Latest

Despite near-unanimous support, Gov. Tim Pawlenty has vetoed a bill preventing prosecutors from using bong water to calculate the weight of controlled substances in drug prosecutions — and a lawmaker who helped pass the legislation accused the governor of doing so for political reasons.

The bill was the result of a 4-3 Minnesota Supreme Court decision last year that allowed Rice County prosecutors to charge Sara Ruth Peck, 47, of Faribault, with first-degree drug possession — a charge often reserved for drug dealers — after the water in a glass pipe tested positive for traces of methamphetamine.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — After 40 years, the United States' war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.
 
Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn't worked.

"In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Kerlikowske told The Associated Press. "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."

Nevertheless, his administration has increased spending on interdiction and law enforcement to record levels both in dollars and in percentage terms; this year, they account for $10 billion of his $15.5 billion drug-control budget.

The budget piece is fair to focus on, but we told AP that we objected to the article's mischaracterization of current policy.  A fairer and more nuanced observation would have been: This does look/sound a lot different, but the budget scenario hasn't changed overnight (it never does, in any realm of government) and it will take some time to test the Administration's commitment to the new approach. [ofsubstance.gov]

Rep. Mark Souder, an Indiana Republican known for his support of traditional family values, announced Tuesday that he will leave office, ending a tense week in which a key staffer confronted him with rumors about his alleged extramarital affair with a part-time aide.
…
He said he was "ashamed" that he had "sinned against God, my wife and my family by having a mutual relationship with a part-time member of my staff." But he blamed the "poisonous environment of Washington" for his decision to resign, effective Friday. [Washington Post]

The memos…show that Kagan served on a government working group that decided to dial back the Clinton administration’s efforts to decrease the disparity in sentencing between crimes involving crack and those involving powdered cocaine. A draft report from the group painted the decision as a grudging but realistic one based on a stalemate in Congress over the issue. "Our more nuanced message will not sell as well as the 'tough on crime' opposition message in an age of sound bites," the report read. [Politico]

What an ugly quote and a rare glimpse inside the twisted thought processes that have allowed our worst mistakes to endure for so many shameful years. It's just sickening to think that some of the drug war's most racist policies might have been fixed more than a decade ago if spineless advisors like Kagan hadn't put politics ahead of equal justice.

In purely political terms, they might have been right – sentencing reform took several more years to gain sufficient momentum – but do we want this sort of callous and calculating partisan operative deciding who is and is not protected under the U.S. Constitution?

Update: I edited the post to make it clear that Kagan was part of a group which made this recommendation, and wasn't solely responsible for it herself. A wise colleague pointed out to me that it's possible she didn't even agree with the position of the group. In the context of the Politico story, it's clear she made a lot of politically motivated decisions at that time, but I could be off-base in blaming her personally for recommending this position on the sentencing disparity.

Three Groups I want to start on Facebook but not sure yet: