Drug WarRant

For some fun weekend reading, check out these delightful articles — all in Colorado
“bullet” Putting The Kind In Kindbud in the Boulder Weekly. A fascinating story of the the Colorado Compassion Club and Thomas and Larissa Lawrence, including how they got busted by the feds, some of their techniques for growing medical marijuana, and how Thomas became the first person ever to receive drugs from the Denver police.
“bullet” Green Butter by Wayne Laugesen (also in the Boulder Weekly) is, to begin with, Wayne’s story of accidentally using the “green” butter (laced with pot) on his sweet corn at a neighbor’s dinner party. While the author doesn’t like pot (he’d prefer to stick with beer), he speaks up on behalf of the CU students who hold a 420 pot party each year (cops are threatening to come down hard on it this year), with an interesting view…

Get it, drunkards? If we don’t speak out for the potheads right now, in their time of great need, there will be nobody left to speak for us when they come for our drink.

“bullet” Students Call on CU to Ease Up on Pot in the Daily Camera — students are taking a slightly different approach in favor of marijuana:

Student leaders approved a referendum this week calling for CU to acknowledge the drug as a relatively safe alternative to alcohol.æ Sponsors of the proposal said they want the university to make that distinction in the way it punishes students. …

Campaign adviser Mason Tvert said violent crimes, such as sexual assault, that sometimes result from alcohol abuse are not found with marijuana use, which makes it a safer choice.

“We do not advocate the use of marijuana, but we are advocating for a better public policy that does not indirectly push kids toward drinking,” said Tvert, the director of SAFER, a Boulder-based nonprofit that aims to increase public awareness on the differences between the two substances.

“bullet” The Colorado Daily covers that story as well in It’s Green Prozac:

“There has never been a case of fatal marijuana overdose in history,” said Cisneros.æ “How many more students need to drink themselves to death before our colleges turn to safer, more sensible alcohol and marijuana policies?”

Via TalkLeft, the word is that the Supreme Court will release their decision on Raich v. Ashcroft either Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. [Note: this is not an absolute deadline, but is based on several media alerts.]
Potentially huge.

• Ruling for the government: The end of the commerce clause as a limitation on government (Congress will be able to define whatever it is they want to regulate at the state level), the death knell of federalism, probably an indication that Oregon’s assisted suicide law will be shot down next.
• Ruling for Raich: A morale boost for medical marijuana, states will be able to craft medical marijuana regimes that meet federal rules, some other states will rather quickly join the medical marijuana movement. The interesting issue here will be how the Supremes define Raich’s allowable activity:
  • Will it be specifically tied to the very narrow situation that Raich represented? or
  • Will they craft a new line that separates allowable state activity based on a state sub-class or an economic enterprise or something else entirely? or
  • Will they bring federalism back and actually overturn some previous case law?
• Technical Weasel-out Ruling This is where the Justices punt and claim that Raich should get relief through the FDA or some such nonsense. (Essentially the same as a ruling for the government).

Regardless of the ruling, medical marijuana will continue to be an issue and will continue to need our support and efforts.
Plans are already underway by some groups for demonstrations tied to the Raich ruling, in case the ruling is for the government:

“If the Supreme Court rules against medical marijuana patients, we’ll
need you to immediately swing into action to lobby Congress to end the
federal government’s attacks on medical marijuana patients and
caregivers.

To be specific, we need you to organize or attend a protest outside of
your U.S. representative’s local district office precisely two days
after the decision is announced — to urge your U.S. representative to
vote for the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment to the Justice
Department’s spending bill, in order to prevent the DEA from spending
any money to arrest medical marijuana patients or providers who are
acting legally under state law.

Please visit http://www.RaichAction.org , where you can:

• find out where your U.S. representative’s local district offices are
  located;
• print flyers to hand out at the demonstration; and
• print talking points about the medical marijuana amendment.

Please email if you want to organize or attend
a demonstration in your area. (Please be sure to tell us the exact
location where you will hold your demonstration, including city and
state.) We will send an alert the day of the decision notifying you
that it’s time to act, with the demonstration taking place two days
later.”

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It’s not just a war on drugs — it’s a war on people and on culture.
It happened again on Saturday, this time in Flint, Michigan. From the Drug Policy Alliance:

On Saturday the local police raided a popular nightclub, Club What’s Next, and ticketed hundreds of music fans who were attending a dance night known as “Getting Lucky” (the DJs included Halluci-Nate, Sparkimus Prime, White Rabbit, Captain Cheddar and California’s Dj Primo.) While some people were arrested for possessing or selling illegal drugs, most people were ticketed for “frequenting a drug establishment,” a misdemeanor offense.

That’s right. In Flint, Michigan (and many other cities) if you go out dancing on a Saturday night and the police happen to arrest other people at the club for drugs, you could be charged with a drug crime even though you had nothing to do with drugs. These innocent party-goers now face up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine. They also face a criminal record with all the legal and social barriers that brings. Several people that were at the club that night told us club-goers were also subjected to strip searches, including full cavity searches – even though they had nothing to do with drugs. Imagine the police walking into your favorite bar or nightclub and making you submit to a strip search for no reason! Imagine spending 90 days in jail or paying a $500 fine for dancing!

The raid on Club What’s Next was conducted by Flint’s Special Operations and Crime Area Target Team units, along with the Flint Area Narcotics Group and the Genesee County Sheriff’s Posse. We’re looking into whether or not federal Byrne grant money helped finance the raids. (On a side note, any law enforcement agency that has the word “posse” in it should be suspect).

This is sick. It’s un-American. It’s an outrageous abuse of power. And it’s an attack on young people and music.
Speak out against this abuse of power by taking action here.
You can make a difference. The last time a charge like this was invoked was in Racine, Wisconsin last year, and the outcry caused them to dismiss the charges.
Send the letter at the action alert above and tell your friends as well.

As you may know, Alaska governor Frank Murkowski has been pissed off at the Alaska Supreme Court and his own state’s constitution, because it gives its citizens the right of privacy. See, the Alaska Supreme Court has ruled that the government can’t go after adults who possess up to 4 ounces of pot in their own homes, because it’s not dangerous enough to justify taking away rights.
Well, what’s the fun of being governor if you can’t send storm troopers into homes to bust adults who are peacefully smoking a joint?
So now he’s trying to get the legislature to declare marijuana to be very dangerous to attempt again to outlaw private possession.
Where to turn? Well if you want someone to lie about marijuana, the first place to go is the federal government — specifically, the ONDCP. Check out this outrageous phoned in testimony:

Researcher David Murray of the White House’s Office on National Drug Control Policy told a Senate committee that marijuana users develop serious cases of psychosis and other problems from inhaling doses of carcinogenic chemicals.

“This is a dirty, dirty drug,” Murray said. He testified via phone at the request of Assistant Attorney General Dean Guaneli, who is spearheading the governor’s bill.

Dirty?
Then they got the Health and Social Services Committee Chairman to explain how marijuana use causes violence. Check this out:

Fielder said smoking marijuana leads to violent behavior down the road. “If I smoke marijuana, I may not be led to rob a store. But I can lose my job and then be motivated to steal,” he said.

Oh my God! Oversleeping then must also lead to violent behavior!
Fortunately, not everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid. There are quite a number of legislators who are not convinced, and callers (as well as some other testifiers) have not been following the Governor’s crusade, which is upsetting the bill’s proponents.
According to the Anchorage Daily News (which has an onerous registration page with bad html coding), after hearing all sorts of public officials speak (lie) in favor of a bill that would take away the rights of citizens (and was proposed by a public official),

Fairbanks Sen. Gary Wilken sharply criticized the head of the state public defenders agency for testifying against the bill in her official position.

“I’m really disappointed in your testimony today. … I’m shocked,” the Fairbanks Republican told Barbara Brink, director of the agency.

Shocked, I tell you!
And,

[Committee Chair Senator Fred] Dyson charged at the hearing that some of the bill’s opponents went too far in calls to his legislative office.

“They’ve been plugging up our phone lines,” Dyson said.

How dare they call their Senator, who has important things to do with his phone lines — like find new ways to violate the rights of Alaskan citizens?

I’d like to give a big promotion to a new Drug War blogging community — Nephalim’s Drug War Revealed.
It’s just getting started, but it’s already got quite a bit of great material. Nephalim is one of the few Daily Kos members who has been regularly writing about the drug war, and he’s designed this site to have some of the same structure as Kos.
Visitors can register and create their own diaries, which can get promoted to the front page, etc., and Nephalim will have guests writing on the front page as well.
It’s a wonderful opportunity for those who would like to write about the drug war on occassion, without maintaining their own site or blog.
I will be doing some writing for Nephalim.org when I have time. In the meantime, check it out, and give Nephalim some encouragement — a comment at least.

Libby at Last One Speaks reminds me about Flex Your Rights and their excellent video: “Busted: The Citizen’s Guide to Surviving Police Encounters.” I thought I was pretty well informed, but I learned a few things from the DVD (only $25 at their site). It’s an excellent, perhaps essential, part of the education of citizens in a world where the vast majority of people are not even aware of their rights — and routinely give them away to ever expanding enforcement techniques.
Flex Your Rights is now offering the video for only $5 as a BitTorrent computer download. A great deal if you’re set up for that type of download.

I neglected to mention that the Becker-Posner Blog has addressed the drug war, first by Economist Gary Becker and then a response by Judge Richard Posner
These are a couple of highly respected scholars, and so it’s nice to see them talk about the failure of the drug war, and to see them apply the tools of their trade to the problem. (I’ve always felt that economists should be stepping up more to explain to our politicians that drug demand is inelastic — and what inelastic demand means.)
Becker has the better argument in his call for legalization. Posner is uncomfortable with it (although he agrees that the cost of the drug war has not been worth it, despite what he believes is a “partial victory” in the war), so he tries to talk economics, in which he comes off completely incompetent (he should leave that to Becker, and stick to the legal stuff). Also, as Tbag notes on his blog Posner has some bizarre notions of legal substitutes for illegal drugs (cigarettes for pot? liquor for heroin?). I know what he’s trying to say, but it doesn’t work very well.
Tbag also has an interesting comment regarding his own views on the drug war…

Without sending my libertarian allies on this issue running for the woods, I’d like to propose government control over distribution.

I wouldn’t worry about it, Tbag. I think this is one issue where libertarians would prefer government control over the current system… at least for now.

In the Sun-Times today, the article Blagojevich focuses ire on drug-based game has some oddities:

Gov. Blagojevich is using the roll-out of “Narc,” a new video game set in the drug underworld, to promote legislation that would ban the sale of violent and sexually explicit games to minors.

“These kinds of games teach kids to do the very things that in real life, we put people in jail for,” …

The game, to be released today, has automatic weapons, gore and the fictitious officer Jack Forzenski, who spits out lines such as “You have the right to shut the hell up.”

Players can become “narcotics officers” who arrest dealers and use confiscated dope to change the look and speed of “Narc” to score more points.

Hmmm… instead of teaching kids to do the very things we put people in jail for, it seems to be teaching them to do the very things that we pay big taxpayer dollars for.

The Charlottesville Daily Progress has an interesting article by Liesel Nowak: Tough on crime means losing drug war, critics say

Critics have said that the traditionally harsh penalties in federal court have led to jury nullification, in which jurors rule with their conscience instead of the law, and that the tough-on-crime spirit of the federal system is losing the war on drugs.

Take the recent case of a Charlottesville man. Jurors in a 2004 federal trial acquitted city resident Todd Jones, charged in a violent drug conspiracy, though they convicted two others in the same case. At least one juror believed Jones was guilty.

The article goes on to examine the failure of the drug war.

Since the inception of mandatory guidelines in 1987, drugs have continued to move through society even as an increasing number of men and women are locked up.

“If you want to use the war on drugs analogy, then let’s use it. We’re losing,” lawyer J. Lloyd Snook III said. “If the definition of insanity is doing something over and over and hoping for a different result, then this is insane.”

According to the National Office of Drug Control Policy, in 2003 the federal government spent $19 billion on the war on drugs – a rate of about $600 per second. And the Bureau of Prisons reports that 89 percent of federal prisoners were convicted of drug crimes.

Not a bad article.

Available here:
rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/wj032105_walters.rm
If the link doesn’t work for you, just type ‘Walters’ in the video search on the homepage. (Thanks to Tom Angell of SSDP, who also asked a very good question.)