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"Pot. It mightn't kill you, but it could turn you into a dickhead"

This slogan, in all seriousness, will be appearing in magazines and on bus stops in Australia. I don't know what 'dickhead' means in Australian, but around here it means someone who isn't very nice.

Needless to say, being a dickhead is neither a crime nor a likely result of smoking pot. Ironically, however, writing the word 'dickhead' on a bus stop generally is a crime if done for any purpose other than this one.

Given what we know about the effectiveness of absurd anti-drug ads, I'd guess this campaign is unlikely to cause a decrease in marijuana use, but it might cause an increase in the use of the word 'dickhead.'

In fact, it already has.

Mouth Makeovers for Meth Moms

Tonight at 10:00, The Tyra Banks Show will be giving makeovers to disfigured recovering meth addicts in a thrilling episode titled "Makeovers for Life: Meth Faces."
Tyra wrote a letter to the ladies, explaining how proud she was of them for kicking their addictions. She revealed they would all receive a life-changing makeover to erase the physical scars of their past. Their first stop was The Ora Dentistry Spa to have their teeth examined and repaired by Dr. Sam Saleh. Next, they visited top skin specialist Dr. Ava Shamban at the Laser Institute for Dermatology and Skin Care to take care of their severe skin damage. Finally, they were sent to the Warren-Tricomi Salon, where they were treated to new hair color and cuts.
I know what you're thinking. Buying a shiny new grill for a meth addict re-enforces their destructive behavior. One might ask how people will learn to stop getting wasted on meth if Tyra Banks is going around getting them dental surgery.

Well according to the Tyra Banks Show, meth chooses you, not the other way around:
From CEO’s to soccer moms, meth has no preference.
I don't know about that, but in fairness to Tyra, her approach to the meth problem makes infinitely more sense than almost anything that's been tried so far.

Next week on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Ty Pennington and the gang will help victims of wrong address SWAT raids re-plaster their walls and replace their slain pets with cuddly new ones.

Justice Sunday at the Prison Art Gallery

Come to the Gallery for live music, prison poetry, and featured speaker Phillip Fornaci, director of D.C. Prisoners' Project of the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. Mr. Fornaci will answer your questions about the rights of DC prisoners and what is being done by him and his top-notch legal team to fully secure those rights. You won't want to miss this event if you have a loved one in jail or prison, or care about the men and women there.

The Brasch Letter

? The Brasch Letter In Coos County, Oregon the credibility of the states witness in a sting operation became an issue in my son’s trial. A local attorney who had to withdraw from my son’s case, stated he had

Nobody Likes The Drug Czar

Part 5 of NPR's disappointing series "The Forgotten War on Drugs" takes aim at Drug Czar John Walters:
During the course of research for this series, it became apparent that many prominent players in the war on drugs don't have many compliments for the current drug czar, John Walters.
…

Though President Bush appointed Walters to be the public face of the war on drugs, some anti-drug activists say he's been the invisible man.
What, is he supposed to go around racially profiling people and asking for consent to search?
Gen. Barry McCaffrey was drug czar from 1996 to 2001. He says, bluntly, that as far as he can tell, there is no federal drug policy at present.
Really? Tell that to the half-million non-violent drug offenders sitting in prison this evening. Yeah, we all miss the good old days when Barry McCaffrey was in charge and America was drug free.
Four members of Congress — all prominent drug warriors — have asked for the drug czar's resignation. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) says Walters, even more than his predecessors, manipulates numbers to inflate the Bush administration's successes in drug policy.

"When it comes to statistics, I think it's fair to say they cook the books," Grassley said. "They use whatever statistics fit their public relations program."

The drug czar's office says that Grassley was "badly briefed."
Badly briefed by whom? This is hilarious. But to be fair, the drug czar's office is a "public relations program." ONDCP's resident doctor/scientist David Murray explains:
"My sense would be you're talking to the wrong people," Murray said. "You are talking with people who have a partial and mis-clarified sense of what the office does."
Exactly. ONDCP's purpose is to claim that the drug war works. You've got a better chance of getting stoned on marijuana-flavored lollipops than expecting candor or humility from this organization.  ONDCP is like a weatherman that always predicts sunshine. If you get soaked, it's your own fault for watching the fake weather report.
Of the more than 100 anti-drug professionals across America interviewed for this series — in overseas operations, domestic law enforcement, treatment and prevention — very few share the rhetoric of this drug czar: that we are "winning the drug war."
Are we witnessing the beginnings of a major rift within the drug war establishment? ONDCP's fraudulent routine of claiming progress in the drug war is no longer impressing its core audience. As a result, confused drug war supporters like NPR's Burnett, along with Lou Dobbs and others, have found themselves in the awkward position of articulating the failure of our current policies while simultaneously demanding their expansion.

This is terrible reporting to be sure, but at least the "how to win?" crowd isn't proposing specific policy solutions. Dobbs and Burnett are amplifying the message that the drug war is failing, and turning to ONDCP for answers it can't give.

These frustrated observers might want to begin by learning that it isn't ONDCP's fault the drug war doesn't work. But I'm all for firing John Walters on the off-chance that he bugs out like Michael Douglas in Traffic and admits the whole thing is a sham. That would be grand.


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