Drug WarRant

Thanks to Cyndy in comments, comes this news:

The Ann Arbor City Attorney, Stephen Postema, has declared that the medical marijuana measure which passed with a 74% majority is “invalid”, according to the Ann Arbor News, and Police Chief Dan Oates has instructed his officers to continue enforcing state and federal marijuana laws in the same manner as in the past.

Regardless of any actual case law regarding such conflicts, it is unconscionable for a public servant to act in this way. Postema and Oates work for the city and should be trying to find a way to accommodate the local measure, rather than intentionally defying it.
Now if Ann Arbor had passed an ordinance that was more restrictive of individual rights than state and federal law (such as prohibiting certain kinds of political speech), then Postema and Oates would have no choice but to follow state and federal law.
But this is a case of how local prosecution chooses to enforce laws. The state appeals court ruling (regarding an Ypsilanti law in 1977) that Postema quoted merely said that “city officials weren’t prohibited from referring marijuana cases for prosecution under state law.” This doesn’t mean that they must.
When California first passed medical marijuana laws, there were a number of vigilantes like Postema and Oates who wanted to enforce their own personal view of law within a conflicting situation. The people got together and forced many of these out of office. Perhaps the same will be true in Ann Arbor.

At Salon:

Hamid Karzai pledged Thursday to use his five-year term as Afghanistan’s first elected president to crack down on warlords and the country’s booming drug economy.

Hey, Hamid. What other economy do you have? Maybe you should think about developing a legal economy before you destroy the other one?

Karzai has said smashing Afghanistan’s opium and heroin smugglers will be his top priority and the key to reining in warlords resisting the feeble authority of the central government.

The resources of the entire United States can’t stop the opium and heroin smugglers, and Karzai thinks he has a chance? And the only way he could control it is by taking it over.
Just to give some perspective, neighboring Tajikistan doesn’t produce any opium or heroin — it’s just a route for trafficking — yet the drug trade there is 10 times as big as the national budget.
I predict one of three outcomes in the next five years.

1. Karzai gives up on his promise.
2. Karzai doesn’t last in office 5 years.
3. Karzai ends up being the head drug trafficker.

Any bets?

Having parlayed his election loss to a dead man into a top federal job and a national attack on personal liberty, Attorney General Ashcroft is now tired and is likely to step down.