BLOG

The Drug War is a War on Communities of Color

On Thursday and Friday I attended the Breaking the Chains Conference in Baltimore, MD. The event brought together a passionate and diverse group of experts and activists to explore the impact of the war on drugs within communities of color. I'm rather familiar with the topic, but I heard some things I wonât soon forget.I heard Baltimore youth share their visions for the future of their neighborhoods.I heard "Little Melvin" Williams, the biggest heroin supplier in Baltimore history, tell us he'd never have done it if it wasn't so profitable.I heard a trauma surgeon describe what it's like telling a mother she lost her son.I heard a woman who couldn't have been a day over 40 describe her recovery from 30 years of addiction on the streets of Baltimore. I heard current and former police officers acknowledge and vividly describe the overt racism of many professional drug enforcement officers.I heard about youth who excelled at inner city schools only to be targeted by gang recruiters interested in their math skills.And I heard a mother beam with joy as she shared the news that her sons would be home four years early under the revised crack sentencing guidelines. For two days, I was the minority.Back in D.C. later that evening, I walked through Columbia Heights to a house party. On my way, I happened to pass the scene of a homicide that occurred two years ago while I was on a ride-along with the Metropolitan Police Dept. We were the first unit to arrive, finding a young black man sprawled in the street, unconscious and still breathing as his friends stood over his shattered body unsure what to do. He'd been run over by a car on purpose, but his friends dispersed without providing any information to the frustrated homicide investigators. The last remnants of a once-thriving open-air drug market along the 14th Street corridor continue to operate discretely, generating sporadic drug trade violence in this rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Just one block from the scene of that still-unsolved murder, I entered a refurbished row house to find a few dozen white 20-somethings playing drinking games. Young professionals waited their turn at the beer-pong table as an ice luge slowly melted on the deck in the summer heat. Across the street, a gaping hole was fenced off, awaiting the construction of new luxury condos.As I sipped my beer listening to my friends compare business schools, I thought back to a comment from Baltimore attorney Billy Murphy Jr. earlier that day at the conference. He described how three decades of drug war violence, widespread addiction, and massive incarceration have decimated urban communities, necessitating gentrification to raise the tax base in major cities. The drug economy and the criminal justice system have indeed played a prominent role in reshaping America's urban landscapes. But the violence doesn't stop, it just moves over a few blocks.And so, the young people of color who grow up in drug-ravished communities in America continue to tell the same stories we've been hearing for decades. The "crack epidemic" that dominated the evening news when I was a child is supposed to be over, but the brave Baltimore youth that spoke up at the Breaking the Chains conference described a world that remains defined by everything the drug war was supposed to prevent. A world in which the most dangerous drugs are sold by children on the sidewalks. A world in which snitching is a capital offense, youth learn math by counting glass vials, prison slang permeates cultural vernacular, and a group of teens dressed in blue are not a soccer team. These things are the legacy of the war on drugs. After so many years and so many lost lives, nothing should be more obvious to anyone who listens to the voices of the multiple generations that have now been born on the drug war battlefield. Nothing is changing, nor will it, until the day this terrible war is finally dismantled and replaced.

Terrorism used as Excuse For Searching Employees

For the second time in two years the RCMP have made arrests at Trudeau airport in Mo ntreal,for drug smuggling.The crew hired to load and unload food supplies from the planes have been busted for smug

Another Big Drug Bust.

Yesterday,I was telling my significant other that there was a big bust happening soon.I was reading an article about all the drugs that had been found hidden in well concealed compartments in vehicles

busted

I watched the video busted and how true these pigs violate

Never say no to Quebec

This has been the motto of every governing party since I was born.If Quebec wants a safe injection site it wouldn't surprise me to see the Harper neocons do a 180.The only thing they believe in more t

A Few Items of Interest

Pete Guither points out a pair of good Supreme Court rulings dealing with money laundering. From now on, prosecutors must prove the defendant intended to launder the money in order to convict them of money laundering. Apparently, it took 9 of our most esteemed jurists to figure that out. Radley Balko has another update on the disgraceful Ryan Frederick prosecution. They've upped the charge to capital murder, which can carry a death sentence, even though he thought the cop was a burglar. And they've added a marijuana manufacturing charge, even though they didn't find marijuana plants. He hasn't been charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession, however, which is the only he crime he actually did commit. The whole thing is a monumental travesty that just continues to gain momentum.Paul Armentano warns us to Just Say 'No' to Big Pharma's Anti-Pot Pill. They've been making people feel horrible, which I guess is what you should expect when blocking a receptor that's known for making people feel good.Nicholas Kaczur of the New England Patriots is all over the news for working as a DEA informant to avoid charges for oxycontin possession. He was identified publicly when the guy he set up went to trial. It's ironic considering that he almost certainly cooperated in order to avoid bad publicity. Ooops. Now he's the most famous snitch in America. If you get busted for drugs, the only way to make your situation worse is to become an informant.

George Bush and Cocaine: How the President Might Save His Approval Rating

[Editor's Note: Jimi Devine is an intern at StoptheDrugWar.org. His bio is in our "staff" section.] As the eyes of the political spectrum make their way through Scott McClellan's expose on his Bush administration experiences, which includes information involving GWâs cocaine use, the president will continue to deny his actions. But Bush shouldnât be so quick to repeat that he was too wasted to remember whether he powdered his nose -- look at this honest group of politicians who have come out on the record about their past drug use and the lack of negative effects on their political careers. Obviously the current flagship of an open door policy to past drug use has to be Barrack Obama. In 1995's "Dreams From My Father" the Democratic frontrunner acknowledged his drug use before even becoming a member of the Illinois state legislature. Over primary season this did open Obama up to attack, most famously Mitt Romney noting: "I think that was a huge error by Barack Obamaâ¦ it is just the wrong way for people who want to be the leader of the free world." As we look at Obama and a few of the politicians who admit to being in the "once or twice" club, the underlying similarity between many is their political prominence. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg famously responded to the marijuana question with, "You bet I did, and I enjoyed it." Nevertheless, a dash of irony is added by New York being the marijuana arrest capital of the world. While Bloomberg's approach wasn't for everyone, others did come out of the smokey closet. Past presidential contenders John Edwards, John Kerry, and Howard Dean admitted together at 2003 presidential debate they had all tried the drug in the past. Few went into detail like Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer who cooked up his marijuana in some baked beans with a friend while at Columbia University. Finally we come to Al Gore. As a senator in the 1980s he took part in the hearings to approve Supreme Court nominees. When Douglas H. Ginsburg came under fire for his past marijuana use, Gore stepped up and admitted he had also tried the drug in the past. Of course, it was later found at that âtriedâ meant a lot more than occasional consumption. So here now we sit with allegations from a former press secretary that the President of the United States can't remember if he ever tried cocaine. I think it's pretty obvious how the president needs to use this as a boost to his credibility. Look at Dean and Gore, one is the Chairman of the DNC and the other convinced us that the ice caps are melting. If Bush decides to come out from his closet or from under his marble desk, at the very least he would be saying something the American people could believe.

New York Times Calls For Massive U.S. Investment in Mexico's Drug War

Just last week, the NY Times delivered a dismal assessment of drug war progress in Mexico. Now its editorial board proposes that we spend billions in U.S. tax dollars funding the proven failure that is Mexico's war on drugs:The timid assistance package proposed by the Bush administration and pared down by Congress suggests that Washington doesnât grasp either the scale of the danger or its own responsibilities.â¦The Bush administration is right to acknowledge the shared threat and the common responsibility. But the three-year, $1.4 billion aid package it proposed doesnât do the job. It is too small, notably so when compared with the billions the cartels earn in the United States.The whole editorial all but refutes itself, observing that nothing is working, then calling for substantial investments in the same tactics that have produced only dramatic violence. It really is amazing to think that the editors of one of our top newspapers have no concept of the social, economic, and historical dimensions of the war on drugs. What examples could they possibly be relying upon to conclude that larger investments are the key to drug war victory? If the NYT thinks $1.4 billion isn't enough, then they should tell us how much they'd like to spend. Seriously. How much will it cost to win? How would you define success? If we buy a whole entire drug war for the Mexican government, will it be modeled after ours? If so, are you insane?I'm so damned tired of being told that the drug war would work if we spent more and fought harder. How much are we really willing to sacrifice in order to prove how false that is?

Current scenario of HIV/AIDS Interventions in Chennai

Good things could happen

The Alter Net news today reported that America was ready for legalized marijuana.Sounded pretty good to me until I opened my daily paper and saw an article by one Alan Ferguson saying that in spite of

Reuters Should Stop Printing Mindless Anti-Pot Propaganda

No one other than the Drug Czar publishes more misleading headlines about marijuana than Reuters news service. Heck, the Drug Czar even gets his blogging ideas from them.Via NORML, just look at these two recent Reuters headlines regarding recent marijuana research: Heavy marijuana use shrinks brain partsMarijuana may up heart attack, stroke riskAll of this sounds very disturbing, of course, but as is always the case with scary marijuana headlines, there turns out to be far more to the story and far less for marijuana users to worry about. In this case, both studies relied on small samples of obscenely heavy marijuana users (up to 350 joints per week!).Let me be the first to concede that if someone smokes marijuana all day every day, there is something wrong with them. They may be treating a medical and/or psychological condition and their use may even be understandable under some unusual circumstance. But these are not the people we should study if we want to know the effects of marijuana. The lessons we learn from observing them won't apply to anyone but them. Beyond all of that, neither of these studies even shows what the headline said. They just didn't. Sarah Baldauf at U.S. News & World Report helpfully points out that the "shrinking brain" study researchers didn't know what size the participants' brains were before initiating marijuana use. It's possible that people with a smaller hippocampus and amygdala are more likely to become compulsive marijuana users, and that the drug doesnât change brain size at all. Brain size is also a deeply flawed measure of intelligence anyway. In sum, the story isn't news, it's nonsense.As for the marijuana-heart disease link, the study didnât address whether the subjects actually had heart disease. Its conclusions were based on heightened levels of a protein that's associated with heart disease. It means nothing, even if you leave aside the fact that the subjects of the study smoked an unbelievable 78-350 joints per week.In fairness to Reuters, both stories included a strong counterpoint from MPP's Bruce Mirkin, arguing that the absurdly high marijuana consumption of the study participants rendered any conclusions meaningless. Nonetheless, we should not be grateful simply because a reformer got a quote in a story that should never have been published. We could go on all day about bad things that marijuana "might cause," "could lead to," or "may be associated with," but none of that means a thing unless it's actually true. What is true, and will always be true, is that the war on marijuana users harms far more people than marijuana ever could.

Most Mexicans Think Drug Traffickers Are Winning the Drug War

It seems Mexican President Felipe Calderon's aggressive drug war tactics are impressing American politicians more than his own people:A majority of Mexicans believe violent drug gangs are winning a war with President Felipe Calderon's government after one of the worst months on record for killings, Reforma newspaper reported on Sunday.According to a poll by the newspaper, 53 percent of Mexicans think that drug traffickers hold the upper hand against government forces which are trying to clamp down on cartels that ship drugs to the United States.Only 24 percent said they believed the government was winning the battle. The remaining 23 percent gave no opinion. [Reuters]Since Calderon took office and promised a crackdown on drug trafficking, there have been over 4,000 drug war killings in Mexico. Mexicans must live amidst horrific and growing violence, with no end in sight, just so Calderon can stand proudly atop the drug war podium. Of course, he can only do so figuratively, for fear of being gunned down like his highest-ranking police officials.Really, the question of who's winning the drug war shouldn't even have to be asked. Of course the cartels are winning, because there wouldnât be cartels without the drug war. Every dollar they make, every bride they pay, every assassin's bullet is a product of drug prohibition's bloodstained legacy. The problem with the drug war isnât that we arenât trying hard enough, it's that trying hard is actually where all the worst violence and disorder comes from.

The Legalization Threat; DDEAL Newsletter #1

Drug Dealers Ensuring Against Legalization (DDEAL.us) (Please REPOST! The threat of legalization is REAL!) DDEAL Newsletter #1

Obama Supports Mexico's Drug War Crackdown

Nowhere is the failure of drug prohibition more obvious than in Mexico, where President Calderon's crackdown has already produced over 4,000 deaths, without making a dent in the drug trade.Yet Obama now joins John McCain in praising Mexico's brutal and ineffective anti-drug efforts:Mexican drug cartels are terrorizing cities and towns. President Calderon was right to say that enough is enough. We must support Mexicoâs effort to crack down. [suntimes.com]I don't know how anyone can look at the dismal state of the Mexican drug war and find anything to be proud of. Still, I agree with Pete Guither who responded to Obama's comments by pointing out that we just can't expect a realistic drug policy platform from the major party candidates. They're not there yet.Obama's good positions on needle exchange, medical marijuana, and sentencing have drawn interest from reformers, but there's simply no way to paint his praise of Mexico's bloody drug war crusade as anything other than typical prohibitionist "troop surge" rhetoric. It's the opposite of what's needed and it should give us pause before endorsing the popular perception among reformers that Obama "gets" the drug war issue.When describing his plans to fund drug war activity in Central and South America, Obama says "we'll tie our support to clear benchmarks for drug seizures, corruption prosecutions, crime reduction, and kingpins busted," demonstrating a fundamental failure to grasp how those activities complement one another. Crime and violence will simply increase if enforcement increases, so any set of benchmarks will ultimately have to ignore one category or the other. In regards to both Obama and McCain, however, we've got to recognize that ending violence in the international drug trade is the final stage of drug policy reform. It's the very last issue we'll have to confront and the last one about which we're likely to hear interesting or forward-thinking proposals from prominent politicians. There's no middle ground here. When we're ready to end violence and corruption in the drug trade, we'll stop waging the drug war.(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.)

Drug Tests Are Useless Devices That Donât Even Work at Detecting Drugs

The Drug Czar's blog was very excited on Friday. Why? Because a school in Florida drug tested 120 students and all of them passed!"It worked out very positively," [the principal] said this afternoon. "We did not have a single student test positive, out of 120 students we tested."Random meant random, she said. Tests were done unannounced at different times during different days of the week. Some students were tested more than once, just because of the randomness of it all, she said. [Tampa Bay Online]Admittedly, a random sample of 120 students testing negative for drugs is a surprising result. So surprising, in fact, that one begins to wonder how the hell it happened. Well the answer is simple: according to Tampa Bay Online, they used saliva tests, which are practically useless.Via wikipedia, here are the estimated detection times for saliva drug testing: Marijuana and hashish (THC): An hour after ingestion, and up to 24 hours depending on use.Cocaine (including crack): From time of ingestion up to 2 to 3 days.Opiates: From time of ingestion up to 2 to 3 daysMethamphetamine and ecstasy (MDMA, "crank," "ice"): From time of ingestion up to 2 to 3 days.Benzodiazepines: From time of ingestion up to 2 to 3 daysSo, basically, all 120 of these students could have been smoking hash and crack all night on Friday and still passed their drug tests on Monday when they got to school. I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm just saying that testing students' saliva doesn't prove whether or not they use drugs. That's not how it works, and any newspaper article purporting to celebrate the effectiveness of such a program ought to disclose that fact, lest it should become yet another arm in the Drug Czar's nationwide campaign to randomly collect bodily fluids from our children.