Drug WarRant

TalkLeft posted about the case currently in a District Court in Utah (and Orin Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy discusses it some more).
Basically it involves cases where the police swipe your front door knob and test it for microscopic traces of drug residue that might have come from your hand. If it comes up positive, the police use that as probable cause to search your house. The question is whether the the swipe of the doorknob requires a warrant.
The legal question is quite interesting, academically. I lean to the notion that either the doorknob is private, in which case a warrant is needed to test it, or it’s public, in which case there’s no way to know who touched it and a positive test is not justification to search the house.
And I envision a scenario of someone putting some cocaine on their hand and going around grabbing doorknobs of enemies.
When it comes down to it, though, it’s just plain ridiculous that these procedures are even being considered. In my mind, it’s just one more in a long list of indignities (and intrusions on our freedoms) that the American people have been subjected to in the name of this failed war on drugs.
Update: More excellent commentary on this at Farkleberries.

For those of you in Central Illinois, I’m going to be one of the featured speakers at a free festival tomorrow on the Illinois State University quad. The event is called “Who’s Left” and it’s a day-long progressive activism festival, with speakers, bands and information. The event goes from noon until 10 pm, and I’m scheduled to speak at 12:30 pm.
I’ll be talking about the drug war, naturally.

From Students for a Sensible Drug Policy (with assistance from NORML and DRCNet):

Since its inception, our organization has campaigned against a 1998
amendment to the Higher Education Act that denies federal financial aid to
anyone convicted of a drug-related offense, no matter how minor. The
provision is counter-productive and causes enormous harm, particularly to
middle- and low-income students who cannot afford the high costs of
college. Department of Education data indicates that more than 150,000
students have been adversely affected by the provision.

Today, repeal is within our reach. As part of the reauthorization of the
Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Senate will reconsider the ban
on federal financial aid for drug offenders. We just learned that the
vote on ONDCP reauthorization is tomorrow. To make a difference, you must
phone today!

If your Senator is on the Senate Judiciary Committee (below), take one or
two minutes to demand that he or she repeal the ban on federal financial
aid for drug offenders.

• Alabama: Jeff Sessions (R-AL), (202) 224-4124, (202) 224-3149
• Arizona: Jon Kyl (R), (202) 224-4521, fax (202) 224-2207
• California: Dianne Feinstein (D), (202) 224-3841, fax: (202) 228-3954
• Delaware: Joseph Biden (D), (202) 224-5042, fax: (202) 224-0139
• Georgia: Saxby Chambliss (R), (202) 224-3521, fax: (202) 224-0103
• Idaho: Larry Craig (R), (202) 224-2752, fax: (202) 228-1067
• Illinois: Richard Durbin (D), (202) 224-2152, fax: (202) 228-0400
• Iowa: Charles Grassley (R), (202) 224-3744; fax: (202) 224-6020
• Massachusetts: Edward Kennedy (D), (202) 224-4543, fax: (202) 224-2417
• New York: Charles Schumer (D-NY), (202) 224-6542, fax: (202) 228-3027
• North Carolina: John Edwards (D), (202) 224-3154, fax: (202) 228-1374
• Ohio: Mike DeWine (R), (202) 224-2315, fax: (202) 224-6519
• Pennsylvania: Arlen Specter (R), (202) 224-4254; fax: (202) 228-1229
• South Carolina: Lindsey Graham (R) (202) 224-5972, fax: (202) 224-1189
• Texas: John Cornyn (R), (202) 224-2934, fax: (202) 228-2856
• Utah: Orrin Hatch (R), (202) 224-5251, fax: (202) 224-5251
• Vermont: Patrick Leahy (D), (202) 224-4242
• Wisconsin: Herbert Kohl (D), (202) 224-5653, fax: (202) 224-9787
• Wisconsin: Russell Feingold (D), (202) 224-5323, fax: (202) 224-2725

What to say:

Hello, my name is __________ and I’m from __________. I’m calling to ask
Senator __________ to take action tomorrow during the reauthorization of
the Office of National Drug Control Policy and support repeal of the ban
on federal financial aid for drug offenders.

This provision is poorly-designed and causes enormous harm.

(PICK ONE TALKING POINT):

– The ban only affects students from low- and middle-income families who
depend on aid to afford college. Students from wealthier backgrounds who
can afford to pay the full cost of college tuition are unaffected by the
drug provision.

– The ban has a discriminatory impact on minorities. For example,
African-Americans, who comprise 13% of the population and 13% of all drug
users, account for more than half of those convicted of drug possession
charges.

– The ban punishes students twice for the same crime. Students have
already paid whatever price the criminal justice system demands of them.
The provision represents an additional punishment that limits a student’s
ability to get an education.

– The ban will not solve our nation’s drug problem. To limit the number
of deserving students eligible for federal financial aid is
counter-productive. Access to a college education is the surest route to
the mainstream economy and a crime-free life.

I hope that Senator ________ will work to repeal this damaging,
discriminatory ban. Thank you.

More info here. You need to act right away, because this is happening NOW. If you can call, do so first thing in the morning on Thursday if possible. If you have fax capability, do so as soon as you read this. If neither is possible, use this page to send a note (it’s hard to say if emails will get to the Senators in time).
We’ve got to get rid of this horrible provision.
Of course, what I prefer to do is call my senator and tell him not to re-authorize the ONDCP at all, but that won’t happen.

Rich Rawlings with the Illinois Marijuana Party tells us that Illinois H.B. 4868 — a bill creating The Medical Cannabis Act will be discussed in subcommittee on October 4.
If you live in Illinois and one of the following Subcommittee members is your Illinois House Representative:
Mary E. Flowers, Frank Aguilar, Patricia Bailey, Maria Antonia Berrios, Linda Chapa LaVia, Elizabeth Coulson, John A. Fritchey, Deborah L. Graham, Brent Hassert, Constance A. Howard, Carolyn H. Krause, Rosemary Kurtz, Karen May, David E. Miller, Rosemary Mulligan, Ruth Munson, Kathleen A. Ryg, Ricca Slone, Keith P. Sommer, or Ron Stephens, please contact them and ask them to support H.B. 4868.
More information at IDEAL Reform.

From the Columbia Journalism Review, a piece by Mariah Blake: The Damage Done.

It started in fourth grade when his teacher asked him to read aloud. Antwaun stammered, then went silent. “He can’t read because he’s a crack baby,” jeered a classmate. In the cafeteria that day no one would sit near him. The kids pointed and chanted, “crack baby, crack baby.” Antwaun sat sipping his milk and staring down at his tray. After that, the taunting never stopped. Unable to take it, Antwaun quit school and started hanging out at a local drug dealer’s apartment, where at age nine he learned to cut cocaine and scoop it into little glass vials. “Crack baby,” he says. “Those two words almost cost me my education.”

Antwaun finally returned to school and began learning to read a year later, after he was plucked from his parents’ home and placed in foster care. Now twenty, he’s studying journalism at LaGuardia Community College in New York City and writing for Represent, a magazine for and by foster children. In a recent special issue he and other young writers, many of them born to crack addicts, took aim at a media myth built on wobbly, outdated science: crack babies. Their words are helping expose the myth and the damage it has done.

It’s a good piece.
For more on the myth of crack babies, see my earlier piece on the subject. From the comments on that piece, it’s clear that it’s hard for many to accept that the former hype about crack babies was overblown. It’s likely that behavioral issues (that were probably more related to their environment than their exposure to crack) cemented the myth in many peoples’ minds.

Here are a number of things I’ve gotten from the drug policy reform community that I hadn’t gotten around to yet, and probably deserved posts of their own. Check them out.
“bullet” Run Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain by Fred Gardner

“Williams, who suffers from social-anxiety disorder and was a spokesperson for the anti-depressant Paxil, said marijuana helped him once he had to stop using Paxil because it didn’t agree with his diet.

“‘Marijuana is 10 times better for me than Paxil,’ he said.

Interesting. Can’t be well received by Paxil’s company GlaxoSmithKline (huge campaign contributors). Doesn’t Ricky know that it’s un-American to replace expensive, synthetic, patented chemical drugs from Pharmaceutical companies with natural plants?

“bullet” Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor of The Progress Report writes about the difficulties of supporting either major party given the way they are acting today and notes:

The President claims to be a compassionate conservative, but where is the compassion in denying suffering cancer victims medical marijuana? The Republican opposition to legalizing medical marijuana constitutes a denial of individual freedom and intrudes into criminal law that is Constitutionally reserved for the states. It shows cruelty rather than compassion.

I am continually amazed at the ease with which so many Republicans seem to have willingly given up the notion of states’ rights and individual freedom and responsibility. I’m very curious to understand why that has happened.

“bullet” Weather report: getting chilly in the Netherworld. Last week, something very rare happened:

DENVER — Dana May, a chronically-ill medical marijuana patient, and his lawyer Robert J. Corry, Jr., will pick up May’s marijuana growing equipment seized by the DEA earlier this year. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) earlier said this is the first time in history that the federal government has returned marijuana growing equipment it previously seized.

Boy, I would have liked to watch that.

“bullet” Alaskan marijuana rights. This new development has been widely reported, but I hadn’t gotten around to commenting on it. You may want to first read my post when the courts in Alaska legalized the private in-home posession of 4 ounces or less of marijuana.

“With regard to possession of marijuana by adults in their home for personal use, (the law) must be interpreted to prohibit only the possession of 4 ounces or more of marijuana,” wrote Court of Appeals Judge David Stewart in the conclusion of the unanimous decision.

That decision was based primarily on the Alaskan state constitution clause which states: “The right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed…”
Now, the courts have clarified that there must be reason to believe that the amount of marijuana in a home is over 4 ounces before issuing a search warrant. Well, that just makes sense. Except to prosecutors:

State prosecutors argued that the earlier decisions did not legalize marijuana possession in the home. Rather, the decisions created a defense that people can use when they are charged with possession.

How stupid is that? OK, so there’s a law that is based on the rights of the individual to privacy in their own home and possessing marijuana for their own use. Yet, somehow prosecutors don’t see a problem with going into your home after any amount of marijuana and have you, what, reclaim your privacy by showing in court that it was only an ounce? Fortunately, the court struck down that nonsensical notion. Are the prosecutors that dumb? Or that corrupt?
“bullet” Libby at Last One Speaks has the story that we’ve lost medical marijuana patient and activist Biz Ivol. She’ll be missed.
Also, Another DEA raid, Eddy Lepp (Medical Marijuana Producer) facing two life sentences, and more ridiculous eradication stories.
“bullet” Baylen at D’Alliance has a lot of good stuff as usual, including a picture of the Change the Climate ads as they made it into the Metro stations! Also, a chilling and strange story of Canadian customs activities, plus info on the decision by Drug Policy Alliance to reject Ford Foundation funding because of potential speech restrictions.
Baylen also points us to an outstanding editorial in the Denver Post: It’s time to rethink and reform drug laws

Thoughtful conservatives such as William F. Buckley are joining the call for sweeping reforms, including legalization, taxation and regulated sale of marijuana.

America’s war on drugs is now in its 90th year. Federal law first restricted access to cocaine, heroin and related drugs in 1914. Marijuana was outlawed in 1937. Now, after nine decades of largely futile and often counterproductive efforts at drug prohibition, the time has come to reevaluate and reform America’s drug laws. …

Even the last-gasp argument of prohibitionists against legalizing marijuana — the claim that today’s varieties are more potent than the pot so many baby boomers puffed in the ’60s and ’70s — is actually an argument for the legalization and regulation of the product. Tell major companies such as R.J. Reynolds that they can make billions of dollars growing and selling marijuana legally if they keep it within specified ranges of potency and you can be assured that their legal products will fall within the specified standards. As long as marijuana remains outlawed, there is no possibility of setting such standards.

Because of the federal government’s pre-emptive authority, Colorado cannot take the final step of legalizing and regulating marijuana on its own. It is time for Congress and the president to call a cease-fire in what has become not a war on drugs but a war on people who use drugs. Buckley and the wide-ranging authors of “The New Prohibition” have performed a signal service by highlighting the current drug war as a microcosm of the inevitable failures of a federal nanny-state mentality.

Read the whole thing.

From the Mirror, the latest on President Bush and his drug use.

GEORGE W Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David, a new book claims.

His wife Laura also allegedly tried cannabis in her youth.

Author Kitty Kelley says in her biography The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, that the US President first used coke at university in the mid-1960s.

She quotes his former sister-in-law Sharon Bush who claims: “Bush did coke at Camp David when his father was President, and not just once either.”

Other acquaintances allege that as a 26-year-old National Guard, Bush “liked to sneak out back for a joint or into the bathroom for a line of cocaine”.

Bush has admitted being an alcoholic but, asked during the 1999 election if he did drugs, he said: “I’ve told the American people that years ago I made some mistakes.

“I’ve learned from my mistakes and should I be fortunate enough to become president I will bring dignity and honour to the office.”

Later an aide clarified his remarks saying Bush hadn’t taken illegal drugs in the past 25 years.

It’s not like this news is particularly surprising. The President experimented with drugs in his youth, just like a huge portion of the American population. And as long as his drug use didn’t interfere with his ability to do his job (an important question, but perhaps more important in relation to alcohol), then I have no problem with whether he did coke at Camp David 14 years ago, or in the Lincoln Bedroom yesterday.
What I do have a problem with is that he (like so many politicians) think that youthful experimentation is just fine for them, but merits prison for the rest of America. That attitude is simply corrupt.
And no, I refuse the arguments put forward by some that it’s not hypocrisy if you discover the flaw in your own character, correct it, and then enforce it for others. Sorry, but it’s still hypocrisy. You give yourself a free ride for your past (perhaps with some kind of meaningless mea culpa), but require that others do more — they must appear in court, serve time, etc., — and that they may not have the same opportunity to survive that youthful experimentation as you.
If a political leader had murdered someone in their youth, it would be expected for them to turn themselves in for criminal charges — not just say that this was a youthful mistake, they’re sorry, they’ve changed, and let’s crack down on murderers today.
Politicians must NOT be let off the hook for their youthful drug use while writing, passing, and enforcing tough drug laws for others. And this goes for Clinton, Obama, Bush, and a host of others on both sides of the aisle. No, I’m not advocating jailing Bush. But neither is it acceptable to gloss over this issue without a real discussion of drug policy.

Two more voting guides are now available with endorsements (although a few races are still pending).

• Florida — parts of the state are a bit depressing, particularly in the 7th, where drug war idiot and stooge Mica is running unopposed. There are also a couple of races where the candidates seem to need a little help learning about Colombia. No endorsement for Senate yet.
• Idaho — only a couple of races in Idaho, yet it’s interesting that not a single candidate supports medical marijuana. What’s up with that? I expected a little more of a states’ rights viewpoint there.

I’ve got a volunteer working on Washington state for me, and I’m going to continue cranking these out when I can. Let me know if you want to help or if you’ve got a state you’d like me to tackle next.
Full voting guide is here.
Endorsement strategy for President will be coming shortly.
Update: New Drug WarRant reader Eric asked for an Oregon voting guide, so here it is.
Further Update: Washington state info is up, including all candidates in the primaries (September 14) and their positions. Final endorsements will be added after the primary election. Big thanks to THEHIM for the research work!

It’s almost that bad:
Couple sues drug task force for arresting them over catnip

WATERVILLE, Wash. – A Loomis couple is suing the Okanogan County drug task force over their arrest for mailing a package of catnip.

Inspectors thought the catnip was marijuana after a drug dog ripped it open.

In the suit filed last month in Okanogan County Superior Court, Oral and Pamela Criswell say agents unlawfully searched their home, causing more than $20,000 damage.

They also say they were pushed to the ground and abused.

I’ll say it again. Drug Task Forces should be abolished. They are dangerous and an embarrassment.
[Next up: Tommy Chong arrested for his new business — making those little cat toy balls with the bells and a hidden compartment. Federal agents claim that the balls are primarily used by felines getting high on catnip.]

On “Fox News Sunday” last night [in my dreams]:

Chris Wallace: “Tonight on Fox News Sunday we welcome a special guest – Drug WarRant author Pete Guither, who is here to discuss the charges leveled by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert against George Soros on the Sunday edition of Fox News Sunday.”
Wallace: “Welcome to the show, Pete. It’s great to have you here, as usual.”
Pete Guither: “Great to be here, Chris. As you know, I hardly ever watch your network, but I always enjoy appearing on it.”
Wallace: “So let’s get right to it. What did you think of Dennis Hastert’s remarks on Sunday?”
Guither: “Well, Chris, it was pretty outrageous. No matter how the Speaker tries to spin it after the fact, he was clearly making it up out of thin air. It made no sense. Drug cartels wouldn’t give money to Soros — he’s trying to put them out of business by supporting legalization efforts. And the legalization groups get funds from Soros. They don’t give him funding.”
Wallace: “Why do you think he said it then? Was it just a political attack?”
Guither: “Certainly that was part of it. But there are some who say that Hastert is really trying to deflect attention from his own shadowy connections to drug groups.”
Wallace: “Excuse me?”
Guither: “Yes, this is actually very well established and documented. Speaker Dennis Hastert receives larges amounts of funding from drug groups, who expect him to use his power as speaker on their behalf to continue the excesses of the drug war, and increase their profits.”
Wallace: “You think he may have been getting money from the drug cartel?”
Guither: “That’s just one of the drug groups. We know Hastert received $114,500 in campaign contributions last year from the Pharmaceuticals and Health Products Industry. That explains his adamant refusal to accept medical marijuana and the lies that he promotes on his web site. Now the drug cartels want to have Hastert’s influence as well, but you don’t just go and list “drug cartel” on the contribution form — you use an intermediary. And sure enough, Hastert received $153,800 in campaign contributions from “Lawyers and Law Firms” — so it’s no surprise that he’s been pushing for continuation of Plan Colombia, which keeps the drug cartel wealthy.”
Wallace: “Those are pretty startling facts about the Speaker of the House.”
Guither: “Yes, and unfortunately not much will be done about it. If you consider that he’s got “powerful” friends and is so close in line for the Presidency if “something” should happen, it’s no wonder that the administration would avoid investigating him.”
Wallace: “Well thanks again for joining us, Pete. I hope you’ll consider returning soon and explaining the comments of the drug czar next time.”
Guither: “I’d be glad to, Chris. And thanks for having me on to clear things up.”

[By the way, check out Jack Shafer’s latest: “Dennis Hastert: Liar or Fool: the speaker’s unseemly habit of slandering George Soros”]