demand and limits the
— and in a way that reduces demand. And I think that’s
all consistent with Congress’ judgement here.

Yep, very similar. The thing is, for Mike’s prediction to hold, it seems to me that the Justices would have to have very thick skins considering how ridiculous they’ll look.
Consider this. For the market argument above to hold true, you must accept the following:

1. The government’s strategy requires that medical marijuana patients purchase marijuana from criminals. If grandma in her wheelchair doesn’t go out to the corner and score some pot, then Congress’ legitimate interest will be undermined.
2. If the government’s strategy requires more people to use marijuana to keep the prices high (so they can reduce consumption), then any success would automatically be a failure. If they keep consumption high, thereby raising prices, then consumption will be reduced, but that will lower the price, which will increase consumption. Oh, No!

Surely, the Supreme Court Justices must have a little bit more sense of self-worth than to actually write an historic commerce clause ruling in support of such a ridiculous circular argument? I would hope so.
Now this doesn’t mean that the government can’t legitimately use the argument in other situations that price increase is a desired means toward reducing consumption. For example, they could argue that crop eradication increases prices, thereby reducing consumption. But they can’t legitimately argue that they need people to use illegal marijuana in order to keep prices up, to reduce consumption.
At least, not without educated people laughing in their faces.

One of yesterday’s entries on the drug czar’s blog:

The Red Lake Shooter and Drugs

Some disturbing content on the Red Lake shooter’s blog has come to light. Jeff Weise, the teenager who allegedly shot and killed 9 people at Red Lake High School, Minnesota wrote, “I’m nothin’ but your average Native American stoner. I’m mellow half the time, mostly natural, but mostly drug induced as well. I’m not a junkie, or an alcoholic, MJ is my gal’ of choice.”

Here’s the article referenced (annoying registration required).
John Walters, do you really want to go there? “Disturbing content…” Oh yeah, let us connect the dots and say that marijuana caused him to shoot up the school?
Of course, this was a long article and you found that little reference from one of his older writings buried in it. Let’s get a sampling of a few other things in that article.

He was taking large doses of the anti-depressant Prozac, which has been connected to violence in other youths, some said. He frequented a neo-Nazi Web site and admired Hitler. …

“My mom used to abuse me a lot when I was little,” he wrote on one page. “She would hit me with anything she could get her hands on, she used to drink excessively too. She would tell me I was a mistake, and she would say so many things that its hard to deal with them or think of them without crying.” …

On July 21, 1997, Weise’s 31-year-old father committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest; some members of the band have said he was involved in an armed standoff with police when he did it. …

On March 5, 1999, his mother was a passenger in a car driven by Elizabeth May Jourdain. They were in Shakopee and it was about noon when Jourdain ran a red light and slammed into a tractor-trailer making a left turn.

Jourdain was killed and Joanne Weise suffered a serious injury that left her brain-damaged. After recuperating from her injuries, she had to be placed in an assisted-living home where, Jeff would later write, she “had to re-learn how to tie her shoes.” …

“On anti-depressants. Seeing a therapist… That’s about it. I got a brand new pair of cuts on my wrists that are gonna turn into beautiful scars some day.” — An excerpt from Weise’s profile at yahoo.com

Oh sure. It was the marijuana.
Harry J. Anslinger, a liar and a racist who was one of the prime contributors to marijuana being illegal today, used to spread false stories about a young man who killed his entire family while on pot. Walters must just be trying to emulate his idol.

The Las Vegas Review Journal is justifiably suspicious about this atrocity:

Editorial: Metro cop planted drugs in suspect’s car
Sheriff says suspensions will suffice

While officers were in the process of arresting local resident Mark Lilly last July on suspicion of selling harmless legal substances and claiming they were narcotics, an official police spokesman now admits, canine officer David Newton placed real controlled drugs in Mr. Lilly’s vehicle. He has since contended he did so “as a training exercise” for his dog.

It seems pointless to ask whether contaminating active crime scenes is an accepted time, method, or location for a canine “training exercise.” A better question might be what Officer Newton was doing carrying narcotics to an active crime scene in the first place. Has he been charged with possession of those narcotics? Were they of a quantity that would get anyone else automatically charged with “possession with intent to sell”?

Police next expect us to believe officer Newton “forgot” he had placed the drugs in the car, whereupon officers Kevin Collmar and David Parker searched the car, found the planted drugs, and charged Mr. Lilly with possession of actual controlled drugs without proper licenses or prescriptions.

Read the whole article. It’s really bizarre. It’s also scary. And regardless of whether the officers were corrupt or somehow criminally stupid and negligent, suspension is insufficient.
There can be no tolerance when it comes to the issue of law enforcement officers planting drugs on people. We put our freedom in their hands.
Any one of us could find ourselves in prison for years based solely on a corrupt officer planting drugs. In particular when you have multiple officers testifying against you (as in this case) – what court will believe you’re innocent?
You have to make it clear. In this case, Sherriff Bill Young should be fired for not firing the officers, and then they should be fired. Period.