Resource: Reformer's Calendar Accessible Through DRCNet Web Site
Visit our new web site each day to see a running countdown to the events coming up the soonest, and more.
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Resource: DRCNet Web Site Offers Wide Array of RSS Feeds for Your Reader
A new way for you to receive DRCNet articles -- Drug War Chronicle and more -- is now available.
Chronicle
Weekly: Blogging @ the Speakeasy
"Traffickers Are Hiring Flat-chested Women to Smuggle Drugs in Their Bras, "Texas Cop Says 'Put Addicts in Jail Where They Belong,'" "New Deputy Drug Czar: 'We Have One Year Left,'" "FOX News Bars Drug Policy Discussion From the Republican Debates by Excluding Ron Paul," "You Can't Protect the Children's Futures by Putting Them in Jail for Marijuana."
Chronicle
Students: Intern at DRCNet and Help Stop the Drug War!
Apply for an internship at DRCNet for this fall (or spring), and you could spend the semester fighting the good fight!
Chronicle
Appeal: DRCNet Made Amazing Progress in 2007 and We Need Your Help for 2008
An outline of DRCNet's plans and recent accomplishments and an appeal for your support to make it all happen.
Chronicle
Weekly: This Week in History
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
Chronicle
Death Penalty: Iran, Vietnam Ring In New Year With More Executions, Death Sentences
Iran rang in the new year by hanging three drug offenders, and Vietnam sentenced eight more to die.
Chronicle
Pain Medicine: Emergency Room Doctors More Likely to Prescribe Opioids to Whites Than Minorities
If you're in pain at a hospital emergency room, you're more likely to get the medication you need if you're white, a new study has found.
Chronicle
Marijuana: Despite Law Allowing Ticketing for Pot Possession, Most Texas Counties Still Arrest
The Texas legislature last year gave local law enforcement the option of ticketing misdemeanor marijuana offenders instead of arresting them, but only Travis County has gone for it.
Chronicle
Harm Reduction: DC Quick to Move After Congress Lifts Needle Exchange Funding Ban
Less than two weeks after Congress finally removed a decade-old ban on the District of Columbia using its own money to fund needle exchanges, District officials announced they would spend $650,000 to expand existing program and start new ones.
Chronicle
Europe: British Police Chief Stirs Controversy With Claims That Drugs Will Be Legal in Ten Years, Ecstasy Is Safer Than Aspirin
North Wales Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom is at it again. The veteran critic of drug prohibition has stirred up a hornet's nest with his latest comments, including one that ecstasy is "safer than aspirin."
Chronicle
Feature: What We Will Be Watching at Drug War Chronicle in 2008
It's a new year, but there are lots of ongoing issues for the Chronicle to cover. Here's a look at what we think we'll be writing about in 2008.
Chronicle
Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cop Stories
A crooked Florida cop seeks a sentence cut, and two more jail guards get in trouble.
Chronicle
Editorial: The Drug War Has Many Constants, But is No Constant
Some of the drug war's issues are bitter constants. But when the time is ripe, the changes we are working for will come to be.
Blog
Texas Cop Says "Put Addicts in Jail Where They Belong"
Usually, drug warriors at least pay lip service to the idea that we're supposed to be helping people recover from addiction. Drug war supporters frequently feign compassion by touting their support for drug treatment, all the while defending policies that trash the lives of users and make recovery that much harder.
But today, I found a drug warrior that's willing to say what the rest are probably thinking. His name is Wayne C. Williams and he's been putting drug users in jail for 32 years. Williams was so disturbed by an op-ed from former cop/drug policy reformer Howard Wooldridge that he wrote a crazy letter to the Amarillo Globe News complaining that drug addicts don't get punished enough:
In the war on drugs, one can be diagnosed with the disease of drug addiction merely by being found in possession of drugs. At that point, one is then broken down and stripped of their family and property. They are removed from their job and their home, banished into a dark brutal hole amongst violent thugs and sociopaths, and once every last thing they have has been taken away, they are asked to start acting normal.
It's really a perfect mess as far as public policies go, which is why it's so damned hard to find a defender of the drug war who isn't paid to participate in it.
But today, I found a drug warrior that's willing to say what the rest are probably thinking. His name is Wayne C. Williams and he's been putting drug users in jail for 32 years. Williams was so disturbed by an op-ed from former cop/drug policy reformer Howard Wooldridge that he wrote a crazy letter to the Amarillo Globe News complaining that drug addicts don't get punished enough:
Too many people use rehabilitation as a way to stay out of jail or prison.Rarely does one find the sheer cruelty of the drug war expressed with such unabashed self-righteousness. This man is literally insisting that we must smash victims of drug addiction in order to demonstrate the harms of drug use. It just tells you everything you need to know about the drug war and the people who carry it out on a daily basis.
A person hooked on drugs won't get clean for his family, but only when he hits rock bottom and wants help for himself.
Put addicts in jail where they belong and ease up on the probation, which usually is a joke in itself. [Amarillo.com]
In the war on drugs, one can be diagnosed with the disease of drug addiction merely by being found in possession of drugs. At that point, one is then broken down and stripped of their family and property. They are removed from their job and their home, banished into a dark brutal hole amongst violent thugs and sociopaths, and once every last thing they have has been taken away, they are asked to start acting normal.
It's really a perfect mess as far as public policies go, which is why it's so damned hard to find a defender of the drug war who isn't paid to participate in it.
In The Trenches
Drug Truth Network Update 1/3/08: Cultural Baggage + Century of Lies
Drug Truth Network Update: Cultural Baggage + Century of Lies
Half Hour Programs, Live Tuesdays & Wednesdays... at 90.1 FM in Houston & on the web at www.kpft.org.
NOTE: We now feature built in PodCasts, Searchability, Syndication Features and soon Transcripts of our half hour programs!
Cultural Baggage for 01/02/08 Matt Elrod of DrugSense discusses DTN's new website, drug policy reform, segment from Drug Policy panel with Carol Shipiro of Family Justice & Suzanne Mayo of Kansas State + Drug War Facts & Poppygate Report
MP3 LINK: http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/?q=audio/download/1709/FDBCB_010208.mp3
Century of Lies for 01/01/08 - Kathleen Kane Willis Drug Panel: Against the odds, reversing the personal and cultural impact of incarceration with Silja Talvi author Women Behind Bars & Kathleen Kane Willis, Dir Consortium On Drug Policy MP3 Link: http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/?q=audio/download/1708/COL_010108.mp3
My Latest Letter to the Editor: Letter: Addicts can recover; convicts usually don't
Next Week - Century of Lies on Tues, Cutural Baggage on Wed:
- Cultural Baggage 12:30 PM ET, 11:20 AM CT, 10:30 AM MT & 9:30 AM PT: TBD
- Century of Lies 12:30 PM ET, 11:20 AM CT, 10:30 AM MT & 9:30 AM PT: TBD
Hundreds of our programs are available online at www.drugtruth.net, www.audioport.org and at www.radio4all.net. We provide the "unvarnished truth about the drug war" to scores of broadcast affiliates in the US and Canada. (NOTE: Radio4all website down at this posting)
Check out our latest videos via www.youtube.com/fdbecker
Please become part of the solution, visit www.endprohibition.org for links to the best of reform.
"The money that has been frittered away on this drug war would fill a string of boxcars nine miles long stuffed with hundred dollar bills. How much more?" - Reverend Dean Becker, Drug Truth Network Producer http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5243274.html
Dean Becker
713-849-6869
www.drugtruth.net
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