Drug WarRant

Jacob Sullum has a nice recap of the Illinois v. Caballes Supreme Court ruling.
It’s been heartening to see the amount of negative reaction to the ruling around the web. At the same time, it was depressing to hear two local police chiefs on the radio gleefully talk about how this frees them up to really start using the drug dogs.
After reading the decision again, I am even more convinced that this is going to end up haunting Justice Stevens. It’s poorly written, and it’s bad law.
Oh, and just a note for those who favor drug-sniffing dogs because they see a dual purpose of watching out for terrorists smuggling in explosives, it doesn’t work that way. As Jackl reminded me:

One thing about dawgs ya’ll ought to know: a scent dog is either a drug dog or a bomb-sniffing dog, but not both: See, K9 Units in Public Transportation: A Guide for Decision Makers (pdf, p. 52) (National Research Council).

Specialty K9s are never trained in both explosives and narcotics detection. K9 trainers
refer to this combination as dangerous training, meaning that it dulls the capabilities of
the K9 to perform effectively at either specialty.

So every dog that is trained as a drug sniffing dog is one that is not trained to detect explosives.

From an audit of the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office (Louisiana):

The Sheriff’s Office’s DARE Scholarship fund had $8,978 in “inappropriate expenditures” including $181 in liquor expense at a $595 dinner party for 25 people, according to the audit.

“bullet” King County Bar Association (Seattle) Calls for Legal, Regulated Drug Markets

In a resolution adopted Wednesday, the King County Bar Association (Seattle) has declared war on prohibition. The KCBA called for “a new framework of state-level regulatory control over psychoactive substances, intended to render the illegal markets for such substances unprofitable, to restrict access to psychoactive substances by young persons and to provide prompt health care and essential services to persons suffering from chemical dependency and addiction, will better serve the objectives of reducing crime, improving public order, enhancing public health, protecting children and wisely using scarce public resources, than current drug policies.”

“bullet” Radley Balko: Drug War Shrinking Bill of Rights. Great piece by Radley as always (and one of my huge pet topics), but Alaskablawg has an interesting point. Personally, I think they’re both right. There is a two-tiered system, and the drug war has been eroding rights across the board. (For example, I loved how Ashcroft, et al, said he needed tools to fight terrorism that were already available to fight the drug war — then when he got them, they got used to increase the ammo in the drug war.)
“bullet” Also at Fox News, Marijuana Lobby Grows in Sophistication. It’s an interesting piece from the standpoint of talking about some of the reform efforts, but it’s badly flawed. The article treats marijuana reform as almost entirely a “marijuana rights” movement, without considering the anti-prohibition, anti-drug war aspects.
“bullet” Some others have already discussed this lame-brained scheme to drug test all elected officials in the state of New Mexico. While it’s fun to think of it in terms of putting the shoe on the other foot, drug testing is still a bad idea. This bill is unlikely to go anywhere, because forcing elected officials to pass a drug test has been declared unconstitutional, and I doubt that their “out” of allowing an official to refuse with a published letter will save it. I’m hoping the day will come when we can drive most of the drug testing companies out of business. I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to stick to my resolve of never agreeing to drug testing for work. I don’t know if I could keep up my principles if I needed to work at Wal-Mart to eat, but I like to believe that I would.
Update: Ben reminds me in comments that the case declaring drug testing unconstitutional was for “candidates” for office, not elected officials.

The News-Hearld, which purports to be “serving Northeast Ohio” has this drivel to offer:

Mention the word “war” and you can easily start one of your own. Nationally, the topic is as controversial and as volatile as any in our vocabularies.

But there is one war that is neither controversial nor likely to start an argument. It is one that every one of us should be waging constantly, without ever letting up, because it is too important to the future of our country and to the good health of our citizens for us ever to relent.

That is the war on drugs, particularly as it applies to teenagers. [emphasis added]

Um… Excuse me… Earth to editorial staff…

Every aspect, every battle in the war on drugs is important. Every step and every involvement to keep kids from experimenting is critical.
The war on drugs, especially as it applies to teenagers, is one we cannot afford to lose.
Pursuit of the war must be relentless. Any parent who is not doing his or her part to keep kids drug free contributes to the problem.

Winning the war must be one of our No. 1 national priorities.

Sorry to inform you, but not only is the war on drugs not uncontroversial, but it’s already been lost. It’s because people like you waged the issue as a relentless war that teens are in danger – from violence, ignorance, loss of rights, uncontrolled drugs, and criminal elements.
If you support prohibition, you are part of the drug problem.

Link:

In response to continued revelations of government-funded “journalism” — ranging from the purported video news releases put out by the drug czar’s office and the Department of Health and Human Services to the recently uncovered payments to columnists Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher,who flacked administration programs — Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) will introduce a bill, The Stop Government Propaganda Act, in the Senate next week.
…

The Stop Government Propaganda Act states, “Funds appropriated to an Executive branch agency may not be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States unless authorized by law.” …

According to a release, publicity or propaganda is defined in the bill as: news releases or publications that do not clearly identify the government agency responsible for the content; audio/visual or Internet presentations that do not identify the responsible government agency; any attempt to manipulate journalists or news organizations; messages created to aid a political party or candidate; messages with a “self-aggrandizing” purpose or “puffery of the Administration, agency, executive branch programs or policies or pending legislation”; and, finally, messages that are “so misleading or inaccurate that they constitute propaganda.” [emphasis added]

Durbin and Corzine have also signed on, and they’re looking for some Republican co-sponsors.
There have been provisions in the past that supposedly prevented much of this, but it has had very little in the way of teeth. This bill would actually provide some liability for agency heads that authorized propaganda.
The interesting thing is with the ONDCP. By my view, the entire agency is in violation of the Stop Government Propaganda Act merely by showing up at work. Their perspective, however, is that they are “authorized by law” to be distributors of propaganda — that it’s an essential part of their charge. (for more on their back and forth in this area with the GAO, see the GAO report that found their covert VNRs illegal – pdf).

If you don’t remember Representative Istook’s provision that would prevent marijuana law reform ads from being placed on public transportation, check out my earlier posts here.
Back in June, a US District Judge rightly ruled against the law, calling it “an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’ broad spending power.” At that time, Istook vowed to take it further (using our money, of course).
Now, however, according to this release:

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Justice has notified Congress that it will not defend a law prohibiting the display of marijuana policy reform ads in public transit systems. The controversial statute was recently ruled unconstitutional by a federal district court. The Solicitor General Paul Clement stated in a letter to Congress that, “the government does not have a viable argument to advance in the statute’s defense and will not appeal the district court’s decision.” Today is Congress’ last day to respond to the federal appeals court in the D.C. Circuit.

“The Justice Department finally met a law so unconstitutional that it could not find any way to defend it,” said Graham Boyd, Director of the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project. “Congress should stop trying to silence public discussion of the cruel and expensive failures of current marijuana laws.”

As the Wall Street Journal reported today, “Mr. Clement’s opinion also could serve as a warning to Congress that it can’t assume the Justice Department will support the controversial riders that lawmakers have been adding to funding bills if those riders are challenged in court.”

Now I’m not sure I’m ready to give a lot of credit to the Justice Department on this one. I don’t think this was a case of them taking the proper approach for the good of the country. I think they just were afraid of the humiliation of getting laughed out of the court.

As I noted here and here, President Bush had indicated that he wanted to halve the budget deficit this year and was willing to zero out some programs that don’t work. Naturally, I gave him some excellent suggestions that involved cutting the ONDCP, DEA, etc.
However,

The White House announced on Tuesday that the federal budget deficit was expected to rise this year to $427 billion

Oops.

At his going away party,

Karen Tandy, who leads the Drug Enforcement Administration, said that “when history looks back at the victory we inevitably will achieve against the dark forces of terrorism and drug trafficking,” it will view Mr. Ashcroft as one of the heroes.

Good editorial in yesterday’s Columbia Spectator (Columbia University, New York). The conclusion:

Marijuana isn’t that dangerous or addictive, and enforcement falls disproportionately upon the poor.

It’s time to legalize it.

Yep.

Steve at Decrimwatch notes that good old Andrea Barthwell is in Peoria today. Oh well, I missed her talk at White Oaks Center today, where she apparently planned to include her usual warning of the dangerously potent pot that’s been destroying the country and supposedly has already wiped out Canada. Steve does a great job of fisking some of her comments.
However, there’s one point that puzzles me about this article. Who is paying Andrea Barthwell to travel to Peoria, Illinois and spread disinformation? After all, she is formerly with the Drug Czar’s office but no longer working for the government as far as I know. Is the ONDCP illegally paying her? Or is she getting paid by White Oaks, which depends on much of its income from the criminal justice referrals of marijuana “addicts.” Or does she just like doing it? Inquiring minds want to know.
I’ve asked the Peoria Journal Star if they’d clarify. We’ll see.