Drug WarRant

Maia Szalavitz has another excellent article, this time in Salon: How NBC and our reactionary media perpetuate the war on drugs

Journalists are no less likely to take drugs than anyone else—indeed, in my admittedly anecdotal experience, they’re morelikely to use. You’d think that this would make us especially skeptical both about federal policies that failed to prevent our own drug-taking and about extreme claims about drug users.

But the press may actually be one of the biggest obstacles to reform. Instead of asking tough questions, reporters tend to simply parrot conventional wisdom—and reinforce the idea that the drug war is the only way, even when drug warriors’ claims contradict the evidence of the writers’ own lives.

In the last month alone, we’ve seen several particularly egregious examples of mindless reporting—including one that is explicit in propping up longtime racist stereotypes about drug users. If we want better care—and, especially, less incarceration—for addicted people, we can’t just sit by while the media stirs up frequent drug panics. If we don’t challenge the stale formula that “crackdowns” are the best response to drug-related harm and that “typical drug addicts” are black, reform will remain marginal, at best.

In a way, it’s kind of like the movies. When the cold war ended, movie makers needed bad guys, and drug dealers were the easy choice, so we saw an explosion of movies involving drug cartels or drug dealers, in order to have unsympathetic characters that the hero could vanquish.

For the media, for decades, drug panic stories and drug war “victories” have been the easy way to get a quick story. The government was willing to do most of the heavy lifting, practically writing it for you, and it fit the age-old truth that scaring the people is the surest way to get them to read your “news.”

Whenever I can, I try to educate/admonish reporters who take that easy way.

Currently, the Veteran’s Administration specifically prohibits their doctors from discussing or recommending medical marijuana for their patients.

This evening, Representative Blumenauer offered an amendment to HR4486 – Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015 – that would allow V.A. doctors to recommend medical marijuana to qualified patients in states where it was legal. (background)

The amendment was defeated 222-195.

This should outrage veterans everywhere. The lack of attention to veteran care is criminal as it is, but to continue to vote to censor doctors who advise veterans when other citizens can go to their personal doctor and get all the options, just isn’t right.

Here’s the roll call. A “Yes” vote meant that they wanted to change the law to allow Veterans’ doctors to recommend medical marijuana. A “No” vote meant they wanted to continue to censor V.A. doctors.

Kevin Sabet teams up with The Heritage Foundation for more nonsense: The Marijuana Debate: Time for Reefer Sanity

Ironically, the Heritage site has a pop-up when you go there that asks you to agree that “Big Government is NOT the Answer”

This has always been a blind spot in The Heritage Foundation.

Chicago: Officials call for recreational pot use to be legalized

It’s time for Illinois lawmakers to move beyond state-sanctioned medical marijuana and, as they say, legalize it.

At least that’s according to four Chicago-area Democrats who hold elected public offices. The group held a press conference Monday at the Cook County building, calling for the state to decriminalize marijuana possession and — eventually — legalize recreational use of the leafy plant.

“The main difference between the War on Drugs and Prohibition is that, after 40 years, this country still hasn’t acknowledged that the War on Drugs is a failure,” Cook County Commissioner John Fritchey said, drawing a parallel with the outlawing of booze in the early 20th Century.

The officials are calling for a task force to study legalization in the state.

Illegal roadside search of Star Trek fan brings $100K settlement

Radley Balko updates us on this story. If you haven’t watched the video before, it’s a pretty blatant documentation of abuse of police power in stopping and searching motorists.

Alabama Supreme Court Rules That Women Can Be Charged With Chemical Endangerment if They Become Pregnant and Use a Controlled Substance

New York, NY – On Friday, April 18, 2014, the Alabama Supreme Court issued a 8-1 decision in Ex Parte Hicks upholding the conviction of Sara Hicks, who gave birth to a healthy baby who tested positive for cocaine in 2008. This decision affirmed the Court’s prior ruling in Ex Parte Ankrom, holding that that the plain meaning of the word “child” in the Alabama law unambiguously includes fertilized eggs and that pregnant women may be arrested for using a controlled substance while pregnant.

Chief Justice Moore apparently included Biblical citations and references to God’s authority.

Make no mistake about it – this is sadomoralism, combined with the intentional infliction of damage on pregnant women and newborn children in order to score political points in the abortion debate.

There is absolutely no interest in the health of pregnant women or children in these laws. They take healthy children away from their mothers and encourage mothers not to seek medical help during their pregancy for fear of losing their children.

Atrocious.

Normalizing Drug Use by Stanton Peele in Psychology Today.

The drug policy battle in the U.S. isn’t about medical marijuana, or even legalizing marijuana.

It’s about normalizing drug use.

Do drugs create different experiences from other involvements we are familiar with—are they more compelling, more inescapable, less controllable, more inexorable in their progression to addiction than other experiences that we encounter daily?

They are not.

This is a discussion we need to have more often.

According to government surveys, people rarely find even the most addictive, dangerous drugs to be, well, addictive and dangerous.

http://youtu.be/K17pgm2UjBA

I have a real love-hate relationship with this guy.

I first came to know Justice Stevens as the author of the wonderful Supreme Court Decision striking down the Communications Decency Act. It was a stirring opinion, and he noted strongly:

“The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship,”

At that point I was thinking “here’s a Justice who really understands the importance of the freedom of the individual over governmental attempts to squash it.

And then, in one of his later major decisions as a Justice, he authored the wholly reprehensible opinion in Illinois v. Caballes, where he decided that dogs should be allowed to determine when a search was allowed, including this outrageous statement.

“A dog sniff conducted during a concededly lawful traffic stop that reveals no information other than the location of a substance that no individual has any right to possess does not violate the Fourth Amendment.”

Based on that decision, he became one of my least favorite Justices.

Then, Stevens retired and wrote a bizarre bit about the six amendments he would add to the Constitution – a piece that sounded like it came from someone who had absolutely no understanding of the concept of the Constitution.

Now, Stevens has come out in favor of marijuana legalization.

Retired Justice John Paul Stevens – Marijuana Should be Legal

“Yes,” Stevens replied. “I really think that that’s another instance of public opinion [that’s] changed. And recognize that the distinction between marijuana and alcoholic beverages is really not much of a distinction. Alcohol, the prohibition against selling and dispensing alcoholic beverages has I think been generally, there’s a general consensus that it was not worth the cost. And I think really in time that will be the general consensus with respect to this particular drug.”

Yay. Gee, thanks.

I’m thrilled.

As are all the people who got pulled over and had their cars searched because a dog decided to please its master.

Arizona court rules on DUI law for marijuana users

PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities can’t prosecute Arizona motorists for driving under the influence of marijuana unless the person is impaired at the time of the stop, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in the latest opinion on an issue that several states have grappled with across the nation.

The ruling overturned a state Court of Appeals decision last year that upheld the right of authorities to prosecute pot smokers for DUI even when there is no evidence of impairment.

The opinion focuses on two chemical compounds in marijuana that show up in blood and urine tests — one that causes impairment and one that doesn’t but stays in a pot user’s system for weeks. […]

Tuesday’s state Supreme Court opinion removed that threat in explaining that while state statute makes it illegal for a driver to be impaired by marijuana, the presence of a non-psychoactive compound does not constitute impairment under the law.

Obama Just Took One Big Step Towards Stopping the War on Drugs

(he hasn’t taken it yet, but this would be good…)

The news: U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to pardon “hundreds, perhaps thousands” of federal drug inmates before leaving office. That number might not seem so big. But it’s historic in executive terms. In fact, reports indicate that the potential number will be well above the norm for an outgoing president and may even approach levels not seen since President Gerald Ford gave mass clemency to draft dodgers after the Vietnam War.

According to Yahoo News, the initiative to pardon non-violent drug offenders will be so big that “administration officials are preparing a series of personnel and process changes to help them manage the influx of petitions they expect Obama to approve.”

Governor Rick Scott has been so anxious to have everybody in the world drug tested, whether it’s welfare recipients, unemployment recipients, or state workers.

Court rejects Scott’s plan for broad drug testing of state workers

TAMPA ­­— In a second major blow to a drug-testing initiative by Gov. Rick Scott at the outset of his administration, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let stand a court ruling invalidating his attempt to subject state employees to random drug tests.

The Scott administration already was appealing a December decision by a federal district judge that invalidated a drug testing requirement for applicants for welfare benefits.

Hmmm… Supreme Court not willing to dismantle the remnants of the Fourth Amendment just yet?

I wonder when the Supremes will get the message that the public
doesn’t want the drug war anymore? I’d love to see the court start to heal some of the damage of decades of drug war exceptions to the Bill of Rights.

I was a bit puzzled by this article: If You Support Legal Marijuana, Memorize These 13 Stats

Here are the stats (and each one goes on to describe that it’s a projected tax revenue for some state or the potential market somewhere, or something like that).

• $1.53 billion
• $10.2 billion
• $6.17 million
• $98 million
• $40 million
• 7,500-10,000
• $190 million
• $105 million
• $142.19 million
• $36 million
• $21.5 to $82 million
• $134.6 million
• $17.4 billion

I read it all, and, you know what? I didn’t care. None of that made a stinking bit of difference to me. Maybe there are some people out there whose minds would be changed by these numbers. But personally, I would throw all those out and just remember one word: