Drug WarRant

Medical Marijuana is back in the Legislature in Illinois. HB 407 has been introduced in the House of Representatives, sponsored by Representative Larry McKeon.

Creates the Medical Cannabis Act. Provides that a person who has been diagnosed by a physician as having a debilitating medical condition and the person’s primary caregiver may be issued a registry identification card by the Department of Human Services that permits the person or the person’s primary caregiver to legally possess no more than 12 cannabis plants and two and one-half ounces of usable cannabis. Provides that a person who possesses a registry identification card is not subject to arrest, prosecution, or penalty in any manner, or denial of any right or privilege, including civil penalty or disciplinary action by a professional licensing board, for the medical use of cannabis; provided that the qualifying patient or primary caregiver possesses an amount of cannabis that does not exceed 12 cannabis plants and two and one-half ounces of usable cannabis. Amends the Cannabis Control Act to make conforming changes consistent with the Medical Cannabis Act. Effective immediately.

Illinois Drug Education and Legislative [IDEAL] Reform is working on the push to get Illinois as the next state with legal medical marijuana.
Both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times have, in the past, run editorials supporting medical marijuana and reprimanding the federal government for trying to interfere.
The Tribune even noted that:

A 1998 poll by the Center for Governmental Studies at Northern Illinois University found 67 percent of Illinois residents believe “doctors should be allowed to prescribe small amounts of marijuana for patients.”

I’ll be following this closely.
“bullet” Now, the story shifts direction slightly.
Remember Andrea Barthwell? Former Deputy Drug Czar. She was, according to her accounts, a recovering alcohol and drug addict, who became a treatment specialist and went on to the Drug Czar’s office where she focused on using tax dollars to lobby against medical marijuana in particular. Then she left the ONDCP to take a stab at becoming the Republican candidate for Senate. The Illinois Republican party decided to go with Maryland’s Alan Keyes, instead.
So what’s she up to now?
It turns out, she has created an organization that involves having her travel around the State of Illinois lecturing about the evils of marijuana!
Check it out at: Illinois Marijuana Lectures. The web site was just created a week ago, in time for a tour of lectures tied to the new medical marijuana bill.
I missed her lectures in Peoria, Bloomington, and Decatur, but there’s more to come. Her next set of lectures:

February 8, 2005
9:30 – 12:30 Marijuana Lecture (Alton)
St. Clare’s Hospital, Professional Office Building, Auditorium B. 915 E. 5th St.

February 8, 2005
3:00 – 5:30 Marijuana Lecture (Belleville)
Chestnut Health Systems, 12 N. 64th Street

February 9, 2005
10:00 – 12:30 Marijuana Lecture (Mt. Vernon)
Rolland Lewis Building, Veteran‰s Park

Each of these will involve a lecture, followed by a “strategic planning session.”
If anyone is able to attend one or more of these to pass out some fact sheets with the real truth about medical marijuana, let me know. If you want to see what’s included in the lectures, you can view the powerpoint presentation in various formats here.
It’s very clinically detailed and Andrea is very smooth and professional. Her lies aren’t nearly as blatant as the drug czars.’ She adapts to criticism from drug reformers and addresses those points — always with a little mis-direction. She’s a formidable foe, which makes her even more dangerous. She says what people want to hear, and surrounds it in scientific sounding descriptions. But basically it’s the same lies dressed in a pretty gown:

1. Marijuana is more dangerous because it’s more potent
2. Medical Marijuana is nothing more than a “Trojan horse designed to lead to the legalization of a dangerous drug.”
3. Marijuana is somehow filling treatment centers with marijuana addicts, more than any other drug, including alcohol, and despite all scientific evidence, it’s because they’re addicted, not because they were forced to attend treatment.
4. Smoked marijuana can’t be medicine, and we should reject it and trust to the government’s drug approval systems (the same one that’s been blocking marijuana research, while fast-tracking Vioxx).

More lectures are promised, including the Chicago suburbs.
One thing that is clear. This is specifically a matter of lobbying, despite any claims that they are merely informing people about dangers of marijuana. The brochure for Illinois Marijuana Lectures includes as part of the agenda:

The Illinois situation
The Illinois strategic plan.
The Illinois Legislative threat assessment.
How you can make a difference.

Where’s the funding coming from?
This part requires lots more questioning. It’s particularly interesting on the heels of all the illegal government covert propaganda that’s surfaced.
So let’s look at the sponsors. There are two (in addition to Andrea). Educating Voices is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that cannot, by law, lobby. It’s headed up by Judy Kreamer from Naperville.
The other sponsor is very interesting: Great Lakes Addition Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) Network. This organization, housed in the Jane Addams College of University of Illinois at Chicago, is funded by taxpayer dollars through SAMHSA. Why are they funding a series of lectures designed to derail medical marijuana legislation? Is there a connection to Andrea’s old job with the ONDCP (which has authority over SAMHSA)?
Andrea’s son David (a recent Yale graduate working in Arlington, VA) has designed the Illinois Marijuana Lectures website. Interestingly, it appears that he is also working on in Intranet site for… Great Lakes ATTC. Wonder how he got that gig?
While the information is incomplete, I think further investigation is in order as to who is funding this anti-medical marijuana effort by the former deputy drug czar.
Update: Good news. The medical marijuana bill was referred to Human Services Committee today.

I was working on a post about a billboard that was put up in my town, but then it came down after a very short time. Could it be that others here found it as offensive as I did?
This billboard is for Task Force 6, a multi-jurisdictional drug enforcement unit. Now regular readers of the Rant will know that I am not a big fan of drug task forces of any kind, but unlike many others I’ve reported on, Task Force 6 in Illinois had not had any public scandals or anything to even really alert me to its existence… until this billboard.

Let’s zoom in on the part on the right:

What genius came up with this marketing strategy? Try to analyze this in terms of the audiences they may be trying to target.
Target audience A: Gangs and other criminal organizations that sell illegal drugs.
Now I haven’t belonged to a gang, but I’ve seen some, as I’m sure you have. Picture yourself in their group, making tons of money off of black market drugs. You see this billboard. Do you say

1. “Whoa, that’s scary. We better stop selling drugs and get jobs at McDonald’s,” or
2. “We’d better get some bigger guns.”

Somehow I’m not seeing an increase in fast food applications, which means we may need to watch out for heavier duty cross-fire.
Target Audience B: The community, to feel good about being kept safe.
I’m sorry, but as a community member, the idea of armed soldiers with army gear conducting military operations in the middle of the night in my neighborhood does not make me sleep better.
Finally, the thing that concerns me most about this billboard is that Task Force 6 thinks it’s appropriate to do this. This means that they have already built up that mindset that they are conducting a war on enemy soil. This kind of attitude leads to such concepts as “acceptable civilian casualties” and the use of any kind of violent tactic to achieve the mission.
It is undoubtedly men like these who Cheryl Noel saw entering her bedroom before she died.

[Sadly, another one to add to my Drug War Victims page]
Cheryl Noel, 44, was shot to death by police in her upstairs bedroom last Friday. Details of the raid are just now fully surfacing, and there are still more questions than answers. (And I would really like to hear from anyone who knows more about this.)
Police raided a home in the Baltimore area and arrested Charles Noel, 51, Matthew Noel, 19, and Sarah Betz, 19. In the process of the raid, two officers opened the door to Cheryl’s bedroom and were allegedly met by Cheryl pointing a gun at them. One of the officers fired three times, killing Cheryl.

There is much speculation within the Gray Manor community about whether Noel intended to shoot the officer or was afraid of a burglary. Vinson said the officers conducting the search announced themselves well in advance.

“Flash-bangs were set off before the raid,” Vinson said, referring to small explosive devices used by police to distract intended targets of a raid and to protect officers. “And the officers yelled ‘Police, police, police’ throughout the course of the raid as is procedure.”

Of course, the raid was pre-dawn (before 5 am). So you’re sound asleep, and suddenly awakened by explosions, crashing sounds, feet tramping upstairs, and a lot of people yelling. How clear is your mind going to be? Can you distinguish that they’re identifying themselves as police officers? When the door to your bedroom opens and there’s two men dressed in black wearing ski masks pointing guns at you? Imagine yourself in that scenario. How would you react? What if you had a gun by your bed?
So why would they raid the house in this way? This appears to be a middle-aged mother and father with their son and his girlfriend living together — not some major gang. Cheryl’s co-worker at the wastewater treatment plant said she led a bible study group during lunch, and everybody around thought she was a great neighbor.
What then would be the reason to storm the house in the early morning? To prevent flushing. The standard reason for this kind of drug raid — they’re afraid someone’s going to destroy the evidence. That’s why they use this extremely dangerous assault technique.
And you know what that means…

To the drug warrior, evidence has a higher value than people’s lives.

And it doesn’t even seem to matter whether it’s significant evidence. In this case, Charles was charged with two counts of possession of black powder, and all three were charged with single counts of possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. And all three were released on their own recognizance. I don’t know how much marijuana or black powder was involved, but it was apparently not even enough to keep them in jail.
And for that evidence, Cheryl was killed.

To the drug warrior, evidence has a higher value than people’s lives.

Kaptinemo always has good comments, and got me going with this one

Pete, there’s another dimension to your comment, one that I am sure you’ve thought about from time to time: why has the veracity of the prohib’s blather never, ever been challenged in court? I am not talking about the recent Raich/Monson issues; those are largely a matter of federalism. I am talking about legally challenging the very basis for cannabis prohibition: the information the prohibs state over and over are ‘facts’. I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that if the matter were dragged into a court room, and the prohibs forced to go over every single utterance they have ever made, and were challenged to provide the proofs supporting their beliefs, they too would be ‘laughed out of court’.

You’re right. I’ve thought about it a lot.