Drug WarRant

Radley Balko has a fun piece in the Huffington Post: Great Moments in Drug War Propaganda

There are a lot of classics, here, that brought back some memories.

What are your favorites?

Air Force Bans Greek Yogurt With Hemp Seeds Over Anti-Drug Policy Concerns

The Air Force warned personnel over the weekend to steer clear of a specific flavor of Chobani Greek yogurt that includes hemp seeds.

Hemp contains trace amounts of THC, the psychoactive ingredient also found in marijuana, classified alongside heroin and LSD as a Schedule I drug under federal law. The Air Force, as part of its anti-drug policy, added hemp seed oil products and hemp seed to a list of forbidden substances in 1999, over concerns that they could confuse the results of drug tests regularly given to service members.

Chobani’s Blueberry Power Flip is the latest victim of that prohibition. The Air Force made clear that yogurt flavors without hemp were still fine to eat.

For this we pay all those taxes?

The drug war and the national security scandals have overlapped in so many ways, not the least of which is a growing sense of the erosion of the very foundation of legitimacy of government.

Certainly in a Democracy at the very least, the citizens must be able to give informed consent regarding core governmental authority, with some system of accountability for government action, and without arbitrary actions by the government against its citizens. Yes, it’s true that this is a Representative Democracy, so that each decision is not micromanaged by the populace, but we’re talking about day-to-day decisions, but rather the very foundation.

When a government acts to prevent an informed citizenry, avoids accountability, and acts in arbitrary ways that benefit those with power at the expense of those without power, then that government has lost its legitimacy.

In marijuana policy, the confusing smoke signals continue to burn

Here’s just one of many little symptoms of the problem…

This article talks about how the government is moving to seize a building from a family who rented space to a marijuana dispensary in California, without proper notice, and in a totally arbitrary manner that makes no sense regarding enforcement of laws or justice, has the effect of harming a completely innocent person, and enriches the agency doing the seizing.

But why not stop with the mixed signals, end the winless and costly war on drugs, and legalize, regulate and tax marijuana, which is nowhere near as big a social or medical problem as perfectly legal alcohol?

And if we’re not yet ready for that, can’t the feds simply shut an “illegal” pot dispensary rather than steal an entire building from a law-abiding landlord?

That’s the big question. If the goal is enforcement of the law, then seizing that building, or the Caswell Motel, or Camp Zoe make little sense (but lots of profit). Follow Americans for Forfeiture Reform for loads of instances where forfeiture is the arbitrary act of profit-seeking governmental entities and individuals.

State Officials: DOJ Has Given ‘Tacit Approval’ for Legalized Marijuana

Colorado officials say they believe they have “tacit approval” from the U.S. Justice Department to implement voter-approved laws legalizing marijuana.

“We seem to have tacit approval at this point,” State Sen. Pat Steadman, a Democrat who co-sponsored two bills establishing the state’s regulations for recreational marijuana, told TPM in a phone interview Tuesday.

Another source directly involved in conversations with Justice, who asked not to be named to speak freely about private discussions, agreed with that characterization.

“They’re well aware of what we’ve been up to,” the source told TPM. “I do think that it’s fair to say that we have their tacit approval at this point.” […]

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said back in February that the Justice Department was in the “last stages” of reviewing the initiatives and guidance should be coming “relatively soon.” But there has been no further information from the department since then.

How pathetic is this? This should be a major scandal! The top officials in a state go to Washington, DC to ask the federal government for clarification regarding a major change in the laws that sets up a conflict between state and federal laws, and they get nothing. They can’t ignore the state law and they get no help from the feds, so they have to go with the “tacit approval” validation, meaning they’ll set up legal systems knowing full well that federal agents could arbitrarily swoop in at any time and arrest people or seize assets.

What kind of government is that? Limbo is not a system of justice.

There’s a judicial concept called Void for Vagueness:

In American constitutional law, a statute is void for vagueness and unenforceable if it is too vague for the average citizen to understand. There are several ways, senses or reasons a statute might be considered vague. In general, a statute might be called void for vagueness reasons when an average citizen cannot generally determine what persons are regulated, what conduct is prohibited, or what punishment may be imposed. Criminal laws which didn’t state explicitly and definitely what conduct is punishable for example are void for vagueness. A statute is also void for vagueness if a legislature’s delegation of authority to judges and/or administrators is so extensive that it would lead to arbitrary prosecutions.

Of course, this is specific to lawmaking, but the concept should apply to enforcement as well. When laws are interpreted in secret by the government, and no guidance is given other than vague, pleasant-sounding platitudes by the Attorney General while the DEA, FBI, NSA and federal attorneys mount offensives, what is the citizenry to do?

And the secrecy in government has become extremely pervasive…

Government Confirms That It Has Secret Interpretation of Patriot Act Spy Powers

The government has just officially confirmed what we’ve long suspected: there are secret Justice Department opinions about the Patriot Act’s Section 215, which allows the government to get secret orders from a special surveillance court (the FISA Court) requiring Internet service providers and other companies to turn over “any tangible things.” Just exactly what the government thinks that phrase means remains to be seen, but there are indications that their take on it is very broad.

Is that not Kafkaesque? There are laws you must follow, but we’re not going to tell you what they are, or our interpretation of what they mean, but you must follow them anyway, and we’re going to gag you so you can’t talk about these laws you must follow, and if you try to take it to court, we’re going to invoke national security and say that the courts can’t be allowed to discuss it, plus since it’s secret it doesn’t exist anyway.

Think that’s an overstatement? Put yourself in the shoes of the founder of Lavabit:

Feds Threaten to Arrest Lavabit Founder for Shutting Down His Service

Power corrupts, and without good accountability, too many of those in government will use that power arbitrarily and destructively (even when their intentions are good). A compliant and disengaged citizenry is the fuel for widespread government corruption. It is our job to make sure everyone is engaged and aware. These corrupt practices cannot continue in the light.

Step 1: Force Pot Clubs To USe Cash. Step 2. Bar Them From Hiring Guards. Step 3: Finger-Wag About Drug Violence

… the Drug Enforcement Administration has ordered security and armored vehicle companies to quit serving state-legal cannabis providers, according to industry sources.

The DEA, an arm of Holder’s Department of Justice, confirmed the order to The Huffington Post, but wouldn’t elaborate.

Armored vehicles allow California’s legal medical marijuana dispensaries a secure way to transport large amounts of cash. The services are critical, since federal authorities pressured banks and credit card companies to stop servicing the pot industry in 2011.

Pathetic.

Good article by Ryan Grim, but he couldn’t get anyone from the DEA to speak on the record, so he ended up talking to some idiot instead who knows nothing about policy and had nothing useful to say.

Racial disparity is a fact of drug prohibition.

Release (UK) has released a new report: The Numbers in Black and White: Ethnic Disparities in the Policing and Prosecution of Drug Offenses in England and Wales

Here’s just a taste of their findings:

Every 58 seconds someone is stopped and searched for drugs in England and Wales. […] Just over 7600 were of children aged 15 or below. […]

For those from the white population it was 7 per 1000, increasing to 14 per 1000 for those identifying as mixed race, 18 per 1000 for those identifying as Asian and to 45 per 1000 for those identifying as black.

Black people were, in other words, 6.3 times more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs than white people, while Asian people were 2.5 times more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs and those identifying as mixed race were stopped and searched for drugs at twice the rate of white people. […]

Across London black people are charged for possession of cannabis at 5 times the rate of white people. […]

Black people in London who are caught in possession of cocaine are charged, rather than cautioned, at a much higher rate than their white counterparts. In 2009/10 the Metropolitan Police charged 78 per cent of black people caught in possession of cocaine compared with 44 per cent of whites.

Again, it doesn’t even have to mean that those who write or enforce the laws are racially motivated (though some may be). Even if the people are not racist at all, a drug war is by its very nature flawed and cannot help but be enforced in a way that is racist in its results. This is a result of the challenges of enforcing laws against a popular consensual crime and societal factors of community and poverty.

Strong article in the Atlantic by Jeff Deeney: To Stay Out of Jail, Must Nonviolent Offenders Submit to Medical Diagnoses?

The following passage, I think, really points out the problem that we’ve been railing about with the so-called “third way” that’s been heavily promoted by ONDCP and S.A.M.

Criminal justice policy reformers say that when courts flood the drug treatment centers with the kinds of drug offenders who more often get arrested, the outcome is no longer a system for treating drug addicts who want help with their drug problems. Instead, the treatment system becomes an extensive community-based surveillance network whose primary purpose is to monitor the behavior of people who are primarily black and poor. In fact, as some sociologists have argued, this changes the definition of what a drug problem is and who requires treatment. This suits perfectly the needs of a justice system that refuses to decriminalize drugs, but now has to put offenders somewhere other than jail.

Exactly. And the use of treatment as an arm of the criminal justice system may be good for treatment’s financial bottom line, but it’s not good for those who need treatment. And as the article goes on to demonstrate, the system is still heavily skewed in terms of class and race.

Another question is what happens with those who don’t need treatment. In the article ONDCP spokesperson Rafael LeMaitre attempts to reassure us:

Lemaitre, though, stands by the justice system’s referral policies for those with disorders, saying people don’t get sent to drug programs if they don’t have real drug problems.

Oh, really? I find that very hard to believe, particularly when treatment programs are getting paid for accepting people, and there’s a strong incentive to admit to having a drug problem in order to stay out of jail. After all, the one group people like LeMaitre never will discuss is those nonviolent low-level drug offenders with no drug problem. Because then he’d have to answer what this touted “third-way” does for them.

Regardless of what you may feel about the appropriateness politically of the “marijuana is safer” than alcohol campaigns, the truth is that in some areas, marijuana is, in fact, scientifically and objectively safer than alcohol.

A recent ad aired at NASCAR said that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol, and that specific claim was analyzed by Politifact, which looked at the facts, found that the science supports that marijuana is less toxic and called the claim “Mostly True” (who knows why “mostly true” instead of just “true”).

The really interesting part of the story, however, is the attempts by opposition to dance around the straightforward science of toxicity and try to re-define it to keep from making marijuana sound good in any way.

“It’s like trying to compare different weapons. Both have the potential to cause harm,” said Dr. Scott Teitelbaum, professor and vice chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and chief of the Division of Addiction Medicine, at University of Florida. “I don’t know that there’s a clear answer.” […]

Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation, said she wants the public to realize that “these are two drugs that are both addictive and impairing and they both create unsafe situations.”

Of course, we expect that from Calvina. But how about the federal agency that focuses on the use of science?

NIDA states in an email that the effect of marijuana can depend on the person (their biology) who’s using it, the amount and under what circumstances.

“Claiming that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol cannot be substantiated since each possess their own unique set of risks and consequences for a given individual,” according to an agency email statement.

Um, no. Toxicity is a measurable scientific standard (LD50), and while each individual is unique, there have been clearly established overall differences in toxicity between alcohol and marijuana. Period.

It appears that science is toxic to NIDA.

I was pleased to hear Attorney General Holder make his announcement about reducing sentencing for low-level drug crimes, not because I thought what he planned to do would have much practical effect (still depending on prosecutors to use judgement), but rather because it appeared that the announcement might end up being non-controversial.

So many politicians still labor under the old notion that anything but “tough on drugs” is a third-rail position. What was important here was not Holder’s comment, but the lack of political “gotcha” reaction to it.

As Steve Chapman notes in Drug Warriors in Retreat

So when Holder gave a speech announcing that the Justice Department would minimize the use of stiff mandatory sentences in some drug cases, it was reasonable to expect a storm of protests from Republicans accusing him of flooding our streets with crack dealers and meth heads.

Instead, the response bordered on the soporific. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, reported Politico, gently suggested that the administration “work with Congress on policies it wants to implement instead of consistently going around it.” Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, who has previously called for criminal prosecution of Holder, echoed Cruz’s view, while admitting that “reducing mandatory minimums may be good policy.”

Instead of tepid criticism, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky offered outright praise, calling the change “a welcome development.” Hardly anyone in the GOP cared to defend the merciless approach. At least when it comes to low-level, nonviolent drug offenders, both parties have lost their appetite for locking the cell and tossing the key.

I think there may have been some border sheriff who raised a stink about Holder’s announcement, but otherwise, silence.

Nobody in the media or politics (to the extent that they differ) was going to criticize this move. (Even prohibitionists supported it, since they’ve been forced by us to tack toward the kinder, gentler prohibition.) And believe me, that fact will be noticed by the lily-livered politicians who have good intentions, but are afraid to be seen as soft on crime.

Holder’s statement is not an indication that the Obama administration wants to actually do something important about our serious incarceration problem (after all, Obama could easily commute sentences of prisoners who had received ridiculously long sentences, yet he has chosen to be very stingy in that area). It is, however, additional proof of a change in political climate that could very well embolden Congress or future Presidents.

Official Tweets from the Seattle Police Department twitter feed:

SPD Chief Jim Pugel was just driving down 4th Ave when he spotted a 79 Chevy w/fake pot leaves hanging from its rearview. Driver looked lost

That’s when Chief Pugel’s 30 years of policing experience kicked in.

After stopping the car (which had out of state plates), Chief Pugel asked everyone in the car if they needed directions to Hempfest.

Turns out they did.

Update:

The Seattle Police were handing out Doritos with this sticker:

I hate to recommend watching the TV “news” stations, but it’s how so much of the mass population gets their info…

Tonight at 9 pm Eastern: Gone to Pot – Making cases for and against the legalization of marijuana.

Featuring LEAP’s Neil Franklin and… David Evans.

Wow, they’re really having to dig to the bottom of the barrel to find prohibitionists. Evans, by the way, is a career drug testing guy, who has lobbied heavily for the drug testing industry.