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As the calendar flips over to a new year, law enforcement and the mass media have been trumpeting an increase in law enforcement line of duty deaths, which will doubtless be used to seek more funding for more, better-armed cops. Last year, 187 law enforcement personnel died in the line of duty, up from 145 the year before. Of those, nearly half (82) died in traffic accidents, while another 61 were shot and killed (including at least two accidentally shot by fellow officers). Another seven armed forces law enforcement personnel died in bomb attacks in Iraq, two law enforcement personnel fell to their deaths, at least two died of heart attacks during training exercises, and one died of a wasp sting. The police repeatedly warn that they face grave danger from drug dealers, necessitating the resort to SWAT-style policing on routine drug raids. But according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, the most comprehensive listing of police fatalities we know of, a grand total of five police officers died enforcing the drug laws last year: a Tennessee highway patrolman killed when he pulled over some Texas teens with a carload of marijuana; a Toledo, Ohio, detective killed when he attempted to break up a street drug deal; a Dallas cop killed in a confrontation with a suspect in a murder at a drug house; a Puerto Rico cop killed trying to make a drug arrest; and a Rialto, California, cop killed while executing a drug search warrant. Given an estimated 1.8 million drug arrests last year (that figure is actually from 2006; expect it to go slightly for 2007 as it does every year), that comes out to one police officer killed in every 360,000 drug arrests. I'll be writing a feature article this week on the dangers of drug law enforcement. Look for more details on these deaths, as well as an examination of the need for SWAT-style policing on routine drug raids.

Surrey mayor Dianne Watts is in the news again (big surprise) demanding a drug court for Surrey. She's totally pissed about the time it takes to put one together and is tired of waiting for her turn. Mayor Watts failed to inform anyone when she received her medical degree.

Another young man was shot in the head outside a down town nightclub. It is not known what the cause or why the killing. There's still a shooting a day going down. The perpetrators are not professional as before and many can't shoot straight.

I may not write much on this blog as I have several others and am working on promoting my book, but I did want to say a few things. I have fibromyalgia, and while this isn't AIDS or cancer the pain is awful some days. Could marijuana help me? I don't know and I don't dare find out because I fear the police raiding my home if I apply for medical marijuana. Being bipolar I can be paranoid at times but this isn't paranoia--people who are medical marijuana users have had their homes invaded. I shudder when I hear of the terrible way they have been treated. Often they are very ill. This kind of trauma is more than they can bear.

Radley Balko pointed out on The Agitator that the Lima, Ohio, SWAT team's web site had an animated gif on it which seemed to fire into the faces of web site visitors: Check out Google's cached copy of the page here to see it in context. Since they killed 26-year-old Tarika Wilson, an innocent mother of six, and maimed her youngest son, a one-year-old, they've taken the violent image off of the site, though. It's not hard to see why they "went in shooting" to her home, as Wilson's sister described it. A policing, SWAT team culture that would allow such an image to go on their own official home page, is a culture that is simply prone to reckless, "cowboy" behavior. Frankly, it seems like they were having a little too much fun being a SWAT team. As the saying goes, "it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye." This time it was a life that was lost, and a child's finger. But it was never fun for the people on the other end. According to the web page, the Lima SWAT team conducts about 50 raids a year, about once a week. I looked up the city's population to try and get a sense of how much that is, and it's a mere 38,219 (estimate July '06). That's bigger than Mayberry, but it's not a metropolis by any means. So I think that one SWAT raid a week there is a huge number. One would think one was living in Baghdad, for such extreme measures to be used once a week in a jurisdiction that size. The page says that most of the raids were on crack houses. There's the explanation -- they are using the SWAT team not for the extreme or emergency situations that SWAT is meant for, but on routine drug enforcement. The federal government is probably funding them on a per-arrest basis. I can't imagine it's pleasant to live near a crack house. But the overwhelming majority of crack houses don't have drug kingpins or terrorists hiding in them. The appropriate approach is to knock and announce, wait an appropriate amount of time, and then if the door hasn't been opened, to force it open but to do so cautiously. (Actually the appropriate approach is to put the crack houses out of business through legalization, but that's another issue.) Drug dealers are not in the business to kill cops and become the most hunted fugitives on the planet. Drug dealers are trying to make money. Police don't need to enter in dramatic and sudden force to protect their lives. The dealers aren't going to shoot them, they're going to try to disappear or hide or dispose of the evidence. Last year we looked into police officer fatalities doing drug enforcement, and out of two million drug arrests per year we could only find four of them in all of 2006, with only two of those directly related to drug arrests. In the rare situations when you need a SWAT team, it's important that it be there for you. Lima's almost two hours from the nearest big city, Columbus, so maybe they should have their own. But I can only say maybe, partly because there would be at least one more living person in Lima now if they didn't. They certainly shouldn't be using it 50 times a year. PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION TO STOP THE DEADLY SWAT RAIDS.

Last night, before Fox's debate, Ron Paul was brought onto Wolf's show on CNN and accused of being a racist - based upon a few articles written in a newsletter over 15 years ago - articles that Ron Paul didn't write, has apologized for in the past, and his record clearly shows are against his principles.

Voters have a choice of two candidates who will decriminalize marijuana - Dennis Kucinich (Democrat) and Ron Paul (Republican). If all the rest of the candidates seem pretty much the same to you, why not VOTE for the candidate who will improve YOUR life? GET VOTE KUCINICH OR PAUL T-SHIRTS ON EBAY FOR 99 CENTS!

The court ruled today that it was against the charter of rights and freedoms for the government to hold a patent on the growing of medical marijuana in Canada. This should open the door to growing of medical marijuana by any one that thinks they have a superior product.

Concerns about stoned drivers careening across our nation's highways are frequently cited as a justification for the continued criminalization of marijuana. Given the massive casualties associated with drunk driving, it's easy to understand how the specter of increased roadside fatalities can be effective in reinforcing negative attitudes about marijuana. However, a new report reveals that, while stoned driving isn't smart, it's hardly the death sentence some would have us believe.

NORML's Paul Armentano has prepared a scientific review of over a dozen studies evaluating marijuana's effect on psychomotor skills and the risks posed by marijuana intoxication behind the wheel. Armentano finds that marijuana impairment is generally "subtle and short-lived," falling far short of the threats posed by drunk driving.

Although acute cannabis intoxication following smoking has been shown to mildly impair psychomotor skills, this impairment is seldom severe or long lasting. In closed course and driving simulator studies, marijuana’s acute effects on psychomotor performance include minor impairments in tracking (eye movement control) and reaction time, as well as variation in lateral positioning, headway (drivers under the influence of cannabis tend to follow less closely to the vehicle in front of them), and speed (drivers tend to decrease speed following cannabis inhalation). In general, these variations in driving behavior are noticeably less consistent or pronounced than the impairments exhibited by subjects under the influence of alcohol. Also, unlike subjects impaired by alcohol, individuals under the influence of cannabis tend to be aware of their impairment and try to compensate for it accordingly, either by driving more cautiously or by expressing an unwillingness to drive altogether. [see original for citations]

Of course, the point here isn’t that one should get stoned and cruise the strip blasting Led Zeppelin. But this is information one would want if they were trying to create a smart marijuana policy as opposed to the disgraceful mess of legislative lunacy currently passing for marijuana law in America.

Whenever someone claims that marijuana makes you sick or crazy; that it will cause you to crash your car, kill your comrades, or catastrophically co-opt your common sense, just look for the corpses. Where are they? I've looked high and low, but I can't find the disastrous consequences of marijuana use apparent anywhere other than the Drug Czar's predictably propagandized press releases.

But to be fair, there are two horrible things about marijuana that everyone should be mindful of and they are as follows: 1) the smell attracts cops, nosy neighbors, and mooches and 2) the stuff remains detectable in your system for up to a month, thereby enabling various authorities to become needlessly aware of your activities.

If not for these two unfortunate conditions, the marijuana war wouldn't even begin to work, and the blockheads who've been bothering to fight it would've wandered off decades ago.