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It seems I've wiped my computer.Just a note to say that our neocon government has announced mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.I'm hoping the website still has my other blogs but if they went

I never really thought that even THIS bunch of neocons would have the nerve to introduce legislation to begin mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes in Canada.Today they announced the most dracon

Remember when Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) went crazy and started accusing all his enemies of being communist spies? I don't because I wasn't alive yet, but I hear it was hilarious. McCarthy was eventually discredited and spent the remainder of his days in a drunken stupor.

Today his spirit lives on in the body of Congressman Mark Souder (R-Ind.), whose virulent compulsion to expose "drug legalizers" is equally troublesome and distracting. I discussed Souder last week, but the story of his festering paranoia just grows more compelling all the time.

As I reported last week, Souder recently attacked a large coalition of mainstream public health, education, legal, and policy organizations because they opposed his law denying financial aid to students with drug convictions. The incident provoked amusement and unfavorable coverage from the Washington press, due to the absurdity of accusing groups like the National Education Association and the United Methodist Church of trying to legalize drugs.

Today, The Politico published the following letter from Souder questioning the integrity of their coverage of the incident:

POLITICO = IDEOLOGICAL PRISM?

Out of fairness, it is incumbent on your newspaper to disclose when a potential conflict of interest occurs with one of your reporters.

IN the Nov. 13 article "Drugs and Money," Ryan Grim stated that the facts in a "Dear Colleague" letter I wrote were incorrect. Your readers ought to know that Grim was previously employed by the Marijuana Policy Project, a drug legalization group. Grim is hardly an objective reporter.

Given his past employment, I fail to see why you would assign him a story on an issue that he had advocated for as recently as 2005.

You newspaper's mission statement includes the following: "There is a difference between voice and advocacy. That's one traditional journalism ideal we fully embrace. There is more need than ever for reporting that presents the news fairly, not through an ideological prism." It's time to ask yourself whether you're meeting that objective.

Rep. Mark E. Souder (R-Ind.)

Editor's note: Politico reporter Ryan Grim's previous work for the Marijuana Policy Project is disclosed in his professional biography at Politico.com.

In short, The Politico published an article about how Mark Souder loves accusing people of supporting drug legalization, so he sent them a letter accusing their staff of supporting drug legalization.

There is just nothing else he could have done to better illustrate the validity of their claim that calling people "drug legalizers" is something he loves to do. Even in a case like this, in which his letter would inevitably be perceived as hilariously ironic, Souder still could not stop himself from writing and sending it.

Even more revealing is the fact that Souder's letter makes no attempt to challenge the facts of the story. It seems that the prior affiliations of The Politico's Ryan Grim are the only noteworthy point Souder could think of in response to story covered in three major Capitol Hill newspapers. So if Souder doesn't dispute the facts of the story, and Ryan Grim's employment history was already detailed on The Politico's website, why did Souder bother writing this letter in the first place?

Easy. Because Mark Souder loves writing letters accusing people of supporting drug legalization.

(Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org/policeraids for further information on our poll and positions on this issue as well as links to further information.) A year ago this week, 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston was gunned down by Atlanta narcotics officers when she opened fire on them as they kicked down her door in a "no-knock" drug raid. The killing has had immense reverberations in the Atlanta area, especially since it opened a window on corrupt and questionable police practices in the drug squad. The officers involved told a judge they had an informant who had bought crack cocaine at Johnston's home. That was a lie. They shot at the elderly woman protecting her home 39 times after she managed to squeeze off one shot from an old pistol. They handcuffed her as she lay dying. They planted marijuana in her basement after the fact. They tried, also after the fact, to get one of their informants to say he had supplied the information, but that informant instead went to the FBI. Two of the officers involved in the killing were ordered to prison this week on involuntary manslaughter and civil rights violations. A third has an April trial date. The Johnston killing has also rocked the Atlanta Police Department. The police chief disbanded the entire drug squad for months, tightened up the rules for seeking search warrants, especially "no-knock" warrants, and instituted new policies forcing narcotics officers to rotate out on a regular basis. A year-long FBI investigation into the department continues. While the Johnston killing rocked the Atlanta area, it also brought the issue of aggressive drug war police tactics to the forefront. Each year, SWAT teams across the country conduct some 40,000 raids, many of them directed at drug offenders. The tactic, where heavily armed police in military-style attire break down doors, toss flash-bang grenades, and generally behave as if they are searching for insurgents in Baghdad, has become routine, and is the stuff of various TV reality shows. But, somewhat surprisingly, it isn't popular. According to a poll question of 1,028 likely voters commissioned by StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet), and conducted by Zogby International in October, a solid majority of respondents said such tactics were not justified for routine drug raids. Here is the exact question asked: "Last year 92-year old Kathryn Johnston was killed by Atlanta police serving a drug search warrant at an incorrect address supplied by an informant. Reports show that police use SWAT teams to conduct raids as often as 40,000 times per year, often for low-level drug enforcement. Do you agree or disagree that police doing routine drug investigations in non-emergency situations should make use of aggressive entry tactics such as battering down doors, setting off flash-bang grenades, or conducting searches in the middle of the night?" Nearly two-thirds -- 65.8% -- said police should not routinely use such tactics. With minor variations, that sentiment held across all geographic, demographic, religious, ideological, and partisan lines. Opposition to the routine use of SWAT tactics for drug law enforcement ranged from 70.7% in the West to 60.5% in the East. Residents of large cities (60.7%), small cities (71.2%), the suburbs (66.7%), and rural areas (65.0%), all opposed the routine use of SWAT tactics. Among Democrats, 75.1% opposed the raids; among independents the figure was 65.5%. Even in the Republican ranks, a majority -- 56% -- opposed the raids. Across ideological lines, 85.3% of self-identified progressives opposed the raids, as did 80.8% of liberals, 62.9% of moderates, and 68.9% of libertarians. Even people describing themselves as conservative or very conservative narrowly opposed the routine use of SWAT tactics, with 51.5% of the former and 52.5% of the latter saying no. This polling data will be the basis for a Drug War Chronicle article on Friday. We will dig a little deeper into the data, as well as the larger issue of SWAT raids for the Chronicle article. In the meantime, we have some very interesting numbers to chew on, and some public policy consequences to ponder. Our poll also received coverage on FoxNews.com this morning.

The Australian Labor Party and its leader, Kevin Rudd, appear poised to drive drug warrior Prime Minister John Howard and his Liberal/National Party coalition from office in elections coming this Saturday. Labor needs to pick up 16 seeks to take over, and according to recent polls, it should do so. Those same polls show Rudd and Labor defeating Howard and the coalitionby a margin of 54% to 46% in the popular vote. Howard could even lose his own district, something that hasn’t happened to a sitting Australian prime minister since 1929. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Howard is a rigid foe of drug reform who in this most recent campaign has debased the discourse by reducing it to the level of "drugs are evil" and who over the weekend vowed to have the federal government take control of welfare payments for people who are drug offenders (look for a news brief on that on Friday). Although Howard was forced to accept the existence of the safe injection site at Kings Cross in Sydney, he is a fervent anti-harm reductionist. Here's just a short, and doubtless incomplete, catalog of his sins: He tried to narrow the drug policy debate by purging the federal drug advisory panel of harm reduction advocates, he opposed heroin prescription trials in Western Australia, the following year, he threatened to prosecute under federal law anyone using a safe injection site if any other states tried to open one, he tried to pressure states to roll back marijuana decriminalization laws, and last year, his government announced plans to ban bongs. Drug policy is not playing a major role in the campaign, although Howard has tried to make it one in recent days. If, as appears increasingly certain, he actually goes down to defeat on Saturday, it will be because of his support of the Iraq war, his disdain for environmental concerns, and, last but not least, because, after 11 years of Howard rule, Australians are ready for a new face. An added bonus in the election could be the rise of the Green Party to role of power broker in the Senate. Under Australia's system of proportional representation, the Greens could end up holding the balance of power in the Senate. While the Greens have retreated somewhat in their drug policy platform in the last couple of years, it is still light years ahead of either Labor or Howard's coalition.

While police and cement-skulled Washington bureaucrats are busy trying to eradicate this infinitely useful plant, scientists around the world are constantly uncovering new evidence of marijuana's medical potential. The latest news is that the marijuana-derived compound CBD may stop the spread of breast cancer:

A compound found in cannabis may stop breast cancer from spreading throughout the body, according to a new study by scientists at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute. The researchers are hopeful that the compound called CBD, which is found in cannabis sativa, could be a non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy.

"Right now we have a limited range of options in treating aggressive forms of cancer," said lead researcher Dr. Sean D. McAllister, a cancer researcher at CPMCRI, in a news release. "Those treatments, such as chemotherapy, can be effective but they can also be extremely toxic and difficult for patients. This compound offers the hope of a non-toxic therapy that could achieve the same results without any of the painful side effects." [FOX News]

Ok, how cool is that? Breast cancer is one of the most loathsome diseases known to humankind, and the cure just might be contained within the world's easiest-to-grow plant.

It is just delightfully ironic that while the drug war political machine continues to turn out anti-pot propaganda at alarming rates, scientists are touting it as a potential "non-toxic" alternative to various common medical procedures. I really can't think of anything more ridiculous than the fact that we are still debating the relative toxicity of marijuana in a nation that prescribes adderall to 8-year-olds and imports GHB laced children's toys from China.

I have a feeling that marijuana could cure every disease on earth and there would still be idiots passionately demanding that we banish it from the planet:

Drug Czar: Marijuana is more dangerous than ever.

Marijuana: I can cure cancer.

Drug Czar: I'd like to see some conclusive research on that.

Marijuana: I doubt that you really would.

Drug Czar: This is just propaganda from the well-funded pro-drug lobby.

Marijuana: FOX News?

Drug Czar (exasperated): Oh, yeah? Well today's marijuana is worse than cancer.

Marijuana (gazing upwards): Forgive him, Father…

It was put here for a reason. Several reasons, it seems. Let's start figuring out what they are and stop looking for evil where there is none.