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Structural Change Also Needed to Stop Drug Trade Violence in Besieged Community

Following the life-without-parole murder convictions of three ringleaders of the Chester, Pennsylvania "Boyle Street Boys," an editorial in the DelcoTimes called on the community to "unite to defeat the criminals." The operation sounds pretty ugly. According to the editorialist, Andre Cooper and brothers Jamain and Vincent Williams ran a lucrative cocaine operation in the Highland Gardens section of Chester until 2003 and "[f]or years... depended on the "Snitch & Die" mentality to ensure the silence of those who witnessed their illegal drug and weapons business... One of their murder victims was a teenage drug dealer whom the gang members suspected of being a police informant... Another was a federal witness, a 33-year-old mother of two, who was executed in her sister’s car the day before she was going to testify against gang members. Her own cousins were among those who plotted her killing."
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Coming in the Chronicle this week

I've been down with pneumonia, so I haven't talked to my sources yet this week, but I think I will be writing about a lawsuit filed against South Dakota's attorney general over the ballot summary language with which he is describing the state's medical marijuana initiative. And again, I await word from Portland on whether that city's "lowest law enforcement priority" initiative makes the ballot. I'm sure there is another story or two that'll break this week, and I've already got a bunch of other interesting items ready to go.
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You Can Put Your Weed in it

I’ve seen these before, but never in the news:

From the Coventry Evening Telegram:

Drug users will be able to dump their illegal stashes without getting in trouble before they enter a massive dance festival near Stratford this weekend. Warwickshire Police will again have an amnesty zone just before the entrance of Global Gathering at Long Marston airfield.

But why would anyone do that?

In The Trenches

Seattle Hempfest Sues City and Art Museum

NEWS RELEASE July 31, 2006 Contact: Dominic Holden ­ (206) 877-2240 Vivian McPeak ­ (206) 295-7258 Event backers file suit against City; Seattle Art Museum, Olympic Sculpture Park named Permit application unprocessed, sculpture park construction plans violate law, organizers say SEATTLE ­ The Seattle Hempfest is filing suit Monday in King County Superior Court against City officials Ken Bounds, the Parks Department Superintendent, and Virginia Swanson, the Special Events Committee Chair, to compel the officials to create safe access to Myrtle Edwards Park and issue a Special Event Permit in time for the August 2006 event.
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Push Down, Pop Up Even Worse

An article this morning in the Daily Journal in northeast Mississippi reports that efforts to restrict purchase of the chemical components of methamphetamine have caused a reduction in the number of meth labs in Lee County. But don't get too excited: there's just as much meth available in the county now as before. Now, though, it's imported, and the stuff is worse -- it's crystal meth, also known as ice, and according to Sheriff Jim Johnson it's a lot more potent than the stuff people are making locally.
In The Trenches

New DrugScience.org Web Site Released

July 31, 2006 For Immediate Release: The DrugScience.org web site (www.drugscience.org) has been revised, redesigned, and developed in a showcase on science and the marijuana issue. Now DrugScience is set to introduce features in political science to supplement its longstanding archives on the cannabis rescheduling petition and the recent history of marijuana research. The redesigned DrugScience.org is the home of the Cannabis Rescheduling Petition and background on the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis. The content of both the 1995 and the 2002 Rescheduling Petitions are available in easily accessible html, along with considerable background and archival materials including the original evaluations of THC and Marijuana by HHS prior to the historic hearings before Judge Francis Young in the 1980s. Created by Jon Gettman, DrugScience presents material on the history of rescheduling efforts as well as detailed explanations of the scientific research behind the legal and medical arguments for medical cannabis. The segmented presentation of the material from the two rescheduling petitions provides a rich source of subject matter to link to in various contexts, such as a short explanation why cannabis has low toxicity or a review of the Gateway Theory, all accessible through browsing the contents of the petitions or use of our powerful search engine.
In The Trenches

Belgian "Draw Up Your Plant" Campaign for Cannabis Regulation

“The Flemish Institute for Alcohol and Drugs Questions” and our cannabis association “Draw Up Your Plant” agree on a specific problem: Belgian cannabis law is creating legal insecurity for Civil society. Draw Up Your Plant organized a very successful press moment on Thursday Juli 27. “The mother plant, seeds and clones” were the subject of our action this time. We showed the planting of the seed to grow a mother plant that'll provide clones for the Draw Up Your Plant plantation.
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Another Sad Shooting Death in the Projects

A several part story by Audra Burch in the Miami Herald Sunday discussed the shooting death of nine-year old Sherdavia Jenkins, her life before it and her family in the aftermath. Jenkins was a bystander, playing with a brother and sister and friend, when she was struck down by a stray bullet in "an open space between two buildings that police say became a shooting gallery for a smalltime drug peddler and a street tough." It's the kind of tragic story that is tragically too common to always make the papers.
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They Should Put Surveillance Cameras in Police Stations

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The Allegheny County district attorney's office has launched an investigation into what happened to $4,000 that Glassport police failed to return to a local bar owner when drug charges against him were dropped. "The fact that money was seized and placed in an evidence locker and turned up missing is unacceptable," said district attorney's office spokesman Mike Manko.

I agree, but I’d go a step further and call it a crime. Grand larceny to be specific. Of course, Glassport officers think it’s just a procedural problem:

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Drug Laws Drive Addicted to Prostitution in West Virginia (and Everywhere Else)

Steubenville, West Virginia, has an interlocking problem of drugs and prostitution, The Intelligencer in nearby Wheeling reported this morning. The article was prompted by an anti-prostitution sting operation that rounded up six men and five women Wednesday night.
"The prostitution and the drugs go hand-in-hand," [police chief William] McCafferty said. "Most of the (prostitutes) are drug users, and that's how they support their habit. None of the men who are coming here to purchase the product the women are selling are from Steubenville, and we don’t need them in our city.
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Doing a story for the Oaksterdam News

It's the day the Chronicle is published, and, as my mother was always fond of telling me, there's no rest for the wicked. I'll be spending the afternoon writing a piece for the Oaksterdam News http://www.oaksterdamnews.com/ The Oaksterdam News wants its readers to know about the Drug War Chronicle, and we're certainly happy to help.
Chronicle

Web Scan

Stamper for Alternet, DrugTruth Radio, DrugScience.org, Cannabis Churches
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Prickly Progressives Impede Pot Progress

Progress Now, a Colorado-based advocacy group issued a statement condemning Focus on the Family President James Dobson for using a signature gathering service that has also worked with the marijuana reform group SAFER.

James Dobson is spending tens of thousands of dollars of Focus on the Family's money to hire paid signature collectors to solicit people for the so-called "marriage initiative" under the guise of protecting Colorado's families. He needs 68,000 valid signatures by August 8 to qualify. Many of these very solicitors paid for by Dobson also are working to collect signatures for an initiative to legalize marijuana in Colorado simultaneously.

For starters, they’re just signature gathers. They’re professionals who work for whoever pays them. It would make as much sense to complain that SAFER and Dobson patronized the same Kinkos.

Chronicle
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To Snitch or Not to Snitch

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill has a fascinating editorial at AllHipHop.com about the moral dilemmas created by the growing Stop Snitching movement.

The movement, which has been accompanied by a flurry of t- shirts, songs, websites, and DVDs, is ideologically grounded in the belief that people should not cooperate with law enforcement authorities under any circumstances.

As you might guess, the movement is not without its critics:

Chronicle