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Drug Raid: Police Shoot Man, Find Nothing But Codeine Syrup

Yet another needlessly violent drug raid, this time in Louisiana:HOUMA -- A 26-year-old Crozier man shot by a narcotics agent in a drug raid Thursday morning remains in intensive care, though his condition has stabilized, relatives said.Floyd Franklin Jr. was shot inside his home at 112 Edgewood Drive after agents from the Terrebonne Narcotics Task Force raided the trailer about 6:45 a.m. and found Franklin pointing a gun at them.The agents were executing two search warrants that are related to an investigation into the distribution of a "large amount of illegal narcotics," Sheriff Vernon Bourgeois said. [Daily Comet]A large amount of narcotics, huh? So what did they find?â¦two containers of liquid codeine agents found in the house, Bourgeois said. The drug, an opiate available by prescription, is used illegally to lace marijuana cigarettes or add to drinks, the sheriff said.They've got to be kidding. Yeah, I'm sure people have been known to mix codeine with other drugs, but is that the default assumption we should reach anytime a drug suspect is found in possession of extremely common prescription medicines? The author of the story has yet to return my email inquiring whether the codeine was found in the medicine cabinet. Regardless, this is just a disgraceful attempt to portray the man they shot as some weirdo poly-drug abuser. Absent evidence that he actually intended to use the codeine for such purposes, there's no justification for including these pathetic smears in the article. The guy probably also had a few steak knives which could be used to murder the elderly, but I didn't see that in the article so spare us the insinuations and put the cough syrup back where you found it cause no one cares. Moreover, does anyone really think this guy would try to shoot it out with police over that? Officers say they announced, but that doesn't mean Franklin heard them. This could easily be another case of an innocent drug suspect mistaking police for burglars and merely attempting to defend his home. After all, there certainly wasn't a "large amount of illegal narcotics" present for which he might seek to evade capture. How many more innocent people have to get shot before police realize that charging into homes with guns drawn increases rather than reduces the risk of something going wrong?

Drug Dealing, Entrepreneurship, and Drug Prohibition

In my recent televised debate with the UK's Deirdre Boyd, the question came up of whether people involved in the illegal drug trade now would continue to operate -- as drug dealers or other criminals -- following legalization. I argued (video #3) that with all the money that currently goes into the criminal underground through the drug trade not being spent by people in that way anymore, there will be fewer jobs in crime. Illegal drug sellers won't be able to drop their prices enough to compete with the safe and inexpensive alternatives that legalization and regulation will provide for -- a certain level of profitability is needed to make it worth taking the substantial risk involved in being a criminal -- so they would no longer have customers. (Boyd argued that they would turn to "people trafficking," and there was no more time left in the segment, so I didn't get to respond that drug traffickers are investing their money in all kinds of places now, some of them probably illegal and abusive, so the last thing we should want is for them to continue to make even more money from drugs that they'll continue to invest in other places.) A post today in Small Business Trends reports on a study by economist Rob Fairlie which found a statistical relationship between being a teenage drug dealer and being self-employed as an adult. Fairlie accounted for factors like people having less formal education, or having criminal records that would tend to hinder them becoming other people's employees, and found that they didn't explain it. His conclusion is that entrepreneurs in both legal and illegal enterprises have some of the same characteristics. Matt Bandyk has an insightful follow-up on the US News & World Report entrepreneurship blog Risky Business, where he gets to the heart of the matter at hand: Does drug prohibition change the incentives such that potential entrepreneurs pursue lives of crime rather than legitimate businesses? My follow-up is to ask the related question: Do the violence and disorder of the illegal drug trade, which exists because of drug prohibition, drive away legitimate businesses that could provide quality job opportunities with the possibility of advancement for bright young people growing up in troubled neighborhoods who want to do something interesting? This is how I see it: prohibition + continued drug use -> inner city drug crime and opportunity to work in crime crime -> less business investment -> fewer jobs -> difficulty finding work -> poverty crime -> arrests -> criminal records -> difficulty finding work -> poverty poverty -> crime, substance abuse, etc. arrests -> incarceration -> broken family & community relationships, training in crime opportunity to work in crime & training in crime -> people working in crime -> arrests, etc., and on and on and on... So yes, I'd say that prohibition creates the wrong incentives -- maybe all the wrong incentives.

Everyone Should Know the Story of Rachel Hoffman

This 20/20 report on the death of Rachel Hoffman illustrates perfectly the greed and incompetence that too often characterizes modern drug war policing. Even if you already know the story, I can't recommend highly enough that you watch this and share it with everyone you know.From the moment Tallahassee police laid their hands on her, to the day she died, to the disgraceful press conference in which they blamed her for her own death, there was not one moment throughout this shameful episode that can be excused. I can think of at least a half dozen laws that should be changed immediately in the aftermath of this and a few police officers that should be thrown out of the department and mauled in civil court.But the one thing you wonât hear on 20/20 is that policing this bad doesnât happen by accident. It wasn't bad training or a series of tragic coincidences that produced this outcome. It is the war on drugs, corrupt to its core, that incentivizes police to behave with a reckless disregard for the safety and well-being of the people they serve. Every action they took made sense to them. That's the problem.

Meeting,Vancouver,stigma and addiction,how to deal with it.

As the meeting was posted for RSVP by the 21st and I didn't find out about it till the 25th I thought I'd have to drop in.I had the 26th in my head and wound up doing a walking tour of the DTES on Sa

Concerned Citizen Launches "Drugs Bring Death" Campaign

A bold new anti-drug campaign has emerged in Lima, OH, the site of a shocking drug raid gone wrong in which the SWAT team killed Tarika Wilson -- an unarmed mother of six -- and shot her baby:For about four hours, Jesse Lowe stood silently by himself holding a cardboard sign with three words scrawled in black marker: "Drugs Bring Death."His message wasn't aimed just at the dealers or residents of the neighborhood scarred by shootings and fear. He wanted the city to hear him.In the months since, Lowe's solitary protest has drawn together black and white, rich and poor in a city simmering with anger since a white police officer shot and killed a black woman and wounded her baby during a drug raid. The officer faces trial Monday on negligent homicide and negligent assault charges.Upwards of 100 people have shown up at many of the nine rallies he's put together, waving "Drugs Bring Death" signs. They've handed out thousands of stickers, T-shirts and signs that now blanket the city midway between Toledo and Dayton. A billboard company donated space on four signs, and businesses have supplied food for the rallies."The courage of one man is spreading to everyone," said police Maj. Kevin Martin. "This is what the solution has to be. As police, we're limited in what we can do." [AP]This is the same department that posted an image on its website that was threatening to the public and even positioned snipers over a peaceful public protest against their own violent tactics. Of course, it should come as no surprise that in a town plagued by aggressive drug war policing, law enforcement would rally around a man who blames drugs and not the drug war for the suffering that surrounds him. Yet it was police who killed Tarika Wilson and who've kept their mouths clamped shut as the community cried out for answers. Across the nation, police are killing innocent people through needlessly confrontational paramilitary drug raids. It's a disturbing trend that will surely grow worse if we continue to blame drugs themselves for the preventable consequences of overzealous narcotics enforcement. Just look at the effect Lowe's campaign is already having:"I don't know what caused Jesse to go out there, but thank God," said Bob Horton, a minister. He listens to a police radio scanner at home and has noticed a change in the neighborhood."People are calling in more when they see something," he said. "They didn't use to do that."Unfortunately, the more calls police receive about suspected drug activity, the more mistakes will be made and the more innocent people will be killed. That is just the inevitable consequence of declaring war within our own communities. You get just exactly what you ask for, except, of course, any lasting peace and security.So while I don't fault Jesse Lowe at all for spreading the message his challenging life has taught him, it's frustrating to see the discussion of drug abuse boiled down to such a simple soundbite. It is precisely the "Drugs Bring Death" mentality that fosters tolerance for the excessive drug war violence carried out by our own public servants. It is that sense of morbid inevitability that prevents too many of us from envisioning an answer beyond the endless war taking place in our own streets. As long as the drug war continues, there will be no control, no security and no solution. If communities can muster the bravery to stand up to the dealers on their block, let's hope they'll someday join us in challenging the laws that created those enemies and recognize at long last that drugs are only as dangerous as we allow them to be.

Drug Smugglers Use Hurricane For Cover

Conditions that send everyone else running for shelter are actually appealing to drug traffickers:Smugglers tried to use Hurricane Dolly as a cover in at least three attempts to move drugs or illegal aliens through Texas, border officials said Wednesday.About 9,600 pounds of marijuana was found buried under cotton seeds on a truck on U.S. 77 at the Border Patrol's Sarita checkpoint south of Kingsville, Texas, said Lloyd Easterling, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection.â¦Jayson Ahern, deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said the Sarita checkpoint marijuana bust was one of three Wednesday in which smuggling operations appeared to be attempting to operate under the cover of the storm. [CNN]Well, shucks, what are we gonna do about this? I guess it will be necessary to double border security during hurricanes to prevent smuggling. Any volunteers?

bupenorphine,another great white(powder)hope

Several months ago I read an article about how this drug was the best hope for drug addicts to come down the pike in years.Now,I can recall the exact same things being said about methadone so I was no

Needle Exchange Saves Lives. Why Are We Still Arguing About It?

AP has a good story reminding us of the plight of Bill Day, whose effort to reduce AIDS in San Antonio has been blocked by overzealous local drug warriors.SAN ANTONIO (AP) â Bill Day is a familiar face out under the San Antonio viaducts, where skinny addicts shoot drugs into their bruised arms.Day, 73, is the source of something many of them desperately need: clean syringes, which Day sees as his calling from God to prevent the spread of disease.Authorities see it differently. Backed by an opinion from the Texas attorney general, District Attorney Susan Reed says she can prosecute anyone in possession of drug paraphernalia, regardless of the reason they have it.â¦"I am really angry," Day said, pointing to piles of used needles in the brush under a bridge on the city's West side. "Every day we're not out here, someone is getting HIV."How can anyone possibly dispute that? The drug czar's office continues to maintain that needle exchange enables drug use and makes the problem worse, to which Day responds:"No one says to themselves, 'They're giving away syringes, let's go get some heroin,'"The reality that addicts will shoot up with or without clean needles shouldn't have to be debated or even explained. It is deeply disturbing to witness opposition to proven AIDS prevention practices from the very people who are supposed to be protecting our society from the harms of drugs. For the thousandth time, I find myself shaking my head in amazement that the people in charge of our drug policy want to reduce the availability of clean needles.

A Revealing Remark From the Deputy Drug Czar

Deputy Drug Czar Scott Burns visited Arcata, CA last week to see "Americaâs grow house capitol" firsthand. After meeting with local authorities and accompanying police on a few marijuana raids, he said this:â¦regarding enforcement, Burns seemed to offer a mixed message. While unyielding in asserting that federal law holds marijuana illegal under all circumstances and trumps all state and local medical cannabis laws, Burns nonetheless advised Arcatans to âdefer 100 percent good judgment of the people who have been elected and appointedâ while motioning to those present in the APD conference room. But most of them are working on guidelines under which medical marijuana may be safely cultivated and dispensed. [Arcata Eye]I just cannot possibly point out often enough that the conflict between state and federal drug laws doesn't marginalize the value of state-level reforms. The deputy drug czar doesnât arrive in California with a convoy of DEA super-narcs to slash and burn everything in sight. He can't do that and he knows it, as his remark clearly illustrates.The federal war on medical marijuana is a political strategy designed to create the appearance of chaos in order to deter other states from implementing medical marijuana laws. Medical marijuana is more available than ever before, notwithstanding sporadic DEA activity in California. Yet we still hear folks suggesting that "the DEA will just swoop in and ruin everything" if we pass new marijuana reforms at the state-level. To be clear, the DEA has ruined many lives, but it has not ruined California's medical marijuana law. That should be obvious to all of us.The DEA cannot overcome the will of voters and I'm tired of seeing the press and even some reformers helping them pretend they can.

The Significance of US Govt Cannabinoid Patent 6,630,507

Brinna Nanda

The Drug War Doesn't Reduce Drug Use. Drug Users Reduce Drug Use.

Blogger and biomedical research scientist DrugMonkey asks drug war critics to explain declining rates of drug use over the last several years. â¦for those of you who insist vociferously that the War on Drugs (considered inclusively with the Just Say No, D.A.R.E, main-stream media reporting, and all that stuff that is frequently rolled into a whole by the legalization crowd) is an abject failure...for those of you who insist vociferously that you cannot tell teenagers anything about the dangers of recreational drugs and expect them to listen to you...I would like these data explained to me. There are many ways to respond to this and I wasn't surprised to find Pete Guither in the comments section with some good points. I guess I'd begin by observing that the existence of a massive often-brutal campaign to end drug use simply doesn't mean that said campaign is responsible when drug use declines. The drug czar has an obnoxious tendency to claim success by comparing current drug use rates to their highest point in history, which isn't exactly helpful.But if there is one point that I think really illustrates the absurdity of crediting the drug war at large for the reductions in drug use we've seen, it is this: rates of alcohol and tobacco use have fallen in virtual lockstep with these declines in illegal drug use. That happened without any effort to eradicate the manufacturing of those substances, without interdicting the supply, without revoking financial aid for college from those found in possession, without mandatory minimums, drug-sniffing dogs, or student drug testing (which doesn't look for tobacco and utterly sucks at detecting alcohol).The drug czar has actually gone so far as to imply that the war on illegal drugs somehow reduced alcohol and tobacco use, I guess through some sort of reverse gateway theory that he didn't flesh out for obvious reasons. But even if someone were to buy that argument (at tremendous risk of becoming an idiot), it would still be true that we were able to reduce consumption of our two most harmful drugs without deploying against them any of the costly, destructive and controversial tactics that characterize our modern drug war.I would like that explained to me.

In New Orleans, You Can Get 5 Years in Prison for a Joint of Marijuana

Drug war defenders are indeed fond of pointing out how hard it is to actually get jail time for using drugs. So they should probably stop New Orleans District Attorney Keva Landrum-Johnson before she finishes filling Louisiana's prisons with the pettiest marijuana users she can find:The flood of new felony charges didnât target murderers, rapists or armed robbers â they targeted small-time marijuana users, sometimes caught with less than a gram of pot, and threatened them with lengthy prison sentences.The resulting impact has clogged the courts with non-violent, petty offenses, drained the resources of the criminal justice system and damaged low-income African-American communities, [Orleans Public Defenders Office Chief of Trials Steve] Singer said.â¦A first-time marijuana possession charge in Louisiana is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison but typically results in a small fine. A second offense is a felony that can carry up to five years in jail and a third offense up to 20 years.â¦Some say Landrum-Johnsonâs decision to buck history and charge marijuana users with felonies is a political decision meant to assist in her run for Orleans Criminal District Court Section E judgeship. By prosecuting thousands of marijuana possession cases as felonies, Landrum-Johnson can then go to the voters of New Orleans and claim she is âtough on crime,â [Tulane University criminologist Peter] Scharf said. She can point to the massive increase in felony prosecutions under her tenure without explaining that those prosecutions were for people holding joints and not guns, he said. [New Orleans CityBusiness]Only Landrum-Johnson knows what her motivations are, so I won't belabor that point. She is presiding over a deliberate effort to place large numbers of small-time marijuana users in prison for 5-20 years and there exists no noble motive for doing that. Whether she believes this can help her become a judge, or she possesses a virulent and vindictive animosity towards people who smoke marijuana, or she is merely detached utterly from the consequences of the authority she wields, the result is disastrous and the justification is a fraud.This, I'm afraid to say, is the reality of America's war on drugs. Everyday our drug policies produce outcomes none of us intended and almost none of us support. The idea of imprisoning nonviolent drug users is so obviously unpopular that the DEA has a whole page arguing that it almost never happens. But will anyone in Washington, D.C. approach the New Orleans DA's office and tell them to stop? Of course not. The very people who so vigorously argue the scarcity of such injustices are the same ones who work tirelessly to conceal them and enable their continuation.

Video Highlights from Vienna Drug Policy NGO Forum

The week before last NGOs from around the world concerned with drug policy gathered at the United Nations Vienna location. I wasn't there, but friends of mine played an important role, and they did a great job. Check out these video interviews put together by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union: Find the HCLU web site here.

gang or no gang

The shooting of a 20 year old U-Vic psych student on saturday was being lamented by family and friends as a mistake,as the boy was popular and had no gang connections or drug history.That turned out t

Police Kill Dog During Drug Raid, Find No Drugs

No one is entitled to their opinion on the drug war unless they understand how often this happens:WAREHAM â A pit bull was fatally shot after police were confronted by the dog while executing a search warrant at 298 Onset Ave. on Wednesday, Chief Thomas Joyce said Thursday night.â¦The dog was "growling and acting in an aggressive manner," the report said, so an officer used a Taser in an attempt to make it back off."The dog retreated approximately 6 inches and then charged at the entry team growling and showing his teeth," the report said.â¦"Unfortunately, at this point the officers feared for their safety and the dog had to be put down," according to the report. Chief Joyce said the dog was shot once by an unidentified officer.According to police, a search of the premises netted several items often used in packaging drugs, but no illegal drugs were discovered, and no arrests were made. [SouthCoastToday.com]This isn't the first time police who failed to locate any drugs have called attention to the discovery of so-called drug packaging materials. They should be more surprised not to find such items. Guess what, people package things. It doesnât make someone a drug dealer and any reporter who references such nonsense is complicit in a petty, backhanded attempt to smear a guy whose dog just got killed for no good reason.But that's just my opinion. Some nice people in the comment section beg to differ:Here is the truth. The owner has been busted for drugs and gun charges in the past. He got lucky this time, he must have sold all his drugs before the raid.______â¦usually when it gets to the point the DEA and a Task force is raiding your house it because they have had hours upon hours of documented proof the residents are dealing drugs . if these alleged drug dealers lived next door to u with crack heads coming and going all hours of the night I bet you would be glad they raided that house! The dog was an unfortunate casualty of war.______they should have shot the owner instead. Well, at the risk of satisfying such vicious bloodlust, allow me to point out that plenty of people are killed by police during drug raids that didn't turn up any drugs.

Barack Obama Proposes "Shifting the Model" on the Drug War

From a recent interview in Rolling Stone:The War on Drugs has cost taxpayers $500 billion since 1973. Nearly 500,000 people are behind bars on drug charges today, yet drugs are as available as ever. Do you plan to continue the War on Drugs, or will you make some significant change in course?Anybody who sees the devastating impact of the drug trade in the inner cities, or the methamphetamine trade in rural communities, knows that this is a huge problem. I believe in shifting the paradigm, shifting the model, so that we focus more on a public-health approach. I can say this as an ex-smoker: We've made enormous progress in making smoking socially unacceptable. You think about auto safety and the huge success we've had in getting people to fasten their seat belts.The point is that if we're putting more money into education, into treatment, into prevention and reducing the demand side, then the ways that we operate on the criminal side can shift. I would start with nonviolent, first-time drug offenders. The notion that we are imposing felonies on them or sending them to prison, where they are getting advanced degrees in criminality, instead of thinking about ways like drug courts that can get them back on track in their lives -- it's expensive, it's counterproductive, and it doesn't make sense.I've heard it said, and I agree, that this is a solid response from a mainstream politician on the presidential campaign trail. But I also think it simply reflects a realistic summary of what the centrist, mainstream view on U.S. drug policy sounds like. In other words, rather than commending Obama for not spouting tired war metaphors, let us welcome the new status quo. We've reached a point at which this type of rhetoric is probably the most politically palatable perspective a serious candidate could offer. We've heard McCain making some similar points, and while I certainly won't be holding my breath, I think the possibility exists that we'll make it through the entire campaign without witnessing any serious controversy surrounding the concept that our drug war needs a major ideological makeover.(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.)