Even as medical marijuana distribution centers prepare to open in New Jersey, a Garden State MS patient who grew his own medicine is sadly preparing to spend the next five years in prison.
The BONG HiTS 4 JESUS case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and now, an Oregon professor has written all about it.
We are pleased to announce a major new section of the StoptheDrugWar.org web site. And we are seeking your support to continue to make it possible.
For the third year in a row, Angus Reid polling shows majority support for marijuana legalization. That is more optimistic than other national polls, but only slightly more optimistic.
First the Arizona governor and attorney general filed a federal lawsuit effectively stalling medical marijuana dispensaries. Now they've filed a state lawsuit to go after compassion clubs too.
Marijuana civil disobedience came to a Washington state courthouse last week. That's an idea that needs to spread!
CIA agents and US mercenaries stationed at a military base in northern Mexico are helping fight the drug cartels. And the killing continues...
The Israeli health ministry will begin overseeing medical marijuana production next year under an arrangement approved Sunday by the cabinet.
Britain's Liberal Democrats, junior partners in a governing coalition with the Conservatives, are set to call for drug decriminalization, a regulated marijuana market, and heroin maintenance.
A Houston man attempting to evade arrest on drug and other charges was shot and killed by Harris County deputies after he did -- or did not -- hit one of them with his vehicle while trying to flee. That's US drug war death #33 for the year.
One crooked sheriff gets indicted, while another cops a plea. Meanwhile, the border generates another three cases of corruption or thuggery.
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
New Jersey passed a medical marijuana law in January 2010 and, after delays, a series of alternative treatment centers (dispensaries) are set to open soon, but none of that has proven any help to multiple sclerosis sufferer and medical marijuana patient John Ray Wilson.
2009 courthouse demonstration
Wilson was convicted of growing 17 pot plants in 2009 after Superior Court Judge Robert Reed ruled that he could not mention his disease or that he used marijuana to control the symptoms of his disease in his defense. Left with no effective defense to offer, the unemployed, uninsured Wilson was convicted of the charge and sentenced to serve five years in state prison.
Wilson then appealed his sentence to the Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division. Late last month, he was turned down, with the appeals court ruling that it would not allow a medical use exemption to the charge of manufacturing marijuana.
Now, Wilson could be jailed any day. A judge is considering his request for bail to be granted while he pursues a final appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Wilson supporters and advocates are furious with a legal system that is rigorous about the letter of the law but heedless of humanity or the spirit of the law. They are especially embittered because Wilson's original trial, where medical doctors were prepared to testify to the medical benefits of marijuana for MS sufferers, took place at the same time as the public and legislative debates over medical marijuana, yet he was not allowed to raise the issue in his defense.
"To know that a safe and inexpensive herb like marijuana is able to relieve the pain and spasticity of MS and to actually arrest the progression of this incurable disease is a compelling reason to use it therapeutically," said Ken
Wolski, RN, of the
Coalition for Medical Marijuana-New Jersey (
CMMNJ). "It is an outrage that Wilson will spend many years in the prison system for this, especially since the law in New Jersey now specifically protects MS patients who use medical marijuana."
Under the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, patients with an ID card provided by the state Health Department are allowed to use marijuana with a physicians' recommendation. The law specifies a number of covered medical conditions, including multiple sclerosis.
As New Jersey and Pennsylvania marijuana activist Chris Goldstein noted at
Freedom Is Green, medical marijuana supporters and state
Sens. Raymond Lesniak and Nick Scutari jointly called on then-Gov. Jon Corzine (D) to pardon Wilson last year, to no avail. They are planning a similar appeal to
Gov. Chris Christie (R).
"They want to put a sick person away. It's not fair. It's sad," said Ray Wilson, John's father.
While Wilson awaits word on if and when he will be sent to prison, the operators of the six Alternative Treatment Centers have been given the go-ahead by
Gov. Christie to expedite their startups. They will soon be producing hundreds or even thousands of plants for New Jersey patients.
It's been a long time coming. After the bill became law in January 2010, it faced a new governor, Christie, who was much less favorably disposed toward medical marijuana. Christie's administration spent months drafting restrictive regulations, then months more fighting with the legislature and advocates over making them more patient-friendly. Earlier this year, Christie again put the program on hold, citing the potential threat of federal action against state employees, but in recent weeks, he gave the signal to proceed.
None of this has so far made any difference to the New Jersey courts when it comes to Wilson's case. Now, only the state Supreme Court is left, and barring a favorably decision there, a pardon from
Gov. Christie. And that compounds the anger of Wilson's supporters.
"Our system diligently and punctiliously adheres to the fine points of the law while rejecting any sense of compassion, no less actual justice," said attorney Ed
Hannaman, a
CMMNJ board member.
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BONG HiTS 4 JESUS: A Perfect Constitutional Storm in Alaska's Capital by James Foster (2011, University of Alaska Press, 373 pp., $29.95 PB)
In January 2002, as Olympic torchbearers making their way to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City jogged through the streets of Juneau, Alaska, past the local high school, a
troublemaking prankster of a high school student and some of his friends held up a 14-foot banner reading "BONG
HiTS 4 JESUS." The school principal, Deborah Morse, rushed over to the students, tore down the banner, and subsequently suspended the prankster, Joseph Frederick. Little did anyone imagine at the time that the far-off brouhaha would roil the community for years and that the controversy would end up at the US Supreme Court.
Oregon State University professor and student of judicial politics James Foster tells the tale of a case that has helped shape First Amendment jurisprudence in the exceptionally sticky milieu of student free speech rights and schools' rights to accomplish their educational missions. And while there is a plenty of fine-toothed examination of the high court's legal reasoning in
Morse v. Frederick, as the case came to be known, as well as related cases, there is a lot more to BONG
HiTS 4 JESUS than dry textual analysis.
When, on the first page of the first chapter of the book, the author references Japanese film director Akira
Kurosawa's classic 1950 film
Rashomon, the reader begins to get an inkling that this is going to be something of a ride. And so it is.
Foster sets up a story of conflicting narratives in a conflicted town in a conflicted time. Juneau, Alaska's capital city, is an isolated town in an isolated state, a liberal island of blue in a sea of red, a small town where the protagonists in local conflicts are likely to run into each other at the grocery store. That social and political context, and the hostilities it engendered, helped turn what began as a local imbroglio into a problem that could only be decided by the Supreme Court.
If Joseph Frederick had been less of an authority-challenged troublemaker, or if Principal Morse had had a better administrative style, the whole affair could have been handled as little more than a tempest in a teapot. Foster excels at explaining why that wasn't to be and how a disciplinary interaction between an educator and a student ends up as constitutional question before the highest court in the land.
Aside from the interpersonal and community context of the conflict and the case, Foster also excels at explaining the legal context, discussing at some length a line of cases about student rights running back to the seminal 1969 case,
Tinker v. Des Moines School Board, in which the court famously held, in Justice Abe
Fortas' words, that "Students… do not leave their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the school house gate." That case involved students wearing black arm bands to protest the Vietnam War.
But, as Foster makes abundantly clear,
Fortas' stirring -- and oft-cited -- proclamation was actually stronger than the court's own ruling in
Tinker, where it held that political ("symbolic") speech could not be constrained as long as it did not interfere with the educational mission of the school. And as his examination of the handful of key post-
Tinker cases relating to student rights demonstrates, the bright and shining rule of
Fortas' formulation has been quickly and relentlessly chipped away at by less friendly Supreme Courts.
Some of those cases were not First Amendment cases, but Fourth Amendment ones. The elements they had in common with
Morse were the scope of students' rights and adults' fears about drugs. In those two cases, conservative courts approved the use of warrantless,
suspicionless random drug testing, first of athletes and then of any students involved in extracurricular activities. As in other realms of law, the Supreme Court in those cases created a drug war-based exception to the Fourth Amendment when it comes to students, or, as Foster puts it, a "Fourth
Amendment-Lite."
Through close examination of oral arguments and the different written opinions in
Morse, Foster shows that the same concerns about student drug use weighed heavily on the minds of the justices, so much so that they were moved to decide against Frederick's free speech rights. The Roberts court was more afraid of a nonsense message that could -- with some contortions -- be construed as "pro-drug," than it was of eroding the freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment.
BONG HiTS 4 JESUS is not a book about drug policy, but it is one more demonstration of the way our
totalizing, all-encompassing war on drugs has deleterious effects far beyond those of which one commonly thinks. Really? We're going to trash the First Amendment because some kid wrote "bong hits" on a sign? Apparently, we are. We did.
There are some dense thickets of legal exegesis in
BONG HiTS 4 JESUS, and the book is likely to be of interest mainly to legal scholars, but Foster brings much more to bear here than mere eye-watering analysis. For those concerned with the way the war on drugs warps our lives and our laws, this book has much to offer.
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Dear drug policy reformer:
I am pleased to announce the new StoptheDrugWar.org Legislative Center. The Legislative Center can be accessed online here or by following the "Legislation" link from any page on our web site. The Legislative Center already includes:
- Info on hundreds of drug policy and related bills in Congress and the state legislatures, organized by issue category.
- An expanded set of federal action alerts. (State alerts coming next.)
- Legislative vote tallies and legislator voting records.
- Additional resources like a media outlet lookup, a basic how to guide for lobbying Congress and a voter registration tool.
Some of the highlights you'll find there:
- Legalization and decriminalization bills from 18 states and Congress.
- Zip code lookup of state legislators and US Representatives -- how they voted, their bios and histories, how to contact them.
- Alerts to take action on marijuana legalization, medical marijuana, sentencing reform, stopping new drug prohibitions and a commission to revamp the criminal justice system.
Please visit http://stopthedrugwar.org/donate to support this new and expanded part of our online publishing. We need your support in these challenging economic times to afford the legislative tracking and advocacy system that makes it possible for us to do this, and to continue to take further steps to expand our advocacy programs. StoptheDrugWar.org offers a range of books, videos and other items in thanks for donations above specified levels.
We also need volunteers. There's a lot of information in our Legislative Center now, but there is more that can be done -- finding any bills we may have missed, spotting new bills as they come out, tracking the legislation we know about, more. Please use our contact form or reply to this email to let us know if you'd like to get involved.
Thank you for being a part of changing drug policy, for the better!
Sincerely,
David Borden, Executive Director
StoptheDrugWar.org
Washington, DC
http://stopthedrugwar.org
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A majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana, according to a new poll from Angus Reid Public Opinion. The online survey of a representative sample of 1,003 American adults found that 55% supported legalizing marijuana, while 40% opposed it.
Majority support for legalization crossed all age lines, with young people (18-34) at 53%, middle aged people (35-54) at 57%, and seniors (55+) at 54%. Legalization also won majority support among Democrats (63%) and independents (61%), but not among Republicans (41%).
Support for marijuana legalization is reaching the tipping point. (image via Wikimedia)
Angus Reid polls in 2009 and last year also showed majority support for legalization, with 53% and 52%, respectively, but this year, support increased slightly. That's in line with, but also slightly more optimistic than other recent national polls.
The upward tick in support for freeing the weed has also been evidenced in other polls in the past year and a half, although the other polls have support for legalization hovering at just under 50%. In January, 2010, an
ABC News/Washington Post poll had support at 46%; in April, 2010, a
Pew poll had it at 41%. By last July,
Rasmussen showed it at 43%. In November, a
Gallup poll had support for legalization at 46%, its highest level ever and a 15 percentage point increase over just a decade ago. Some of these polls showed majority support for legalization in the West, which is likely to be put to the test in 2012.
While there was majority support for marijuana legalization, there was little support for legalizing other drugs. The poll asked about legalizing cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and ecstasy, and none of them reached even 10% support.
But if there was little support for broad drug legalization, there was also very little enthusiasm for the "war on drugs." Only 9% of respondents believed the war on drugs was a success, while 67% said it had failed.
These last numbers suggest that Americans may be open to an alternative to current drug policy approaches, but have yet to embrace legalization as
the alternative.
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Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne filed a lawsuit Monday asking a state court to close down "compassion clubs" where medical marijuana patients pay a fee to become members and in return obtain their medicine. The civil suit seeks both a temporary and a permanent injunction to shut them down.
Although some 6,000 Arizonans are registered as medical marijuana patients under the voter-approved law, no dispensaries are operating because state officials have put that portion of the law on hold while
Gov. Jan Brewer's federal lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment on the legality of the dispensary language moves forward. Lawyers for the US government last week filed a motion to have that suit dismissed.
The compassion clubs sprung up as a response to pent up patient demand. Now, Horne wants to shut down that distribution avenue, too.
The clubs "falsely claim to be operating lawfully under the
Arizona Medical Marijuana Act," Horne said in a press release Monday. The law does not provide protection to entities that are not registered as nonprofit medical marijuana dispensaries, he argued.
"The law permits one card holder to give marijuana to another card holder. But is does not permit the activities of these defendants, who charge fees to members. These private entities and individuals are in no way permitted to legally transfer marijuana to anybody," Horne said. "The operators of these clubs claim that they are protected under the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act when they are not registered as non-profit medical marijuana dispensaries as required under that law. These people are marketing themselves as being able to lawfully transfer marijuana, and that type of deception and blatantly illegal activity must be stopped."
But what the law says is that registered patients face no penalties for "
...offering or providing marijuana to a registered qualifying patient or a registered designated caregiver for the registered qualifying patient's medical use... if nothing of value is transferred in return and the person giving the marijuana does not knowingly cause the recipient to possess more than the allowable amount of marijuana."
The clubs operate by charging qualified patients a token membership fee, which then allows patients to make donations and obtain marijuana that is "gifted" by other members of the club. Whether the Maricopa County Superior Court will agree with Attorney General Horne or with the clubs remains to be seen, but one club operator said he welcomed the move.
"I want the courts to weigh in and make a decision," said Al
Sobol of the 2811 Club, one of the businesses named in the lawsuit. But Horne's statement that his club was guilty of "deception" made him bristle. "What's deceptive is when the state gives you a card, charges you $150 for it, then makes it so you have no way of using it," he told the
Phoenix New Times. Horne and
Gov. Jan Brewer are "abusing their authority," he added.
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Enough already! That was the message Olympia, Washington, resident Dana Walker sent to the Thurston County Superior Court last Friday when, in an act of civil disobedience, he refused to pay fines for past marijuana offenses and demanded to be sent to jail instead. He got his wish and is currently behind bars awaiting sentencing, but the local criminal justice system is going to be out several thousand dollars, and Walker is going to be able to look himself in the eye and know he didn't back down before the pot prohibition laws.
Could this man be the Rosa Parks of the marijuana legalization movement? (Image: Dana Walker)
Walker has been arrested on marijuana charges on numerous occasions and has served time in the federal prison system for pot. After finally being freed from the feds' leash, he told supporters on a
Dana Goes to Jail! Facebook page he set up for the event that he had had enough.
"Have you ever wanted to go into a courtroom and honestly tell the judge and prosecutor what you think of their marijuana laws?" Walker wrote. "I have a golden opportunity to do just that and I plan to take full advantage. Those of you who personally know me know I am fully capable of turning righteous indignation into an entertaining show, and I plan to pull out all stops on this one," he explained.
"I owe Thurston County over $3,000 for a marijuana charge from back in 1997," he said. "I am currently unemployed, I am not a fan of hot weather, and I wouldn't mind at all spending a few weeks in jail just for the opportunity to tell a court where they can stick their laws."
Walker said that if enough other people followed his example, they could clog the gears of the drug war punishment apparatus.
"If everyone throws a few shovels full of dirt into the cogs of the Machine then the Machine can't function," he explained. "If even a relatively insignificant number of criminal defendants demanded full jury trials and court-appointed attorneys and then refused to pay any fines then the entire prison-industrial complex would implode.
His action was also for his own good, he said.
Dana Walker outside the Thurston County Jail wearing a "Stop Snitchin'" shirt. (Image: Dana Walker)
"I am also fulfilling a psychological need to take back control of my life," Walker said. "I highly resent the fact that I have been forced by circumstance to kiss their evil asses for over a decade and I will now have my say. I am a keen patron of irony and I LOVE the fact that I am going to reclaim my freedom by going to jail."
Last Friday morning, Walker
did have his say. Here is his statement, which was read into the record, in its entirety:
"I am an active and contributing member of my community and I have earned the respect and admiration of large numbers of the people in my community and I hate to admit it as it goes against my 'outlaw' image, but I even obey the traffic laws.
"In spite of all this I now have four felony convictions and three misdemeanor convictions, all for marijuana; I have spent over six years of my life incarcerated in a federal prison and four years on federal probation over marijuana, and Thurston County now wants me to pay a fine of $2,010 for marijuana plus $1,754 in interest on that fine that was accrued as I sat in a federal prison all those years.
"Since I have been smoking marijuana on a regular basis for over 40 years now and suffered no ill effects of any kind whatsoever that I am aware of, since I consider this state's marijuana laws to be an unacceptable, unconstitutional, and outrageous infringement upon my personal liberty, since I love smoking marijuana and I intend to continue smoking marijuana at any time that I darned well please, and since making someone like me into a criminal over marijuana is insane and stupid; then today I am placing the State of Washington on notice that from this point forward I will not only never again pay the state to prosecute me for marijuana but that I intend to make it as expensive to prosecute me for marijuana as I possibly can -- and since I have been in the system for a long time I know how to do that.
"I would also like to point out that the feds had me under their thumb for over 10 years and they did not break me -- and as of a few days ago I am no longer under that thumb. And so today I am celebrating and reclaiming my freedom by informing the state that since I will no longer pay your fines and since I no longer fear your jails then -- as far as marijuana goes -- you no longer have any power over me and that in fact the stick is now in my hand."
Thurston County Superior Court Judge Gary Tabor was not amused. "If I had known what you were going to say, I wouldn't have let you make the statement," he said. "Once you got started I didn't want to be rude and interrupt you."
He then ordered Walker handcuffed and sent to jail pending sentencing. That was supposed to happen this week, but there is no word yet.
Thanks to
Toke of the Town for the heads up.
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by Bernd Debusmann Jr.
Mexican drug trafficking organizations make billions each year smuggling drugs into the United States, profiting enormously from the prohibitionist drug policies of the US government. Since Mexican president Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 and called the armed forces into the fight against the so-called cartels, prohibition-related violence has killed around 40,000 people, including more than 15,000 last year. The increasing militarization of the drug war and the arrest or killing of dozens of high-profile drug traffickers have failed to stem the flow of drugs -- or the violence -- whatsoever. The Merida initiative, which provides $1.4 billion over three years for the US to assist the Mexican government with training, equipment and intelligence, has so far failed to make a difference. Here are a few of the latest developments in Mexico's drug war:
All the drug busts in Mexico don't seem to make a difference. (image via Wikimedia)
In
Jalisco,
six charred bodies were discovered by police in a flaming SUV. All six had apparently been tortured or mutilated before being set on fire, which is indicative of cartel-related violence.
Jalisco is home to several cartels, including the
Sinaloa Cartel and the
Jalisco Cartel New Generation (
CJNG).
Friday, August 5
In Ascension, Chihuahua,
the entire 26-man police force quit for fear of their lives after two local police officers were killed earlier in the week. Their duties are now being taken over by state and federal police forces and by army patrols.
Saturday, August
In the Monterrey suburb of San Nicolas de
las Garza,
five young men between the ages of 17 and 20 were found murdered and dumped on a sidewalk. Police said the victims all had the "look of gang members," but this has not yet been confirmed. Police are investigating to see whether the men were killed elsewhere and then dumped where they were found, as only one bullet casing was discovered at the scene.
In
Ciudad Juarez,
a high-ranking police commander responsible for the city's downtown area was shot dead near the International Bridge to the US. Victor
Nazario Moreno Ramirez, 32, was in his vehicle when it was boxed in by four vehicles full of gunmen who opened fire. Police discovered 420 spent shell casings at the scene, mostly from AK-47's. Another passenger was seriously wounded. Moreno had previously been in command of an elite unit of the municipal police responsible for special operations and responding to high-impact crime.
Sunday, August 7
In
Ciudad Juarez,
an El Paso woman was murdered in front of her 4-year old daughter. Stephanie Marie Lozano was sitting in a car with her boyfriend outside his home when gunmen arrived in a truck and shot them both dead. Her daughter
Hailie was in the backseat and was not shot, but apparently suffered powder burns from gunpowder. Witnesses indicate that police did not chase the assailants car even though it continued to drive around the area. It also appears as if Juarez police told Lozano's family they would not be investigating and should simply consider it a tragic event.
Near Guadalajara,
a 13-year old girl was taken into custody after a fire fight and allegedly admitted to working for the
Zetas. The girl, identified only by her alias, "Pearl," told police that she was paid $325 dollars every two weeks to act as a "hawk," which is cartel slang for a look-out that reports on the movement of authorities and other enemies. She is the latest in a string of high-profile cases involving extremely young people who have become involved in cartel activities. The most famous, Edgar Jimenez
Lugo, 14, is currently serving a three-year sentence for his participation in the torture and murder of four people who were found hanging from a bridge between Mexico City and Acapulco.
In Mexico City,
the office of the chief federal security spokesman acknowledged that US agents participate in intelligence analysis and information exchange with Mexican security forces in Mexico. Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that CIA agents and former American military personnel are working on some Mexican military bases and that the government has considered using private contractors for security operations inside Mexico.
Monday, August 8
In Mexico City,
the government announced that 172 municipalities will not be receiving federal anti-crime assistance money because they have not shown any progress in improving the training or quality of local police forces. Among the places being cut off from federal funding are the cities of
Ciudad Juarez,
Reynosa, and Nuevo Laredo, which have all experienced extremely high levels of drug-related crime.
Also in Mexico City,
SEDENA announced the results of a 20-day military operation across the states of
Coahuila, San Luis
Potosi,
Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. "Operation Northern Lynx" resulted in the deaths of 30 suspects and the arrest of 196 more, as well as the seizure of over 1,200 weapons and 3.3 tons of marijuana and 260 vehicles. Twelve kidnap victims were also rescued. Soldiers participating in the operation came under fire 21 times, resulting in the death of one soldier and wounding 21 others.
Tuesday, August 9
In
Michoacan,
the bullet-riddled bodies of four police officers and two civilians were found. The officers, two of whom were women, had all been reported missing Saturday in the neighboring state of
Colima. The motive is currently unknown.
In Mexico City,
a judge blocked the extradition of a high-ranking female cartel boss, Sandra Beltran
Leyva, who is known as the "Queen of the Pacific," to the United States on organized crime, drug trafficking and money laundering charges for which she was acquitted. She has been in custody since her arrest in 2007, and it is unclear if this means she will now be released. She still faces a money laundering charge.
Wednesday, August 10
In the city of Chihuahua, a former police chief was assassinated as he ate at an Applebee’s Restaurant. Jose Refugio Ruvulcaba Plascencia was police chief in Chihuahua in the late 1990’s and in Ciudad Juarez in 2003.
In Ciudad Juarez, a transit police officer was run down by gunmen and shot dead.
Total Body Count for 2007 (approx.): 4,300
Total Body Count for 2008 (approx.): 5,400
Total Body Count for 2009 (approx.): 9,600
Total Body Count for 2010 (official): 15,273
Total Body Count for 2011: (approx.): 6,700
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The Israeli cabinet Sunday gave its approval to medical marijuana guidelines that will govern the supply of marijuana for medical and research purposes. In so doing, it explicitly agreed that marijuana does indeed have medical uses.
(image courtesy irxmj.org)
"The cabinet today approved arrangements and supervision regarding the supply of cannabis for medical and research uses," said a
statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman. "This is in recognition that the medical use of cannabis is necessary in certain cases. The Health Ministry will -- in coordination with the Israel Police and the Israel Anti-Drug Authority -- oversee the foregoing and will also be responsible for supplies from imports and local cultivation."
The cabinet move comes on the heels of the Health Ministry's decision last week to deal with supply problems by setting up a unit within the department to grow medical marijuana. That unit will begin operating in January 2012.
The Health Ministry also decided that the country's medical marijuana supply should be domestically produced. Israeli police had lobbied for medical marijuana to be imported instead, in a bid to reduce diversion.
Israel currently has about 6,000 medical marijuana patients, but the program is so popular that there are estimates that number could rise to 40,000 by 2016. Medical marijuana for existing patients is currently provided by private Israeli growers.
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The British Liberal Democratic Party, junior partner in a coalition government with the Conservatives, is expected to pass a motion calling for an independent panel to study the decriminalization of the possession of all illicit drugs and for a regulated marijuana market, according to various British press reports. The motion is to be voted on at the party's annual conference next month.
The motion also calls for the inquiry to review the impact of the Misuse of Drugs Act and whether the government should seriously consider heroin maintenance programs. It cites the success of the Portuguese decriminalization model, as well as the call for reform from the
Global Commission on Drug Policy, and the findings of Britain's own
Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which called for the decriminalization of drug possession during the national review of drug strategy last year.
Aides to Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democratic Party head Nick Clegg told the
Daily Mail they expected party members to approve the motion next month, making it official policy and putting the Lib
Dems at odds with their Conservative partners.
But
The Guardian reported that Lib
Dems believe Prime Minister David Cameron and Home Secretary Theresa May can be persuaded to allow an open-minded inquiry into the controversial topic. Earlier in his political career Cameron called for drug legalization, but he has since retreated from that position.
"There is increasing evidence that the UK's drugs policy is not only ineffective and not cost effective, but actually harmful, impacting particularly severely on the poor and marginalized," the motion said, citing "the need for evidence-based policy making on drugs with a clear focus on prevention and harm reduction."
The motion also calls for the inquiry to "examine heroin maintenance clinics in Switzerland and the Netherlands which have delivered great health benefits for addicts and considerable reductions in drug-related crime."
Even if the motion is passed, it is unlikely to become law. Its proposals will be opposed not only by the Tories, but also by Labor, which briefly entertained a dalliance with lessening penalties for marijuana before doing a U-turn on the issue in the face of public and political pressure. But passage of the motion would mean that one of Britain's major political parties is now lining up behind serious drug reform efforts.
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[Editor's Note: This year, Drug War Chronicle is trying to track every death directly attributable to domestic drug law enforcement during the year. We can use your help. If you come across a news account of a killing related to drug law enforcement, please send us an email at [email protected].]
A Houston, Texas, man attempting to evade US marshals seeking to arrest him on drug and other warrants was shot and killed by a Harris County sheriff's deputy last Friday afternoon. The man, as yet unnamed, becomes
the 33rd person to be killed in US domestic drug law enforcement operations so far this year.
According to
Sky 2 News, citing law enforcement sources, a bounty hunter had tracked the man to a local motel and the US Marshals Service then tried to stop him, but he managed to escape. The man, driving a Nissan Cube, was cornered by deputies on Highway 6 at West Road.
According to
KHOU 11 News, citing deputies on the scene, after they pulled over the vehicle, the driver started driving, hit one deputy, and tried to flee the scene. The deputies, "fearing for their lives," riddled the car with bullets, mortally wounding the driver, who sped through an intersection, then crashed into a curb. He died shortly thereafter at a local hospital.
Two deputies were injured in the incident, one who had his foot run over while directing traffic after the shooting and one was injured in a traffic accident en route to the scene. The deputy allegedly hit by the fleeing vehicle was apparently uninjured.
One man who saw the shooting go down said the driver did not actually hit a deputy, but "almost" did.
"I seen that cop turn his lights on and get behind the car, and I guess the car wouldn't stop. Actually, he almost ran over one of the cops and then they took fire on him. Boom, boom, boom, boom -- they shot out all the windows. I guess he got hit, and he ended up where he ended up," witness Moe Alyson told Sky 2 News.
KHOU 11 News reported that the man's wife later showed up the scene, where she was informed that he was dead. Deputies said the man knew he was being watched and told his wife he would soon be dead.
He was being pursued for at least four warrants, including drug possession, escape, and assault on his wife.
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One crooked sheriff gets indicted, while another cops a plea. Meanwhile, the border generates another three cases of corruption or thuggery. Let's get to it:
The lure of drug prohibition's filthy lucre proves corrosive to honest law enforcement. (image via Wikimedia)
In Shreveport, Louisiana,
the Winn Parish sheriff was indicted August 2 on charges he helped his girlfriend cover up methamphetamine deals. Sheriff
A.D. "
Bodie" Little is one of 11 people charged with dealing meth in the Winn Parish and Shreveport areas. A state trooper testified that Little came under investigation by a joint state-federal task force after he asked the Caddo Parish sheriff to get a task force together to investigate Winn Parish drug dealers. The trooper testified that "it's clear he wanted everyone arrested except his girlfriend." Little has pleaded not guilty and was set to be released on $100,000 bond sometime this week.
In Carlisle, Kentucky,
the Nicholas County sheriff pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing asset forfeiture money. Sheriff Dick Garrett was accused of taking more than $43,000 from the forfeiture account and and using at least $10,000 to pay his homeowners insurance and pay off personal loans. He pleaded guilty to theft by unlawful taking and abuse of public trusts. A jury had recommended five years in prison on each charge. Garrett will have to pay restitution of $38,237.60 within five years and resign immediately as sheriff. He will be sentenced in November.
In Phoenix,
two Border Patrol agents were indicted August 4 on charges they forced accused drug smugglers to eat marijuana and flee barefoot and nearly naked into the desert. Agents Dario Castillo, 23, and Ramon
Zuniga, 29, were charged with five civil rights violations by a federal grand jury in Tucson stemming from the November 2008 incident. According to prosecutors, the pair caught four men taking part in a marijuana smuggling operation. They forced the men to eat some of the weed and strip down to their underwear, burning their outer clothes and shoes and socks, then told them to flee into the desert night, where the temperature was around 40 degrees. Prosecutors said the actions deprived the four men of their civil rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. The two face 10 years each on the civil rights charges, while Castillo faces up to 20 years for a count of witness tampering.
In Laredo, Texas,
a former Laredo police officer was sentenced August 4 to 6 ½ years in prison for helping a drug trafficker move and store cocaine. Pedro Martinez III, 34, agreed to escort loads of cocaine in exchange for payment from undercover FBI and
BATF agents he thought were smugglers and recruited fellow officer Orlando Hale to help out. He escorted three loads and Hale escorted two, with the pair receiving $1,000 for each load. The undercover agents also persuaded Martinez to lead them to a cocaine supplier, who has already pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and awaits sentencing. Martinez testified against Hale when Hale took his case to trial last year. Hale lost and got 24 ½ years. Martinez pleaded to bribery charges.
In Laredo, Texas,
a Webb County deputy constable was arrested Monday by FBI agents on charges he acted as an escort for a cocaine trafficker. Eduardo Garcia, 44, was indicted for escorting loads of cocaine through Laredo for a local trafficker for $500 a pop. Unfortunately for Garcia, the trafficker became a DEA informant and flipped on him, allowing the DEA to record meetings where they would discuss load arrangements. Garcia, wearing his badge and driving a law enforcement van, would escort the loads through the city. The snitch also asked Garcia to run a pair of license plates through a state law enforcement data base, which he did. He's looking at up to 20 years in prison on three bribery charges and five more on one count of unauthorized access to protected computer information.
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August 15, 1988: In his acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention, George Herbert Walker Bush states, "I want a drug-free America. Tonight, I challenge the young people of our country to shut down the drug dealers around the world... My Administration will be telling the dealers, 'Whatever we have to do, we'll do, but your day is over. You're history.'"
August 11, 1991: After ten months of extensive research, the Pittsburgh Press begins a six-day series chronicling what it calls "a frightening turn in the war on drugs": seizure and forfeiture doing enormous collateral damage to the innocent.
August 16, 1996: While visiting San Francisco, US drug czar Barry
McCaffrey claims to media, "There is not a shred of scientific evidence that shows that smoked marijuana is useful or needed. This is not science. This is not medicine. This is a cruel hoax and sounds more like something out of a
Cheech and Chong show." Advocates later point out that there is in fact scientific evidence supporting medical marijuana.
August 12, 1997: The US Justice Department announces that there will be no indictments issued in the killing of
Esequiel Hernandez,
Jr., an 18-year-old American citizen killed by US Marines on an anti-drug patrol while he was herding goats near the border town of Redford, Texas. Lt. General Carlton W.
Fulford, who conducted an internal military review of the incident, said the killing might not have happened at all had civilian law enforcement agencies been patrolling the border.
August 13, 1998: Reuters reports that the US repeatedly scandalized the Colombian presidency of Ernesto
Samper with allegations that he had used drug money from anti-American groups to fund his 1994 presidential campaign, and eventually the US used that as an excuse to decertify Colombia and withdraw foreign aid.
August 17, 1999: CNN reports that federal authorities say they are sweeping up the last few indicted members of a major drug trafficking network that shipped tons of mostly Colombian cocaine and marijuana throughout the United States. Nearly 100 suspects have been indicted in "Operation Southwest Express" and 77 have been arrested in raids in 14 cities.
August 14, 2002: Twelve hundred medical marijuana patients, many suffering from life-threatening illnesses, lose their supply of medicine when Ontario police raid the Toronto Compassion Centre.
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