Drug WarRant

Many years ago, this used to be my hometown paper. Things sure have changed.

Don’t imprison this cancer patient – Quad City Times Editorial Board.

Investigators turned up no evidence of a widespread dope-dealing operation foisting marijuana into the hands of Quad-City kids. All of the evidence points to a cancer patient desperate for relief.

Yet prosecution continues under an unforgiving Iowa drug law that is far behind the rest of the nation. Twenty states, including Illinois, have legalized medical marijuana. Three more have decriminalized recreational use.

The same facts in a different state would leave Mackenzie labeled a homeopathic pioneer. In Iowa, he’s deemed a criminal so dangerous, county authorities have spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars in investigation, raids and court appearances that will lead to even higher incarceration costs upon conviction.

All of this is being spent on the same defendant jailed for two months, until Scott County authorities suddenly realized they might be on the hook for his medical bills. Then he was released without bond.

This hypocrisy will continue as long as Iowa lawmakers ignore mounting evidence of marijuana’s medicinal qualities and its recreational harmlessness.

Pretty harsh words for an editorial, and very nice to see.

It’s bound to open up a few more eyes. The people need to wake up and realize that they will no longer put up with this kind of prosecutorial abuse, or the laws that allow it to happen.

Disappointing, though probably not surprising… US Supreme Court Rejects Marijuana Reclassification Appeal

The US Supreme Court Monday declined to hear an appeal from medical marijuana advocacy groups who had challenged the DEA’s decision to maintain marijuana’s status as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, the category reserved for the most dangerous substances.

The court denied in summary order a petition for a writ of certiorari from the groups, led by Americans for Safe Access, which had sought Supreme Court review of a DC Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding the DEA’s ruling that a change in marijuana’s classification required the Food and Drug Administration’s recognition of acceptable medical uses for the drugs.

Advocates of rescheduling marijuana have been trying to do so for more than four decades, but have been thwarted by DEA delays and intransigence. This was the third formal rescheduling effort to be blocked by DEA decision making.

It’s clear that the Court is going to defer to the government whenever possible in this area, and as long as the DEA has some kind of internal appeal process (no matter how dishonestly self-serving and delay inducing), the Supremes won’t interfere.

I gave up expecting any kind of judicial integrity from the court following the opinion in Raich. And, after all, this is a court that has as a prominent member someone who still believes in the literal devil.

With the executive branch having too many reasons (politically and financially) to keep demonizing marijuana, and Congress still being too spineless to do anything, it seems clear that continuing the push for reform through the states and through the grass roots is still the best approach to achieving reform.

Note: Kevin and I had a little discussion about the marijuana schedule issue last night.

Kevin: US Supreme Court rejects the reclassification of marijuana – read why reclassification is a lame issue anyway: http://t.co/qtQnyOLQrR

Me: @KevinSabet Tell that to Peter McWilliams… oh, you can’t— he’s dead.

Kevin: @DrugWarRant I didn’t say marijuana has no medical properties. It’s a matter of how we deliver them, but then again you’d rather misconstrue

Me: @KevinSabet McWilliams died, in part, because he wasn’t allowed to say the words “medical marijuana” in fed court, hence Schedule matters.

Thanks to all those who came out for my talk today on the Drug War’s Assault on Justice. We had a nice discussion afterward.

And thanks again to the sponsors:
Bloomington-Normal Coalition for Peace and Justice
Common Action Free School
Amnesty International Chapter IWU
Center for Engaged Citizenship IWU
Center for Human Rights and Social Justice IWU
Political Science Department IWU

I’m hoping that we’ll be able to put together a similar event at Illinois State University in the near future.

…

“Spring Awakening” — the musical for which I was Music Director/Conductor/Pianist — closed Saturday night with a fabulous show to a full house with a complete and immediate standing ovation. What a joy it was to be part of this project – so much creative work by these amazing students. It’s truly invigorating… and I’ll miss it.

Researchers with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have achieved a major breakthrough in understanding traffic accidents and fatalities.

This came following a slew of studies attributing increased liklihood of traffic fatalities to a variety of activities: increased chance of death to teenagers driving with other teenagers in car; those who text 27 times as likely to die in crash; marijuana smokers twice as likely to be involved in fatal accident, etc.

According to lead researcher Sindjen Smythe with the NHTSA, “We were getting a ridiculously long list of activities that supposedly caused fatal crashes, to the point that it was starting to seem meaningless.” Smythe said that the last straw, and the moment that led to the new study was learning that “people who liked fried chicken were more likely to die in crashes. That made no sense. This caused us to change our approach and try to find a common thread in all these studies.”

That led to this groundbreaking study which did, in fact, find the common thread. Co-researcher Meghan Ashlington explains: “It wasn’t the love of fried chicken that was the problem, but rather that some idiots would try to eat fried chicken while executing complex driving maneuvers. A smart person, we discovered, simply didn’t do that. Smart people would still get tired, but they’d pull over and take a nap. Idiots wouldn’t. Smart people sometimes texted, but generally only when they was no traffic around them, and if they smoked pot, they understood their own limits.”

Yes, the common thread through all the studies was, in fact, that it was idiots who are much more likely to die in accidents, regardless of the circumstances. Unfortunately, sometimes they also take others with them. And, of course, sometimes accidents are just accidents. But in terms of preventable accidents, idiocy was the undeniably clear common factor.

“This is incredibly important research that could revolutionize traffic enforcement,” according to Ted Jamison with the Department of Justice’s National Policing Initiative. Jamison recommended that states immediately start developing roadside intelligence tests to measure levels of idiocy and get unsafe drivers off the road. “This will be a much more accurate measure of fitness to drive than all the piecemeal systems we have in place today combined,” said Jamison.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has been focusing a lot of their efforts pushing for per se standards for cannabis and driving. When asked for their reaction to this new study and how it might affect their policy approach, they responded that they had read the study, but didn’t understand it.

Fox News: Nick Carter: I am drug free but alcohol addiction is ‘still a problem for me’

FOX411: How long have you been sober?

Carter: This is the thing: I am completely 100 percent drug free. I have, on occasion, been having drinks. The thing about it is, I still realize that it’s an issue, and it’s still a problem for me. It’s something that’s not easy. I still have to go to therapy. I still have to get to the bottom of the reason why I have resorted to alcohol.

No, Nick Carter, you are not 100% drug free. You will never be 100% drug free. Nobody will. It is possible that you have given up consuming one or more specific drugs. That’s an entirely different thing.

“Spring Awakening” is up and running (through Oct 5) and consuming most of my time, so little posting here. But you guys in comments have been doing an amazing job keeping it going.

On October 6, I will be giving a major presentation:

“Drug Wars Assault on Justice – a talk with Pete Guither”

Sunday, October 6 at 4:00 pm
Hanson Student Center
Illinois Wesleyan University
Bloomington, IL

Sponsored by:
Bloomington-Normal Coalition for Peace and Justice
Common Action Free School
Amnesty International Chapter IWU
Center for Engaged Citizenship IWU
Center for Human Rights and Social Justice IWU
Political Science Department IWU

I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve been sketching out a fairly long list of the ways the drug war damages justice, with specific examples. Feel free to make suggestions in comments.

Quite busy right now with “Spring Awakening” opening on Friday…

$3.4M settlement in deadly 2011 SWAT raid near Tucson

“The Pima County Sheriff’s Department strongly believes the events of May 5, 2011, were unfortunate and tragic, but the officers performed that day in accordance with their training and nationally recognized standards,” Deputy Tracy Suitt wrote.

Um, yeah. That’s exactly the problem.

The shooting was a terrible, unfortunate situation costing taxpayers a huge amount of money, Supervisor Richard Elías said.

Yeah, it’s unfortunate when armed thugs break down your door and shoot you in your own home.

Brazil

A man carrying 500 kilos of pot in his car lost his life when the illegal merchandise in the back of the vehicle slammed into him during an auto accident.

Marijuana. Harmless?

Nice to see this brought up at the Emmy Awards:

Michael Douglas slams U.S. prison system after Emmy win

Continued Douglas: “Obviously at first, I was certainly disappointed in my son. But I’ve reached a point now where I’m very disappointed with the system. And as you can see from what Attorney General Eric Holder has been doing regarding our prison system, I think things are going to be revived, regarding nonviolent drug addicts. My last comment on that is the United States represents 5 percent of the world’s population and we have 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.”

Some day, we will look back at this era of using the criminal justice system to deal with drugs in much the same way we now look at barbers’ use of bloodletting to balance the humors.

Sky is falling nonsense from McClatchy — Can states protect kids from recreational marijuana? with some of the usual players…

But to legalization opponents, such promises are a pipe dream, destined to fail. They say it is more likely the U.S. government will unleash a new industry that will try hard to attract young users and turn them into “addicts.” […]

Sabet said he hopes history will repeat itself and that the tide will turn against legalization, as it did in the late 1970s when baby boomers began questioning how the drug would affect kids.

“A retailer needs a modest sign on the outside of the building and a website listing what it has to sell,” said consultant Mark Kleiman, who is also a professor of public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. “There is no need to tolerate anything more than that.” […]

Sabet predicted that attracting more young users will be necessary for the economic survival of the industry.

“This is about making sure that kids are hooked early, because that’s the only way that addictive industries make money,” he said. “They don’t make money off casual users, and in order to get addicts, you have to start people young.”

Feel free to have at it in comments, and destroy their arguments, but my favorite response came in the article:

“These people have too much free time and they need to get a job,” countered Steve Horowitz, who runs a medical-marijuana dispensary in Denver but hopes to make the switch to a full recreational operation.