A 9-hour drug raid in Lakeland, FL might not have taken as long if the raiding officers hadn’t spent an hour playing Wii in the suspect's home. Little did they know, there was a hidden camera running the whole time:



I suppose this is pretty amateur stuff when it comes to police misconduct in the war on drugs, but there's still no excuse for it. Too often, we hear police defending the drug war as some sort of grand noble crusade for the salvation of our society. Apparently, for some of these guys, it's more of a personal playground than an epic battle to save our civilization.

Pete Guither has a good post looking at the latest nonsense from U.N. Drug Czar Antonio Maria Costa:

His attempts to own the word “control” go to ridiculous lengths.

Drugs are controlled (not prohibited) because they are dangerous.

I beg your pardon? Drugs aren’t prohibited? Since when? Where? You can’t just waive a magic wand and say that since you don’t like the word “prohibited” you declare it to mean something else.

The fact that our opponents have resorted to revising their understanding of the English language is a powerful statement about how far we've come in the drug policy debate. It's hard to imagine a more confused and desperate defense of the drug war than this, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time before someone achieves it.

Ever since police killed his dogs in an epic – yet typical – episode of botched drug raid debauchery, I've been repeatedly awed by Cheye Calvo's judgment, composure and commitment to justice. He didn't pick this fight, but it's become crystal clear he won't give up until it's finished. So if the arrogant police officials in Prince Georges County, MD think that continuing to stall will spare them any embarrassment or accountability, this Washington Post Op-ed should put their delusions to rest.

I'm not going to block quote this because I hope each of you will read the whole thing in its entirety. It's hard to imagine a more honest and powerful response to police who think the drug war gives them the right to abuse the people they serve.

Mayor Calvo's bravery deserves our applause and continued support. I agree with Radley Balko that he should consider running for a higher office in Maryland. There's no better way to establish accountability than to become the person performing the oversight.

Nobody opposes marijuana legalization except more than those who personally profit from prohibition. That much is easy to understand. What's not so easily understood are the arguments they use:

[El Centro Police Chief] McGinley says if pot is legalized in California, it will be a devastating blow to a battle law enforcement has been fighting for years.
…
McGinley says the move would turn back the clock, and take away all the time and effort law enforcement has spent educating people on the dangers of drugs. [KSWT 13 News]

Actually, that time and effort is already gone. And I love how he uses the term "educating" as a euphemism for smashing down doors, handcuffing people and taking them to jail.

Still, if you think about it, his argument really strikes at the heart of why law enforcement tends to instinctively oppose fixing our drug laws. They've been "educating" the hell out of everyone for decades and hurting an awful lot of people in the process. It would be supremely embarrassing if it suddenly became clear to everyone that legalization actually works a lot better.

Some of you may have noticed that I have been in South Dakota quite a bit recently. That's because I was returning to my home town to be with my adult son, who had been in an eight-year battle with mesothelioma. He died at home on Friday evening. His name was Travis Bales. (To answer the questions of anyone scratching his head after reading the obituary, I was Travis's biological father, married briefly to his mother in an ill-fated teenage marriage. We divorced and both remarried and started new families. When I left South Dakota for Texas in 1979, I agreed to let his mom's new husband, Steve Bales, adopt him, but he was always part of my life, and vice versa.) Today is his visitation, tomorrow is his funeral, Wednesday I fly back to San Francisco, Thursday the NORML conference starts. I won't have the heart or the time to do the Chronicle this week. I will try to at least blog something from the conference over the weekend. Travis was always a supporter of the cause, and he enjoyed the kind bud as much as anybody. He and I walked the mean streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside together, and the mean streets of Mexico City. He made it to Jamaica and Bob Marley's grave with his friends--I still haven't done that. Travis would, I'm sure, cut me some slack this week, but then he would tell me to get back to work on making things right. I'll start doing that again next week.

It looks like the Vancouver (Metro)police have taken to the media in their fight against the gang war resulting from drug war policies.The deaths from gang violence have resumed in full if they ever s