Drug WarRant

Again, via TalkLeft (as always on top of everything and incredibly prolific), the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that nervousness alone cannot support a vehicle search when police stop the car for a traffic violation. The court invalidated a consent to search that was obtained during the stop.

Noting that innocent people are frequently nervous when confronted by a law enforcement officer — a phenomenon Judge Rosemary Barkett said is shared by lawyers presenting cases to appellate judges Ö the court said more is necessary to change a traffic stop into a drug search.

Via TalkLeft and NORML:

Pot Smokers Arrested In America At A Rate Of One Every 45 Seconds

Washington, DC: Police arrested an estimated 697,082 persons for marijuana violations in 2002, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual Uniform Crime Report, released yesterday afternoon. The total is among the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprised nearly half of all drug arrests in the United States.

If only we could convince Osama to smoke some pot…

Via Vice Squad, this article by Deroy Murdock at NRO

All seriousness aside, as funnyman Steve Allen often said, federal drug warriors keep embarrassing themselves by enforcing pointless, oppressive policies that merely ignite tax dollars as if with a Zippo lighter. Like every White House since Nixon’s, the Bush administration continues the collective, bipartisan hallucination that Uncle Sam’s heavy hand can crush the desire of millions of Americans to alter their states of consciousness. Fortunately, some judges, states and cities have soured on the costly and cruel war on drugs as it grinds through its 30th futile year.

I decided to open up a store at CafeShops with Drug WarRant T-shirts, mugs, underwear, and more.
Here’s a few of the designs available on Drug WarRant products:

A tribute to the pharmaceutical industry.

My own response to the Drug Czar’s annoying commercials!

OK, I really don’t know who will want to walk around with a picture of a cup of pee on their shirt, but it’s bound to be an attention-getter.
There’s more there, and more will be coming eventually. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Welcome to the folks from Matthew’s Are You Outraged? blog. It’s always great when another blogger opposed to the drug war stops by. You can get a feel for his posts by checking out The evil of Ashcroft and the DEA knows no bounds

Caring is a very long way down the list of the things the DEA does.

Yep.
DRCNet is offering a new instructional
video, “BUSTED: The Citizen’s Guide to Surviving Police
Encounters,” as their new premium gift to members donating at the
$35 level or above. Produced by the Flex Your Rights Foundation
and narrated by retired ACLU executive director Ira Glasser,
BUSTED realistically depicts the pressure and confusion of
common police encounters.

Kate Scannell in the Oakland Tribune:

As a doctor, I am stunned by the intensity of the Bush administration’s obsession with medical marijuana.æ It boggles my mind to think that our government officials are spending so much time and money to obstruct the use of a medication that might actually help cancer patients tolerate their chemotherapy, AIDS patients gain a little weight, glaucoma patients suffer less.

Via TalkLeft: Anyone wishing to write to Tommy Chong may do so through this address:

Thomas Kin Chong
07798-068
Taft CI
UNIT A, #4B
PO Box 7001
1500 Cadet Road
Taft, CA 93268

Clearly at the Odd end:

Cops in Bogota, Colombia, are accustomed to finding drugs stashed on planes bound for the United States, but were surprised to find a cache of cocaine on a jet inbound from Miami.

In USATF announces “Zero Tolerance” anti-doping plan, the organization is looking to step up efforts to stop athlete cheating and the use of performance enhancing drugs. But…
… they’ve proposed a summit of major U.S. sports leagues be hosted by the Drug Czar’s office! Big mistake. Get John Walters involved and you can bet that the sports leagues will be encouraged to stop worrying about steroids and go after the horrible menace of marijuana use in sports. (You think I’m kidding? Let’s wait and see.)
To top it off, they’re looking for ONDCP expertise in another area in which the Drug Czar’s office has demonstrated abject failure.

In addition to expanding the reach and regularity of our anti-drug messaging, we need to seek the help of experts to make sure that we maximize the impact of these opportunities. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP – The Drug Czar) has spent considerable resources to figure out what kind of anti-drug messaging works and we should solicit their assistance in crafting the content of our publications and curricula.

The future of track and field is looking shaky.

That’s right – if you have a new Chrysler Sebring or a number of other new cars, they may have come complete with a supply of hemp.
Of course, hemp is the industrial version of the marijuana plant, and before you start ripping apart the door panels looking for the stash, the hemp is likely to be part of the material of the door panel itself.
For some years, the use of hemp in cars has been developing in a number of ways (there’s even a car that is fueled by hemp).
An article in the Ottawa Citizen — High on Hemp talks about the value of hemp in auto parts:

“The reason they’re looking at natural fibres like hemp and flax is that they’re cost-effective and they perform well,” he says. “Compared to glass fibre, the cost of production is lower but the strength and ratio is roughly comparable so we can get excellent mechanical properties at a much lower price.”

Hemp is typically less than half the price of glass and its light weight is also a benefit. To a smaller extent, manufacturers are drawn to the environmental benefits, a plus that played a much bigger role in Europe where, by 2005, every vehicle part has to be capable of being completely recycled.

Ford specialist Ellen Lee says this is “potentially a billion-dollar industry.” Good news for Canadian farmers, who supply the industrial hemp for the auto industry. It’s illegal to grow it in the U.S.

THE ESTIMATED VALUE OF Canada’s marijuana production-up to $7 billion-exceeds its farm receipts of both cattle ($5.63 billion) and wheat ($1.73 billion), or the $4.3 billion taken in by forestry and logging. Only oil and gas extraction, worth $15.8 billion, is worth more.

CANADA’S LEGAL farm operators have net margins of 5.5%. An economist in Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University figures pot growers have a 72% annual rate of return, after discounting for costs, labor, thefts and arrests.

It’s not a bad series of articles at Forbes, although I felt the depth and extent of reporting was a little thin for a cover story.

• Inside Dope (lead story)
• Breaking the Two-Pound Barrier (sidebar on the growth of the industry that supplies lights and nutrients for pot growers)
• Cash Crop (sidebar of statistics and definitions)
• That’s not Funny, Man (sidebar on Tommy Chong)

The Chong sidebar has a great line:

Chong plans to use his jail time to work on new material. “This is career-enhancing,” he says. “Still, I wish my character was going to jail, instead of me.”

Finally, while we hear how drug sales fund terrorism (although only because of prohibition), it’s interesting to see the importance of this illegal industry in the general economy:

“I know at least a hundred [marijuana growers], 20 years old to 70,” says Robert Smith, who isn’t part of the trade but indirectly profits from it at the furniture store he owns in Grand Forks, B.C., 110 miles north of Spokane, Wash. “Of the money coming through my door, 15% to 20% comes from cannabis–we’d be on welfare without it.”

Yep, today’s my birthday, which means I’m… Well, let’s just say that I’m old enough to remember when we weren’t declaring an all-out war on our citizens, when drug policy meant caring for those who were addicted, before the expansion of the drug war escalated the violence and fed the growth of large criminal enterprises and large criminal government agencies.
For a moment, I considered making a pathetic birthday pitch for contributions to this site or purchases on my wish list. But then I thought about my own wish to contribute more to some important organizations.
So, if you have any desire to recognize my birthday, consider making a contribution of any amount to my birthday designee this year:

DrugSense/MAP

At this page, you can easily make a donation with a credit card or through PayPal, and your donation will be matched dollar for dollar up to $250. You can also direct your contribution to assist any of dozens of other drug policy reform organizations.
Drug Sense/Map provides internet service for much of the drug policy reform community as well as providing the most extensive database of drug related newspaper articles in the world. I rely on this organization constantly for my research.
Help them out, and after you do, if you feel like it, I’d love to hear about it: email
. Thanks.

Thanks to Andrew Somers for featuring Drug WarRant on the About.com’s Civil Liberties page. Be sure to check out Somers’ organization: Drug Action Network.
A sample of his work from “Keeping Drugs Away from Your Children”

It’s a sad, indeed tragic, fact that Nixon’s war on drugs has actually made it 7 times MORE likely for your child to come into contact with illegal drugs. The reasons are very straight forward: As the government increases the criminal penalties associated with prohibition, the price of various illegal drugs is increased. The increased price means greater profits for drug dealers. These greater profits attract more and more dealers, and especially, young teenagers.

Last week, we were treated to one of the standard drug war cheerleader columns that could have been a press release from the Drug Czar. But this was by a Pulitzer Prize and Light of Truth winning, Presidential Medal of Freedom receiving, former Managing Editor of the New York Times. So what’s up?

For those who haven’t followed Rosenthal’s writings over the years, or the glee with which drug policy reformers have responded to the rich wealth of stupidity in his drug war pieces, it’s a strange story.
Today, I’m going take you on this little exploration of a supposed journalist who has spent much of his career spreading propaganda, and even conspiring with the ONDCP to find ways to use the press and the government to attack drug policy reformers.
Start with the current piece: Case for legalized pot is a deadly con job by A. M. Rosenthal. A few of the points he makes.

The specialists say legalization of it would create mass addiction and vastly multiply the cost of drug treatment.

What specialists? Unspecified. Based on Rosenthal’s past references to “specialists,” they tend to be drug addiction personnel who make their living from the war, or even work for the Drug Czar. History shows us that the mass addiction scare is completely false. Experiences in the Netherlands and past decriminalization in the states have demonstrated at most, a mild increase in use, and generally a decrease in addiction.

John Walters, the head of federal drug enforcement, says that of the 7 million Americans who need treatment for drug addiction, 60% are hooked on marijuana. “Marijuana is at the heart of drug problems,” he says.

Here, Rosenthal takes Walters’ distortions and stretches them further. This is one of the recent favorites of the drug warriors. The fact that 60% of those in treatment are there because of marijuana has nothing to do with dependence or addiction or being “hooked.” It’s because the criminal justice system is putting people in treatment who are caught using marijuana (regardless of any dependence issues) and treatment is used in the same way to deal with positive drug tests in the workplace, schools, etc. In fact, the over-use of treatment for marijuana users is actually reducing treatment availability for those who need it for harder drugs. (If we made everyone who was caught eating chocolate go through treatment, then I guess we’d say they’re all hooked and that chocolate is at the heart of the drug problem.)

Experts also point out that one marijuana cigarette contains as much tar as four tobacco cigarettes.

Rosenthal tries to infer danger above that of tobacco (which is legal). Yet, studies have shown no established link between marijuana and mortality, unlike tobacco.

For example, marijuana has now been shown to cause physical dependence and physical withdrawal.

True. So have snack foods. The National Institue of Medicine showed that dependency rates for marijuana use are dramatically lower than those for tobacco and alcohol (which are legal), and “marijuana dependence appears to be less severe than dependence on other drugs.” In fact, addictions specialist Jack Henningfeld (see, I can use specialists, too) ranked marijuana lower than caffeine in dependence, tolerance, and withdrawal.

[quoting a statement by “prominent specialist” Dr. Herbert Kleber] “Unfortunately, the American public too often is sold a bill of goods by a clever campaign funded by a small group of billionaires who have engaged in extraordinary advertising and political manipulation.”

This is a favorite rant of Rosenthal’s — that the drug reform movement is heavily funded and using their great resources to hoodwink the public with an expensive advertising campaign. Well, let’s see, so far my pay for doing this has come up to a whopping $0. And most of the drug reform organizations I know are being run by interns and begging for funds to pay for their web server space and postage (more on this tomorrow). However, on the other side, the ONDCP has an almost unlimited budget paid for by… us, the taxpayers. Whose propaganda ads do you see on national television all the time? (Oh, and by the way, the prominent “specialist” he quoted is a former deputy drug czar!)
Does A.M. Rosenthal matter?