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Drug Cop Admits His Career Was Built Around Lies and Wrongful Convictions
Even if you support arresting people for drugs, do you trust the people who are paid to fight the drug war? Via DrugWarRant, here is but one example of what can happen when police are given too much authority and not enough oversight:"They called it Doomsday work and instructed me to take this dreadful secret to the grave," O'Brien wrote."In every case I lied to the courts and I lied to the juries to obtain convictions against my targets."Telling lies was easy - 'policemen don't tell lies' - and my targets never stood a chance." [New Zealand Herald]This happened in New Zealand in the 1970âs, and we only found out about it now and only because the officer could no longer contain his guilt. Imagine how many people sit in prison around the world at this very moment because of this kind of viciously dishonest drug war policing. And if you think police arenât taking advantage of the innocent right here, right now, just scroll down an inch or two.
Police Steal Money from Elderly Medical Marijuana Patients
It is not at all uncommon for the war on drugs to target the very last people among us who ought to be treated as criminals:For example, the 90-year-old couple, Lester ("Smitty") and Mary Smith--who were raided at their Philo home last week (9.24.08) with law enforcement seizing their life savings and all their plants in the process--are qualified patients with doctors' approvals and did nothing wrong.Smitty said, "I wasn't worried a bit. I knew it was legal. I planted six plants two years in a row and this year, I planted 17 for me and Mary. That's not too many is it? My wife is very ill, confined to a wheelchair or recliner. She likes the bud tea. She has severe arthritis. It makes it easier for her to get around. She walks easier; she can walk to the bathroom even by herself."Smitty has health issues too. "I have heart problems, blood clots, stomach cramps, emphysema, bad hips. I've had a heart attack. I sometimes get strong chest pains and can't breathe right. I take nitroglycerine. That brings me back. My doctors want me to take more x-rays here locally but that would be a big expense. Usually, I go to the Veterans Hospital and they pay for it."Mary Smith was forced to stay in the house by herself during the 5-hour raid while additional warrants for an adjoining parcel were telephoned in and delivered, allowing sheriff's deputies to enter all the residences.The elderly Smiths were not arrested or charged with a crime, because there was none. Sheriff's deputies were apparently more interested in robbery than arrest (excuse my french). They seized the two things that mattered most to the ill couple--their medicine, all 17 plants, leaving nothing--and their life savings, $52,000 from Mary Smith's inheritance and $29,000 in cashed in CDs."As soon as the bail-out hit, I cashed in my CDs and put the money in a safe in my house. I did not sell pot to get it. But turns out my money was not safe. They stormed in here and turned our world upside down. I thought I was legal." [IndyBay]This is the real war on drugs. Itâs not some magic formula that only screws over bad people. The drug war proliferates injustice everywhere it goes.
Laser-Guided Missiles Arenât the Answer
I was just chatting with a gentleman outside our office who was interested (as most are) to learn what exactly it is that we work on up here. Iâm not sure he quite understood, however. He told me his silver bullet plan for winning the war on drugs:What we gotta do is use all this satellite technology we have know and identify the crops from space an then just blow âem up with laser-guided missiles. Heâd clearly thought about this before, but maybe without working through the details. I replied, "Well, what about all the children that live in and around these farms? These are poor children in 3rd world countries. We should just blow them up?"He had no response. It had never occurred to him that his plan involved blowing up poor people.
Stop The Lying and Madness
Someone needs to educate themselves to the facts. God gave us a brain to use intelligently. No emotions count on this subject nor misinformation. The Lady of Justice is blindfolded,look again.
Travel Alert: Mexico Unsafe Thanks to War on Drugs
The drug war in Mexico is going so horribly wrong that the State Department is warning Americans who may be thinking about traveling there:Travel AlertU.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Bureau of Consular Affairs This information is current as of today, document.write(Date()+".") Fri Oct 10 2008 19:36:27 GMT-0400 (EDT). Mexico April 14, 2008 This Travel Alert updates information for U.S. citizens on security situations in Mexico that may affect their activities while in that country. This supersedes the Travel Alert for Mexico dated October 24, 2007, and expires on October 15, 2008. Violence Along The U.S.-Mexico Border------------------------------------- Violent criminal activity fueled by a war between criminal organizations struggling for control of the lucrative narcotics trade continues along the U.S.-Mexico border. Attacks are aimed primarily at members of drug trafficking organizations, Mexican police forces, criminal justice officials, and journalists. However, foreign visitors and residents, including Americans, have been among the victims of homicides and kidnappings in the border region. In its effort to combat violence, the government of Mexico has deployed military troops in various parts of the country. U.S. citizens are urged to cooperate with official checkpoints when traveling on Mexican highways.What a disaster. If there were anything remotely effective about the war on drugs, donât you think that trying this policy for several decades would have produced a better outcome than this? I mean, look at it. Seriously, just watch whatâs happening. Is this the result youâd get from a drug policy that worked? Ever since President Calderon took office a year and a half ago and began trying to crack down on drug trafficking, everything has gone to hell. It gets worse everyday because using war to attack the drug supply is a terrible policy that destroys everything except the drug supply. What other conclusion could you possibly reach given whatâs taking place right before our eyes?
Want Legal Marijuana on January 20th? Write In "Bruce W. Cain"
Want Legal Marijuana on January 20th? Write In "Bruce W. Cain" It is "Wakee Wakee" time for America.
If Terrorists and Drug Traffickers Collaborate, Itâs the Drug Warâs Fault
Has drug war destabilization in South America become a threat to our national security?MIAMI (AP) â There is real danger that Islamic extremist groups such as al-Qaida and Hezbollah could form alliances with wealthy and powerful Latin American drug lords to launch new terrorist attacks, U.S. officials said Wednesday.Extremist group operatives have already been identified in several Latin American countries, mostly involved in fundraising and finding logistical support. But Charles Allen, chief of intelligence analysis at the Homeland Security Department, said they could use well-established smuggling routes and drug profits to bring people or even weapons of mass destruction to the U.S.Well that just sucks. Realistically, however, I think weâre relying on a rather twisted interpretation of the drug traffickersâ agenda here. These guys are making huge profits and they donât want to rock the boat. Terrorists might pay for cover upfront, but theyâre bad for business in the long term. I doubt high-level traffickers would deliberately abate straight-up terrorists whose goal is basically to kill their customers. They bring a different kind of attention that you seriously donât want if youâre just moving a product.Still, itâs certainly true that the massive blackmarket infrastructure has led to the development of invisible networks and services that terrorists could take advantage of. If youâre selling underground transit, you donât ask too many questions of your customers. Itâs not willful collaboration we should be worried about, so much as the reality that thereâs an industry built around bringing anyone and anything into our country.After decades of drug war demolition tactics throughout South and Central America, the situation is worse than ever. As new threats emerge, the drug war continues to literally puncture every mechanism that might protect us.
Heroin Trafficking in Afghanistan is a Really Big Deal, Unless the Presidentâs Brother Does It
Rumors that the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai may be involved in drug trafficking have not been investigated. Why?The assertions about the involvement of the presidentâs brother in the incidents were never investigated, according to American and Afghan officials, even though allegations that he has benefited from narcotics trafficking have circulated widely in Afghanistan.â¦Several American investigators said senior officials at the D.E.A. and the office of the Director of National Intelligence complained to them that the White House favored a hands-off approach toward Ahmed Wali Karzai because of the political delicacy of the matter. But White House officials dispute that, instead citing limited D.E.A. resources in Kandahar and southern Afghanistan and the absence of political will in the Afghan government to go after major drug suspects as the reasons for the lack of an inquiry. [NYT]The whole thing reeks and this "limited resources" excuse sounds dubious at best. Ahmed Wali Karzai is chief of the Kandahar Provincial Council. If heâs a drug trafficker, thatâs kind of a big deal, isnât it? Our inability/unwillingness to even explore such a possibility just shows once again that our supply reduction efforts in Afghanistan are a total joke.
Canadian Police Hire Researchers to Attack Harm Reduction
The battle over harm reduction in Vancouver just gets uglier all the time:VANCOUVER -Â The Pivot Legal Society has asked federal Auditor-General Sheila Fraser to examine whether the RCMP exceeded its law-enforcement mandate by commissioning studies into Vancouver's supervised injection site.Pivot lawyer and spokesman Doug King on Wednesday revealed RCMP e-mails indicating the national police force commissioned reports researching Insite."The RCMP Act gave the RCMP a mandate to act as peace officers for the citizens of Canada. Using public funds entrusted to them to fund a cynical critique of health-based research clearly does not fall within this mandate," King said. [Vancouver Sun]Indeed, police are responsible for enforcing the law, not shaping social policy. Law enforcementâs backhanded attempt at inserting itself into the academic debate over harm reduction is completely inappropriate and disturbing. Does anyone believe that police-sponsored research will ever reach conclusions other than the need for more police power? RCMP now claims that it conducts research all the time, which may be true, but misses the point. Police research should focus on measuring the effectiveness of their own programs, not producing political ammunition against non-police programs that police donât like.
Further Evidence That Drug War Politics Are Changing
As public attitudes surrounding the war on drugs continue to evolve, weâll begin to see more of this type of thing:Containing parts of Kirkland, Redmond, Woodinville, and points east, the 45th Legislative District is hardly a hotbed of radicalism. But the two candidates for one of the district's two House seats share a position well out of the political mainstream: They both advocate wholesale changes to the War on Drugs.In his time away from the capital, incumbent State Rep. Roger Goodman (D-Kirkland) heads the King County Bar Association's Drug Policy Project, where he works on moving drug policy's focus from crime and punishment to public health. His challenger, Toby Nixon (R-Kirkland), who held the seat from 2002 to 2006 before leaving to run for the state Senate (he lost his bid for an open seat to Eric Oemig), has spoken out in defense of Washington's medical marijuana law and pushed a bill requiring performance audits of drug-enforcement policies. [Seattle Weekly]So will the candidates start arguing over whoâs going to do more to end the drug war?Noting that "some have observed that it's unfortunate that we're running against each other," Nixon adds that he's not sure he and Goodman have any disagreements on drug policy reform. But he wishes Goodman had followed his lead and pushed more drug policy reform bills as a legislator.There you have it folks! The first candidate for public office to ever get called out for not trying hard enough to reform drug policy. This is not a coincidence, this is a sign of the times. It wonât be over tomorrow -- weâd be foolish to think that -- but we are entering a phase where weâll begin to see and hear the drug policy debate in new forums. Once reform enters the mainstream political curriculum, the tone changes, the pot jokes start sounding immature and the things that actually matter can finally be discussed.(This blog post was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)
The Amazing Gigantic Missing Heroin Stash
Hereâs another completely odd phenomenon discovered in the laboratory of drug prohibition:It's a mystery that has got British law enforcement officials and others across the planet scratching their heads. Put bluntly, enough heroin to supply the world's demand for years has simply disappeared.â¦For the past three years, production has been running at almost twice the level of global demand. The numbers just don't add up. [BBC]Get it? Afghanistan is producing far more heroin than the entire world even uses. So where the hell did it go?The answer is easy. Itâs in a massive underground refrigerator. Seriously, thatâs exactly where it is. These guys are storing enough heroin to survive a nuclear holocaust. If we killed every poppy plant on the planet tomorrow, they wouldnât run out for years. These heroin barons arenât the nicest people and weâre making them rich with our silly drug war. Anyone who still thinks flamethrowers and helicopter patrols are going to solve the heroin problem needs to chill for a minute and think about whatâs happening here.
The Worldâs Smallest Bag of Marijuana
Try reading this unhinged Boston Globe editorial opposing decriminalization in Massachusetts with a straight face. It is an exhibit in dishonesty and an insult to everything on earth that is actually truly dangerous. The whole thing is nuts, but this line really tickled my bullshit bone:And despite their best efforts to paint an ounce of marijuana as innocuous, the fact is that one ounce of marijuana is worth about $600 and represents about 60 individual sales.Seriously!? Do you even know what marijuana is? The average price is around $200 an ounce. And it's not sold in 1/60th ounce increments. You canât even roll a joint out of that. You know what a joint is, right? Seriously, I would have thought there were enough preposterous reefer madness arguments already in circulation that you wouldnât need to create new ones.One of the great challenges facing those who advocate sensible marijuana policies is that of responding to crazy made-up nonsense over and over again. Sometimes our opponents just lie on purpose. Other times they simply don't know what they're talking about. And frequently we can't tell the difference.
Obama's Mixed Messages on the Drug War
A couple weeks ago, I noted the contradiction between Obama's call for reduced incarceration of first-time nonviolent drug offenders and his support for the heinous Byrne Grant program that has filled our prisons with petty offenders and subsidized mindblowing episodes of racist drug war excess. These completing agendas in Obamaâs crime platform deserve more discussion, thus Radley Balko has a piece at Slate that digs into this.(This blog post was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)
Mexican President Proposes Decriminalizing Drug Use
We covered this in The Drug War Chronicle, but I think it needs more discussion:MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Felipe Calderon, locked in a bloody battle with drug cartels, wants to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of street drugs in a plan likely to irk Washington.Calderon, a conservative in power nearly two years, sent a proposal to Congress on Thursday that would scrap the penalties for drugs including cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, opium and marijuana.â¦Under Calderon's plan, people carrying up to 2 grams (0.07 ounces) of marijuana or opium, half a gram of cocaine, 50 milligrams of heroin or 40 milligrams of methamphetamine would face no criminal charges.Where shall I begin?1. President Calderon himself has endorsed this. He is the golden boy of the U.S.-subsidized Mexican drug war and after accepting our financial support, he now does something certain to enrage the American Drug Czar.2. Calderonâs predecessor, Vicente Fox, tried the same thing and backed down due to pressure from Washington, D.C. Now that Calderon has established his drug war credentials, heâs picking up where Fox left off. Obviously, Mexico intends to decriminalize simple possession and wonât stop until it is done.3. The timing of this move appears designed to circumvent negative attention from Washington, D.C., which is horribly distracted right now for obvious reasons. Iâve been unable to find a response from the Drug Czar or anyone else. Amazing.Mexico is plagued by drug trade violence, the likes of which weâve never seen within our borders, and its political leadership is calling for an end to petty drug arrests. It wonât end the bloodshed â not even close â but it is a dramatic shift away from the U.S. drug war mentality that we must continuously pursue and arrest drug users in order to "win" the war on drugs. This is remarkable to say the least.
FDA Embraces Harm Reductionâ¦Sort of
Check out this interesting logic from the FDA:WASHINGTON - A top government health official rejected the idea of an immediate ban on cough and cold medicines for young children, saying it might cause unintended harm.Food and Drug Administration officials at a public hearing Thursday said they need to gather more data on whether over-the-counter remedies are safe and effective for children ages 2 to 6.The FDA is also worried that a ban â as sought by leading pediatricians' groups â might only drive parents to give adult medicines to their youngsters. [MSNBC]Well, that sounds like a logical concern. People tend to make safer choices when available and more dangerous ones when their options are restricted. Yet federal law still blocks funding for needle exchange and criminalizes people who use marijuana as an alternative to powerful opioid-based pharmaceuticals.                                                                                                                                                                             {Thanks, Caryn]
How Come "Joe Sixpack" is an American Hero, While "Joe Stoner" Gets Arrested?
Paul Armentano at NORML points to Sarah Palin's glorification of "Joe Sixpack" in the vice presidential debate. Indeed, one could scarcely overstate the naked hypocrisy of portraying daily drinkers as American heroes, while our nation continues to arrest nearly a million Americans each year for using marijuana.I usually leave the alcohol analogy alone, assuming that it often speaks for itself, and when it doesnât, the guys at SAFER can be counted on to point it out. But there are moments -- like hearing a major party VP candidate canonize alcohol users in a massively public forum â that remind us how truly discriminatory and fundamentally illogical this disparity is. If regulated sale is the best policy for alcohol, then it is the best policy for marijuana. And if people who drink a sixpack after work can be American heroes, so too are those who derive pleasure and relaxation from cannabis.(This blog post was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)
My back yard
Every week day I bus it up to Oakridge shopping center and pick up my medication for my spinal condition.This is not about the 14 months I've been waiting for decent and humane treatment for the chron
Mark Souder vs. The New Drug War Politics
Drug war hall-of-famer Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) is running for re-election in a tight race, yet his campaign site doesnât say one word about his extensive contributions as the leading congressional advocate for "tough on drugs" policies. Itâs easily the defining issue of his political career, yet with everything on the line, he doesnât seem to think his drug war demagoguery is a selling point for his campaign. Wouldnât it be ironic if Mark Souderâs campaign has determined that it would be "political suicide" to associate him with the increasingly unpopular war on drugs? Welcome to the new drug war politics, Mark Souder. We made you a nametag and saved a seat next to Bob Barr. When can we expect you?(This blog post was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)
Calvina Fay vs. The New Drug War Politics
The Drug Free America Foundationâs perpetually panic-stricken director Calvina Fay gave a speech at the World Forum Against Drugs that was so over-the-top crazy, I wish more people could have heard it. Pete Guither recounts and refutes it here, so Iâll call attention to the one thing she said that is actually truthful:Just since the beginning of 2008, we have seen an extraordinary increase in drug legalization efforts and activities in the US.Nice to meet you too, Calvina. Welcome to the future of the drug war debate, a bizarre upside down world in which you are the extremist and everyone else is talking about reform. Thatâs the only stop on this train, so I hope you brought some reading material. In fact, here, have a free copy of Drug War Facts. You'll need this where we're going.