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I've been brooding about an article in the Gary (Indiana) Post-Tribune about a drug raid where a police SWAT team badly burned a drug suspect when they tossed a flash-bang grenade into his home. I felt the opening sentence was entirely inappropriate and that the reporter was remiss in merely taking the police version of events and not asking the police some serious questions. Here are the opening paragraphs of the article:

Flash-bang burns drug raid suspect January 24, 2007 By LORI CALDWELL Post-Tribune With a little help from the Gary police S.W.A.T. team, Darrell Newburn had a most appropriate name Monday. Newburn, 31, is hospitalized with a new, serious burn on his back caused by a flash-bang that hit his back before officers stormed his Glen Park home Monday afternoon. "How it happened, I'm not certain," Sgt. John Jelks, drug unit commander said a day later. "It's normal practice for them to throw the distraction device in first." Detectives from the Narcotics-Vice Unit obtained a search warrant for Newburn's home at 4433 Delaware St. after making a series of undercover buys from him there. Police surrounded the house and a member of the S.W.A.T. team, led by Cmdr. Anthony Stanley, tossed in the grenade-like device that explodes with a loud bang and bright light. Newburn was hit in the back and suffered a burn about 12 inches in diameter. He is being held under police guard at Methodist Hospitals Northlake Campus.

A few minutes ago I sent a letter to the reporter. I'll let you know if I get any response. Here's the letter:

Dear Ms. Caldwell: I write to protest the flippancy of your lead sentence in the January 24 story, “Flash-Bang Burns Drug Suspect.” Let me get this straight: A man, who is presumed innocent, is severely burned in an unprovoked assault during a drug raid, and you lead with an unfunny pun on his name? Instead of looking for cheap yuks, a good reporter might be asking the police some questions, such as: Why is it standard procedure to use paramilitary SWAT-style teams on small-time drug raids? Why is it standard procedure to throw military-style explosives into the homes of suspects? SWAT teams were originally designed to be used in hostage and other extremely dangerous situations, but there aren’t really that many of those. Give the police a SWAT team, and they will find a way to use it. But is it really appropriate for police to treat a small-time criminal infraction as if they were raiding an insurgent stronghold in Baghdad? I refer you to a recent report about the massive increase in the use of SWAT-style teams, especially in policing the drug war, by Cato Institute analyst Radley Balko. It’s called “Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Policing in America.” Here’s the link: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476 In it, you will find incident after incident of raids gone bad, innocent people killed, and police endangering themselves and others. It’s worth a look. A good reporter might also want to ask the police just what they have accomplished with 40 years of drug raids, and whether there might be another, more reasonable way to deal with drug use. I don’t mean to attack you, only to suggest that there are stories left undiscovered if you rely merely on police and their press releases and don’t ask them the hard questions. I do hope you’ll keep this letter in mind next time you write one of those drug raid stories. Sincerely, Phillip Smith Editor, Drug War Chronicle www.stopthedrugwar.org P.S. If you have any interest in pursuing this, I can put you in touch with a number of current and former police officers (including former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper) who are harshly critical of this gung-ho, paramilitary-style drug war policing and who challenge the whole notion of drug prohibition altogether.

At the end of a Michigan murder case in which the victim was a marijuana dealer gunned down during a home invasion robbery, the judge railed against the "urban myth" that marijuana is harmless. Here is some of what Muskegon County 14th Circuit Judge Timothy Hicks had to say (read the article about the trial's conclusion here):

Before sentencing Weissert [the convicted murderer], Hicks addressed what he called a series of "urban myths." "Urban myth number one" is that "drug use is a victimless crime," Hicks said from the bench. "Here we have orphaned children, devastated families." Myth number two: " 'It's only marijuana,' " Hicks said. "Marijuana is as evil as the rest of this stuff. ... Marijuana indirectly caused all the carnage." The third myth is that drugs are only a "downtown" problem. "It's a problem everywhere -- in the suburbs, in rural areas," the judge said. And fourth: "The urban myth that you can stay in control of this." Although Sibson never intended it, his drug dealing "exposed his family to danger," Hicks said.

Let's take these one by one. Judge Hicks claims that this murder disproves the notion that "drug use is a victimless crime." Of course, it does nothing of the sort. The murder had nothing to do with drug use, but was the result of an attempted armed robbery, plain and simple. The robbers went after the marijuana dealer because there were valuable items they could take. Would the judge have railed against alcohol if someone had been murdered in a liquor store robbery? Next, Judge Hicks derides the notion that marijuana is a soft drug, not as dangerous as other drugs like cocaine, speed, or heroin. Marijuana is "as evil" as those other drugs and "indirectly caused all that carnage." Sorry, judge, pot is not "evil," nor are other drugs. Evilness does not inhere to plants or chemical compounds, but to human behavior. What is evil is breaking into someone's home and killing them because they have something valuable you want. I wonder if the judge would call cold, hard cash "evil" because someone robbed an armored car to steal some. Next, Judge Hicks decries the myth that drugs are only a "downtown" (read: black) problem, saying that "it's a problem everywhere." Well, yes, drug use knows no geographic boundaries, and the problems associated with drug use don't, either. But I suspect that the judge is thinking about the crime and violence associated with drug use and sales under prohibition, like, for instance, the murder case in front of him. To blame that killing on drugs in general and marijuana in particular is just plain stupid. The judge might want to get his head out of his ass and look around at what drug prohibition—not drugs—has wrought. He doubtless sees it every day in his courtroom. Finally, Judge Hicks attacks the victim. The dead man "exposed his family to danger" because he dealt in valuable marijuana. If I'm out riding in my new Cadillac with my family and we get carjacked by some envious punk, does that mean I exposed my family to danger by having something valuable that some criminal wants? It was not the murder victim but the prohibition laws routinely applied by Judge Hicks and his criminal justice system colleagues that created the situation where a bunch of dead plant material is assigned so much value that people are willing to rob and kill for it. It must be nice for armed robbers to know their victims are unlikely to seek protection from the police. Justice may be blind, but judges shouldn't be. Judge Hicks has clearly shown that he has an extreme case of tunnel vision. This guy doesn’t deserve to sit on the bench.

I would like to call people's attention to an important recent article by Kenneth Tuppert which appeared in the December (?) issue of _The Journal of Drug Policy_ entitled "The globalization of ayahuasca: harm reduction or benefit maximization?"

ONDCP's abhorrent traveling drug testing show made its first stop of the year in Charleston, SC this week. As usual, the push to implement student drug testing in schools around the country was met with serious opposition from drug policy reformers.

Still, no matter how logical and scientific our arguments may be, there are always those who fail to recognize what's at stake. From The Charleston Post and Courier:

Senior Antwan Edwards plays four sports at North Charleston High and is captain of the football and wrestling teams. Random testing would be a good way to keep some students from using drugs, he said.

It also would prepare students for life after high school by starting those tests now, he said.

If life after high school means having your urine collected by agents of the state and inspected for molecular evidence of unapproved conduct, who wants to grow up? The idea of drug testing as a form of socialization reeks of dystopian fascism. But you can't blame Antwan Edwards, who was probably off giving urine samples when the 4th Amendment was being taught.

"If you don't have anything to hide, why not take the test?" he said.

Oh, there are so many answers to this question. In Antwan Edwards' case, I'd worry that a false positive drug test could be exactly what it takes to ruin his otherwise promising future. And there are plenty of easy ways to get a false positive. They don't happen a lot, but when they do, no one believes you except your mom.

Some students don't care about their privacy, or having newer books instead of urine collection programs, or being presumed innocent, or the fact that their peers may switch to more-dangerous less-detectible drugs, or the evidence that these programs don't work.

Sadly, some students don’t care about these things. But they should care about false positives. They should be terrified. The companies that manufacture these tests claim that there are no false positives, so imagine trying to convince them that there's been a mistake.

If you don't have anything to gain, why take the test?