Just watch the finesse with which SDSU's chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy responded to the arrest of 75 of their classmates:

SDSU-SSDP President Randy Hencken's superb performance shows how effectively one can reframe the issue by choosing smart and appropriate talking points. There are many interesting, and truthful, drug policy reform arguments that would nonetheless have been poorly applied here. As the video shows, a disciplined and mature reaction from reformers resulted in positive press coverage.

There is another lesson here, however, that should not go unnoticed: the reform argument came off strong because we had people on the ground at San Diego State well before the DEA showed up to haul students away in handcuffs. SSDP is a growing presence on campuses throughout the nation and beyond. Each new chapter increases our chances of being organized and prepared when the next such opportunity presents itself.

If you're in school and you don’t have a chapter, go here now. Whether you're looking to organize events or just stay informed and make some friends, you'll find what you’re looking for. This is where the next generation of reformers is coming from.

Saturday was the first Saturday in May, which for more than 30 years has been marked by marches and demonstrations in support of marijuana legalization.

America's drug laws do not reference race, but the way they are enforced has a gravely disproportionate impact on African Americans, according to two reports released this week.

When I heard today that 75 students at San Diego State University were arrested on drug charges, something didn't sound right. That's just a hell of a lot of people, and in light of the drug war's typically flimsy evidentiary standards, I leaned towards the assumption that more than half of them probably didn’t do a damned thing.

That may still be true, but after learning how reckless and cavalier these guys were, I'm less shocked by the outcome:

"Undercover agents purchased cocaine from fraternity members and confirmed that a hierarchy existed for the purpose of selling drugs for money," the DEA said.
…

A member of Theta Chi sent out a mass text message to his "faithful customers" stating that he and his "associates" would be unable to sell cocaine while they were in Las Vegas over one weekend, according to the DEA. The text promoted a cocaine "sale" and listed the reduced prices. [AP]

Um, had you ever heard of the drug war, you idiot? Why not advertise on Craigslist while you're at it.

Many will say they had it coming, but I sympathize nevertheless. The lure of the black market sucks these guys in like a whirlpool. It is precisely the sort of people who would behave this way that are drawn forcefully towards such activity, empowered by it, and ultimately destroyed by the state at tremendous expense to the taxpayer.

If someone responsible and accountable to the public were charged with distributing these substances to those determined to consume them, we wouldn't have conspicuous drug monopolies creating disorder on college campuses across America. We wouldn't have to pay for young people to be investigated and convicted, then sent away to a horrible place where taxpayers must buy their food and clothing and medical care and even fund their reintegration into society.

Look no further than the fact that college students are getting hauled out of college 75 at a time for drug violations to know that our drug policy isn't working at all.

Let's revisit once again this week's excellent NYCLU study of marijuana arrests in New York City. It illuminates several embarrassing facts, which the architects of this disgusting policy would prefer to keep concealed. Among them:

*A shocking increase in arrests from 45,300 between 1988 and 1997 up to 374,000 between 1998 and 2007
*A sustained violation of the spirit of New York's marijuana laws, which hold that citizens should not be arrested for small amounts of concealed marijuana
*Stark and unexplainable racial disparities. 83% of arrestees were black or Latino even though whites are more likely to use marijuana
*Similarly disturbing gender disparities. 90% of arrestees were male, even though women and men use marijuana at similar rates
*The appalling hypocrisy of NY mayor Michael Bloomberg who presides over these arrests despite his admission that he's enjoyed marijuana in the past
*A profit motive behind the arrests wherein police deliberately make marijuana collars at the end of their shift so that they can collect overtime pay while processing the offender

Now that these ugly revelations have been exposed, what does NYPD have to say in its defense? Exactly what one might expect:

In an official comment on the study, the Police Department was critical of the role played by the New York Civil Liberties Union in publicizing the report and noted that the research had been backed, in part, by the Marijuana Policy Project, which supports legalization. [NY Times]

Um, pardon me, but what the hell does that have to do with anything? The report is accurate. Complaining that it was publicized by its authors and that it was funded by supporters of marijuana policy reform is irrelevant. Of course police are angry that this went public. It's embarrassing. And of course it was funded by critics of marijuana laws. Who else would fund it? The Heritage Foundation? I don’t think so.

So the Marijuana Policy Project is biased, they say, but NYPD sees no conflict of interest when defending the same laws that its officers are paid overtime to enforce? The arrogance of this couldn’t possibly be overstated, but I guess there wasn't much else to say. If everything in the report is true, all you can really do is call the author a jerk.

So in order to avoid ridiculously dumb drug policy debate tactics in the future, let's just get one thing straight once and for all: if people who oppose marijuana laws aren't allowed to criticize marijuana enforcement, then people who support marijuana laws shouldn't be allowed to defend it. Does that sound fair?

Two of my colleagues, Deborah Small and Prof. Harry Levine, have analyzed New York City's marijuana policy in a major report released Wednesday the New York Civil Liberties Union. The chart appearing above pretty makes the central point, but check out Jacob Sullum's piece in Reason for a good general discussion of the report's findings and implications.

Also, Scott wrote here last night about an important side angle, why it's a bad idea to take out your marijuana to give it to police.

Yesterday's is a must-read too.

The report itself, and the authors' summary, are online here

This remarkable New York Times piece exposes New York City's out of control marijuana policy, which has produced 374,900 misdemeanor marijuana arrests since 1998, despite a decrim law that's been in effect for 30 years. This is a rare example of professional-quality drug war coverage from the mainstream media and should be read in its entirety, as it raises several interesting issues.

I found this passage, which describes one particular arrest, quite revealing:

"I came out of the building, and this unmarked car, no light, no indication it was police, was right on me," said the man, a Latino who asked that his name not be used because he was concerned about his job. "Right on my tail. An officer got out, he said, 'I saw you walking from that building, I know you bought weed, give me the weed.' He made it an option: 'Give me the weed now and I will give you a summons, or we can search your vehicle and can take you in.' "

He opened the console and handed them his marijuana — making it "open to public view."

"I was duped," he said. But the deception was legal, and his pot wasn’t.

The officers escorted him in handcuffs to the unmarked car.

Amazingly, police must actually trick citizens into displaying their marijuana in order to make an arrest, since the decrim law requires plain view discovery. NYPD officers have become quite adept at initiating this through the typical threats and coercion that have long been the hallmark of petty drug war police practices.

Fortunately, the most obvious and effective antidote to New York's overzealous marijuana policing is really pretty simple: don't give them your marijuana. Don't admit having marijuana. Don't give them consent to search you or your vehicle. Ask if you're free to go.

Ending this obscene spectacle, which violates the spirit of New York's marijuana laws and wastes precious law-enforcement resources, is vitally important. But until that happens, citizens can protect themselves by not idiotically turning over their illegal drugs to the police. Seriously, stop giving them your drugs.

The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has ruled that the scent of burning marijuana emanating from a car window is not probable cause for an arrest and vehicle search.

Pete Guither over at Drug WarRant has spotted a report on what looks to be a suspiciously large number of drug busts -- 17, with 11 more warrants pending, all following a six-month undercover investigation -- in the sparsely populated Twiggs County in Georgia. Twiggs has 10,184 residents, at latest count -- the largest city, Jeffersonville, boasts a mere 1,028 residents.

The county is so small, in terms of its population, that there is exactly one auto repair shop. Which raises the question, can a county that small really support 28 drug dealers? The same question came up in the Tulia scandal, where about 46 people, almost all of them black, were convicted and imprisoned for drug dealing based on the testimony of a rogue cop, who as it turns out had made it all up. Many of the names listed in the indictment have an African American sound to them.

Comments from local officials also raise questions about the operation's timing. In issue #520 of the Chronicle, we reported that Congress had substantially cut funding for the federal grant programs that support these kinds of task forces and that law enforcement organizations were engaged in a massive lobbying/media campaign to try to get the funding back. Twiggs police clearly had that situation in mind when they spoke with the press:

Officials, however, are concerned about the future of such major operations. Special agent Martin Zon of the GBI's state drug task force said federal funding for the task force has been cut by nearly 70 percent in the newest budget. Once it takes effect in July, the budget cuts could hamper law enforcement efforts in the drug war.

"We've been a recipient of these funds for many years, and in December we learned that these grants would be cut drastically," Zon said. "Our budget was cut by 70 percent, which cuts our ability to fulfill requests from places like Twiggs."

Mitchum said he's also concerned that he may not have certain state resources to call upon in the future.

"The task force is a big help to departments our size," he said. "We use their equipment, their personnel, their expertise. We wouldn't want to see their funding cut. It's really important they keep it."

If it is a case of law enforcement busting people as taxpayer-funded lobbying for funding, it would be nothing new -- Pete pointed out such a case in Kentucky last year, and I noted a 2006 press release from the California Attorney General's office that directly admitted it, in a previous blog post on that topic. There are other examples, too.

As part of a new Drug War Chronicle occasional series on victims of the war on drugs, we told the story of

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In a drama that has been played out all too many times across the country in recent years, the Justice Department's campaign against prescription drug abuse -- if you can call it that -- came in cr

As part of a new Drug War Chronicle occasional series on victims of the war on drugs, we told the story of Eric Sage back in November. Now, there are new developments.

On his way home to Nebraska after attending the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota last summer, Sage's motorcycle was pulled over by a highway patrolman. A pick-up truck accompanying also stopped, and when the patrolmen searched that vehicle, he found one of the passengers in possession of a pipe and a small amount of marijuana. Bizarrely, the patrolman charged not only the pick-up truck passengers but also Sage with possession of paraphernalia.

Unlike most people arrested on drug charges--even bogus ones--Sage refused to roll over. That prompted local prosecutors to threaten to charge him with "internal possession," a crime (so far) only in South Dakota, and a charge even less supported by the evidence (there was none) than the original paraphernalia charge. After repeated multi-hundred mile trips back to South Dakota for scheduled court hearings, Sage's charges mysteriously evaporated, with prosecutors in Pennington County lamely explaining that they had decided the charge should have been filed in another county.

Sage was a free man, but his freedom wasn’t free. Sage says his encounter with South Dakota justice cost him thousands of dollars, lost work days, and considerable stress. Now, he is seeking redress.

On Monday, Sage and South Dakota NORML announced that he had filed complaints with several South Dakota agencies and professional standards groups regarding the actions of the prosecutors, Pennington County (Rapid City) District Attorney Glenn Brenner and Assistant DA Gina Nelson, and the highway patrolman, Trooper Dave Trautman.

Sage accuses Trautman of improperly charging everyone present at the incident with possession of paraphernalia. He also accuses Trautman of concocting an arrest report long after the fact to support the new charge of internal possession. Sage accuses Assistant DA Nelson and her boss of prosecuting a case they knew was bogus and of threatening to convict him of an offense where they knew he was not guilty because he refused to plead to the original paraphernalia charge.

"They mugged me," Sage said. "They cost me $4000. I had to travel to Rapid City several times, I had to hire a lawyer, I missed work. It cost me three times as much to get them to drop a bogus charge as it would have cost me to say I was guilty of something I didn't do and pay their fines. They only quit when they ran out of clubs to hit me with."

Prosecutors didn't even have the courtesy to let him or his local attorney know they had finally dropped the charges, Sage said. "My lawyer called Gina Nelson several times to see if I needed to drive up on Nov. 21," he said. "She wouldn't return the calls. So when I got there, I found the charges had been dropped on the 16th. Gina had purposefully made me drive one more 500 mile round trip, for nothing."

Now, we'll see if the powers that be in South Dakota will bring the same dogged determination to seeing justice done in this case as they do to going after anybody who even looks like a small-time drug offender. You can read Sage's complaints to the South Dakota Department of Public Safety, the South Dakota Bar Association Disciplinary Committee, and the Pennington County Commission here.

Bill Day, 73, and the Bexar Area Harm Reduction Coalition have been doing unsanctioned needle exchanges in poor San Antonio neighborhoods for years, but this week, Day and two of the group's board

Thanks to a new state law that went into effect on September 1, law enforcement agencies in Texas now have the option of simply ticketing misdemeanor marijuana possession offenders instead of arres

Judges in Chicago's main Criminal Court Building at 26th and California hear some 28,000 felony cases a year, with each judge hearing about 800, or about four per judge per work day.

Marking his first year in office, Mexican President Felipe Calderón said Saturday that fighting the war on drugs and organized crime remained his highest priority.

special to Drug War Chronicle by Bob Newland

Drug policy made an ever-so-brief appearance at the tail end of Tuesday night's televised debate among Democratic presidential candidates, and the results were disappointing for drug reformers.

[Courtesy of EURODRUG]

Dear friends,

In the past days, there has been an escalation of repression by Italian police and justice authorities against cannabis growers and members of the anti-prohibitionist movement. Several people have been arrested for minor plantations, and one of them, Mr. Aldo Bianzino of Umbria, has died in prison under circumstances that could suggest he was tortured to death.

These operations take place on the bases of the Law Fini-Giovanardi, which has been adopted by the previous Berlusconi government. The current centre-left coalition had promised to modify it, but has not done so yet.

We have written an open letter to Italian authorities calling for an end to this escalation and a thorough investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Bianzino's death.

This letter can be signed and sent from http://www.encod.org/info/LETTER-TO-ITALIAN-AUTHORITIES.html

In Italian from http://www.encod.org/info/ALDO-BIANZINO-LETTERA-ALLE.html

Please join this action and ask others to do so as well....

Best wishes,

Joep

A watchdog group has criticized the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) for wasting man-hours and resources by arresting thousands of traffic violators, drug users, and other low-level offenders e