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Prison riot and death will be blamed on drugs
As I write this Mountain prison in Agassiz is locked down.On Saturday nite at 9:45 the inmates started an uprising that broke glass everywhere and eventually sent 12 prison inmates to hospital,allege
Marc Emery deal nixed by Harper Conservative government
Since the announced 10 year sentence with 5 to be done in a Canadian Prison.There have been rumors that the deal was in trouble.There was no mention of where the hold up originated or exactly what the
South Park takes a shot at the drug war
In a show that takes on just about everything the elite hold sacred,South Park has once again taken aim at the drug war.The show is called all about boobs but the story line is pure drug war .Kids getting high on cat urine leads to the DEA seizing all the cats.It's posted on DIGG and I found it on the FOX's homepage.It's hilarious and if you like South Park you'll love this one.
Sky train attacker a 'gentle soul'.
So read the headline in one of Vancouver's daily freebies.The article goes on to tell of a man's fall into addiction and violent robbery and the damage he's done.The crown is asking for a sentence of 10 years.The man did hit several women over the head with an iron pipe.At this point he has to be punished.The defense is asking for 6 years which is still a big chunk out of someone's life.The man's wife tells of a wonderful husband and father that loses his job through government policy betrayals and a failure to be retrained with any success.He then becomes depressed and self medicates with crack cocaine.Only in the era of prohibition could such a tragic miscalculation happen.The criminal nature of the control of drugs under prohibition assures that people like this guy can obtain any and every drug known to man.The people selling these drugs have no pride in their work or care for the well being of their clients.They offer the most addictive drug with the shortest period of intoxication.Why not?
In the Future, the Drug War Will be Fought by Robots
Most people at my office just roll their eyes when I explain that the drug war will soon be carried out by high-tech robots, but I'm right and they're naïve. Both sides are employing the latest technology to gain an upper hand in this never-ending struggle, thus it's just a matter of time until robots get involved. Case in point: Miami police could soon be the first in the United States to use cutting-edge, spy-in-the-sky technology to beef up their fight against crime.A small pilotless drone manufactured by Honeywell International, capable of hovering and "staring" using electro-optic or infrared sensors, is expected to make its debut soon in the skies over the Florida Everglades.â¦"Our intentions are to use it only in tactical situations as an extra set of eyes," said police department spokesman Juan Villalba. [Reuters]Yeah, right. When law-enforcement requests sophisticated technology and promises to use it only in an emergency, you can bet they'll soon be expanding their definition of "emergency." It's just a matter of time until our borders are swarming with these:The CIA acknowledges that it developed a dragonfly-sized UAV known as the "Insectohopter" for laser-guided spy operations as long ago as the 1970s.Imagine swatting a wasp, only to receive a bill for 150K from the Dept. of Homeland Security. Meanwhile, the drug traffickers are setting the pace, unveiling a series of cool high-tech gadgetry. And this is just the stuff we know about: Police in Mexico have come across a new weapon being used by the country's drug cartels - a James Bond-style vehicle complete with gadgets designed to deter arrest.â¦Inside was a smoke machine and a device to spray spikes onto the road behind - the purpose to make a getaway easier and stop the car from being followed. [BBC]They've also got semi-submersible drug trafficking vessels, which are difficult to detect on radar. There's even a rumor circulating that some of these semi-subs are actually robots. I bet it's true:In some instances, the semi-subs are towed behind other vessels and are scuttled if they are detected, Allen said. Authorities are investigating reports that some semi-subs are unmanned and are operated remotely, he said. [CNN]In the long run, it is just intuitive that drug traffickers will outsource as many of their tasks as possible to high-tech robots. Though costly, robots are difficult to kill and immune to lengthy drug sentences. They can be wired to self-destruct when captured, although it stands to reason that captures will be infrequent if the robots possess proper defenses.If it isn't happening already, the use of robots to transport drugs by air and sea will commence in the short term. As robot technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous, expect them be employed in manufacturing and retail distribution as well. They've already got a robot selling medical marijuana in California, although I suspect it was not designed to withstand attacks by drug enforcement agents.Obviously, there will be police robots as well and we can be reasonably sure they'll be outfitted with these horrible devices, which use ultraviolet lasers to detect drug residue. Hippies will have to clean up after themselves, as these roving narcbots will stop at nothing. If you're paranoid now, I'd like to know what you'll say when a robot approaches you and asks for consent to search.If this sounds like a joke to you, you might not understand the limitless absurdity of the war on drugs. Every day, our drug war leaders get more pissed and propose newer and crazier ideas. There is no amount of our tax dollars they won't waste and no ridiculous scheme they won't try. So if my predictions don't come true, it won't be because robots are expensive or impractical. It will be because enough of us finally came to our senses and ended this ever-escalating war before these terrible robots could be built.
It just gets worse
There's been a story in the news lately about a fellow that's missing.They keep showing this photo of a body builder with major tattoos and I'm thinking this guy's either a dealer or a rip off type.To
Netherlands Rated More Stable and Prosperous Than U.S.
A new global study ranks the Netherlands 9th in the world in stability and prosperity. The U.S. follows at a distant 22nd. I'll give you one guess where I'm going with this. Ok, times up. If you said, "Scott will argue that superior quality of life in the Netherlands proves that an enlightened marijuana policy won't destroy society," you win a cookie.Indeed, superior quality of life in the Netherlands proves that an enlightened marijuana policy wonât destroy society, and there are no complications which ought to prevent anyone from understanding this. A bunch of white Europeans have been prancing around for decades allowing one another to sell and smoke marijuana openly, culminating in their designation as the 9th best nation in the world. Not to mention their progressive policies on psychedelic mushrooms, safe injection sites, drug sentencing, and criminal justice spending, none of which have produced outcomes resembling those we've been told to expect should we abandon our obscenely harsh approach to these matters here in the U.S. The numbers speak for themselves.If you ask a drug warrior about this, they will change the subject, but it is just a fact that you can allow adults to manufacture, distribute, and consume marijuana and everything will be fine.
Poisoning the Drug Policy Debate in 8 Simple Steps
One of the primary facts worth knowing about the modern drug war debate is that it has been contaminated for decades. Anyone endeavoring to advance this conversation must navigate a dense fog of false dichotomies, red herrings, racist demagoguery, and McCarthian fear-mongering that serves to amplify the absurd while obscuring even the most simple truths.While discussing this matter yesterday with NORML's Paul Armentano, I learned of a marvelous ancient document which sets forth in basic terms the fundamental strategies that have long been employed to destroy the drug war debate. "Themes in Chemical Prohibition" by William L. White was published in 1979 by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It is easily the most insightful material ever produced by that agency:THE PROHIBITIONIST THEMES A review of chemical prohibitionist literature reveals eight themes which appear to emerge from the tactics of most such movements. The tactics utilized to produce these themes are as follows: 1. The drug is associated with a hated subgroup of the society or a foreign enemy.2. The drug is identified as solely responsible for many problems in the culture, i.e., crime, violence, and insanity.3. The survival of the culture is pictured as being dependent on the prohibition of the drug.4. The concept of "controlled" usage is destroyed and replaced by a "domino theory" of chemical progression.5. The drug is associated with the corruption of young children, particularly their sexual corruption.6. Both the user and supplier of the drug are defined as fiends, always in search of new victims; usage of the drug is considered "contagious."7. Policy options are presented as total prohibition or total access.8. Anyone questioning any of the above assumptions is bitterly attacked and characterized as part of the problem that needs to be eliminated.After almost 30 years, this remains a complete inventory of the instruments one can expect to find in any prohibitionist's tool belt. It reads like the Bill of Rights of drug prohibitionist rhetoric, a universal guide that could well be found folded up within the coat pockets of drug war generals from Washington, D.C. to Vienna. Only through strict adherence to these principles is it possible to effectively defend a drug war that destroys all which it claims to defend. Only under these rules could the continuation of costly and catastrophic public policies be considered politically viable, while even partial reforms bear a burden of presumed political suicide. Only in this climate of perpetual hysteria can our leaders be intimidated and stripped of their will to lead, forced instead by perceived orthodoxy to reluctantly, yet willfully, march us further into the drug war abyss.This post isn't about how to end the drug war. I donât quite claim to know that, although I've got a few ideas. Rather, this is an introduction, for anyone who may need it, to the rules of mainstream drug policy debate. We must know each of these rules by heart, because it is our duty to break them at any and every opportunity.
1/3 of People Admitted to Marijuana Treatment Hadn't Been Smoking Marijuana!
Advocates for harsh marijuana laws can be counted on to infuse their rhetoric with incessant declarations that marijuana is highly addictive. Rarely, if ever, could one expose oneself to such discussion without being told something like this:Decriminalizing marijuana â the drug which sends the most of America's youth into substance abuse treatment and recovery â is a dangerous first step towards complete drug legalization. In fact, marijuana sends the highest percentage of New Hampshire residents into drug treatment than any other illicit drug.â¦I strongly urge responsible leaders in New Hampshire to stop any effort to decriminalize or legalize the highly addictive drug marijuana."These words belong to the Deputy Drug Czar and they are less than a week old, thus they represent what his office currently believes to be the strongest and most important argument for marijuana prohibition: that the drug is highly addictive.As Paul Armentano at NORML points out, however, the government's own data on marijuana dependency shows that a plurality of people entering treatment for marijuana hadn't smoked it in a month or more. Isn't that just amazing? I mean, wow. 36% of people entering treatment for pot addiction had already kicked the habit on their own. Highly-addictive my ash.But how could this be? The answer can be found on this page, which shows that 58% of people entering marijuana treatment were referred by the criminal justice system. They didn't ask for help, rather they were found in possession of marijuana, which led a judge to issue a diagnosis of "marijuana addiction" and order them to get help for that.When more than half the sample consists of people who were forced into treatment, it should come as no surprise that so many of them haven't actually been smoking marijuana. Some may never have been marijuana users to begin with and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. More commonly, I suspect, a large number of marijuana arrestees simply quit after getting busted, either voluntarily or because their lawyers recommended it, pretrial drug screenings, etc. Since marijuana isn't actually very addictive to begin with, this is easy to do.And yet we continue to waste limited government resources investigating, arresting, adjudicating, and treating these people for an addiction they never actually had. In sum, the Drug Czar's best evidence of marijuana addiction comes from the fact that the government categorizes people as marijuana addicts if they're found sitting near a bag of marijuana. The instant we stop calculating it that way, the evidence ceases to exist and the drug warriors' favorite and best argument against marijuana reform is, wellâ¦cashed.
A False and Embarrassing Press Release from the Deputy Drug Czar
For your amusement, I've posted the full text of a press release the Drug Czar's office sent out last week in opposition to a marijuana decriminalization bill in New Hampshire. I disagree with it, of course, but that is not why I've posted it. I share this because it is so filled with factual and grammatical errors that I'm told NH legislators have been forwarding it around and laughing at it. (sorry, no link) Press ReleaseWednesday, March 19, 2008STATEMENT FROM DEPUTY "DRUG CZAR" SCOTT M. BURNS ON MARIJUANA DECRIMINALIZATION EFFORTS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE(Washington, D.C.) â Today, Scott M. Burns, Deputy Director for the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), made the following statement regarding marijuana decriminalization legislation, which is currently being debated in New Hampshire."Decriminalizing the illegal and highly addictive drug â marijuana â sends the wrong message to New Hampshire's youth, students, parents, public health officials, and the law-enforcement community."The supporters of decriminalizing marijuana are fooling themselves if they believe the manufacturing, possession, and/or distribution of 1.25 ounces or â over 90 marijuana joints â is good public policy."Decriminalizing marijuana â the drug which sends the most of America's youth into substance abuse treatment and recovery â is a dangerous first step towards complete drug legalization. In fact, marijuana sends the highest percentage of New Hampshire residents into drug treatment than any other illicit drug."The last thing New Hampshire need is more drugs, drug users, and drug dealers on their streets and communities â further straining limited law enforcement manpower and resources.I strongly urge responsible leaders in New Hampshire to stop any effort to decriminalize or legalize the highly addictive drug marijuana."To learn more about the dangers of marijuana use, please visit:http://www.ondcp.gov/drugfact/marijuana Not a word of this is true, of course, but the highlight is the 3rd paragraph in which Burns reveals utter confusion about what the bill even says. The proposed law decriminalizes possession of up to 0.25 ounces of marijuana. It does not decriminalize up to 1.25 ounces and it applies only to possession, not manufacture or sales. Burns is either lying, or he is just dramatically and embarrassingly wrong. Furthermore, 1.25 ounces isn't 90 joints anyway. An average joint is a gram, so 1.25 ounces is 35 joints, give or take. Since the bill in question decriminalizes only 0.25 ounces, however, we're really talking about just 7 joints. Nothing could be more typical of our friends at the Drug Czar's office than to claim that 7 joints = 90 joints. Finally, we learn that marijuana must remain illegal because so many people in New Hampshire are in treatment for it. This isn't a lie necessarily, but it is pretty funny. How many of those people were forced into treatment following a marijuana arrest that wouldnât have happened under the proposed law? We are arresting people for marijuana, forcing them into treatment, then citing those stats as evidence that marijuana is addictive and that we should be allowed to arrest people for having it. That is how stupid the modern marijuana debate has become. Fact and fiction aside, the whole thing is just ugly to read. Its grammar and sentence structure are reminiscent of the incoherent anti-drug rants one might find on this blog after a big link draws hostile attention. Could they be written by the same person? "In fact, marijuana sends the highest percentage of New Hampshire residents into drug treatment than any other illicit drug.""The last thing New Hampshire need is more drugs, drug users, and drug dealers on their streets and communities â further straining limited law enforcement manpower and resources." It's usually best not to get too caught up in correcting the grammar of one's opposition, and in most cases I'd consider that an indulgent and childish distraction from the real matters at hand. In this case, though, I think the high-schoolish tone in which the Deputy Drug Czar addresses politicians and the press is just lazy and disrespectful. Factual errors and bad writing are ubiquitous in any political debate, but when it arrives on White House letterhead, questions about basic competence merge with the broader ideological conflict.
New England Pushes for Marijuana Decrim.
Over the recent months I have had the pleasure of observing the work that folks have been doing in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in regards to Marijuana Decriminalization. New Hampshire's HB 1623 that would decriminalize marijuana up to a quarter of an ounce was not "Supposed" to pass the house. Thankfully the legislators of the Granite State where professing dismay to the idea of students losing their financial aid for mistake.
Simple Farmers Bearing Brunt of Afghan Drug War
EDITOR'S NOTE: Kalif Mathieu is an intern at StoptheDrugWar.org. His bio is in our "staff" section at http://stopthedrugwar.org/about/staff It was reported by the Associated Press on March 24 that 100 Afghan drug police were killed in the line of duty in 2007. One hundred deaths, not even counting civilians, simply to claim 13 provinces out of the country's 34 as poppy-free, seems like a brutal waste. And the war isn't truly even being fought against drugs, or even against a logical enemy of the state like the Taliban. This war is being fought against simple farmers, mostly in the remote and unruly provinces that don't have strong state presence. Farmers are thereby forced to pay taxes totaling in the tens of millions to non-governmental entities like the Taliban, essentially for "safe passage" in these lawless areas. This cost makes it a necessity, not merely an option, to secure the profits of growing opium. According to the World Bank: "[T]he cultivation of opium poppy started in the late 1970s -- with gross income per hectare yields 12 to 30 times higher than the country's staple, wheat." Given those numbers, it's easy to see why farmers living on the edge in a lawless province paying taxes to people like the Taliban would use opium growing to give themselves a little breathing room. It isn't that these farmers ideologically support opium or heroin use, or support the Taliban, quite the contrary. From the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's John Dixon of the Agricultural Management, Marketing and Finance Service in 2004: "Opium is not a crop of choice for most Afghan farmers. There are just no attractive alternatives at present that can give them a return anywhere near the return opium gives." So why is it that the focus of all of this on eliminating the growth of poppies instead of increasing central government jurisdiction, thereby increasing general security? Even after clearing these 13 provinces of opium, farmers have started planting marijuana instead, according to the AP, and so the struggle continues. Stop wasting time and money and lives burning fields of cropland and start working on protecting these farmers from Taliban extortion! This would seem a much more positive plan of action than destroying their livelihoods and committing them to poverty. The process would also reduce Taliban funding since they would have fewer and fewer farmers to exploit. That may sound optimistic, but at least aiming for the goal of security is a little more helpful to the people and realistic to work toward than trying to eliminate the drug trade in a place like Afghanistan. The government of Afghanistan doesn't even agree 100% with the United State's approach to the situation: in late 2007 the US was pushing to spray opium fields with pesticides from the air, but the Afghanis wouldn't allow it.
Taking it to Court (Again) - Request for Review/Revisement of Motion
I'm doing OK pro per. So far I've filed a motion do dismiss (demurrer) and was rewarded with a reply from the prosecution stating that the Necessary and Proper clause supersedes the 5th amendment.
MEDICAL MARIJUANA - - NOT A DRUG!!! STOP THE PERSECUTION!!!
Texas and other "no-tolerance" states are taking advantage of people with medical problems who, for whatever reason, do NOT believe in taking man made medication, cannot take man made medication, etc. This problem goes further than this one case. But we feel that if we can make a point with this petition, maybe we can make a difference for really good people out there, that are persecuted because of a difference of opinion.
Wally still doesn't get it
The headline in Friday's paper reads:Oppal calls for calm after shooting.This is the same Wally Oppal that recently called for a return to the habitual criminal act.His solicitor General John Les actually used the word habitual,Wally substituted chronic offender but the thought was exactly the sameThese people know exactly why people are dying.They know the drug laws as they stand now are killing people and will continue to do so until something is done.Unfortunately,they still think the answer lies somewhere in the current system of jail,enforcement,policing and the court and criminal justice system.I have no idea how their minds work or how they think that the drug problem,which has gotten consistently worse,can be solved with more of the same.The stats keep getting muddled and the death toll is either pumped up or down played,depending on the point they're trying to make.Right now the plan seems to be to play down peoples fear as the bodies are really starting to pile up.I was recently in contact with the head of the Green party(she actually wrote me herself)and they want to end this war.The Liberal party of B.C.
Where am I?
I just received a note from a friend at DIGG that tells of a mayor asking that a school trustee resign because he had the nerve to vote for legal marijuana.There were 192 others that voted the same wa
They're Producing Cocaine in Brazil Now, Too
Just as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow morning, the cartels controlling the cocaine trade will continue to expand their operations and defy US-funded eradication efforts in South America. RIO DE JANEIRO, March 17 (UPI) -- A large-scale coca plant and cocaine production operations have been discovered in Brazil, the first of their kind, authorities saidAt least four separate farms were found in the Amazon rain forest by way of satellite imagery analyzed by Brazilian officials, Agencia Estado news agency reported Monday.The discovery shocked authorities, as coca plants do not normally thrive in the dense, humid Amazon rain forest. [UPI]I suppose these precious rainforests become less humid when you burn them down to plant coca. Now that they know it works, we can expect much, much more of this. I wrote recently about the inevitable destruction of rainforests throughout South America if we continue mindlessly chasing coca production in circles. This latest move into Brazil is another step towards that outcome.The thriving cocaine industry cannot be stopped, but it can be regulated and controlled to prevent violence, corruption, and environmental destruction. Some might call this "giving up," but when you're doing something so phenomenally expensive and ineffective, giving up eventually becomes your only option. Besides, I'd rather give up on the drug war than the rainforest anyway.
High School Drug Policy: Striving for Underachievement
EDITOR'S NOTE: Jenifer Van Nortwick is an intern at StoptheDrugWar.org. Her bio is in our "staff" section at http://stopthedrugwar.org/about/staff Evidently Carroll County schools feel it is in their best interest to punish student-athletes for having a social life. The examiner.com (http://www.examiner.com/a-1287426~Parents__Drug__alcohol_policy_targets_athletes.html) recently published an article that discussed parentsâ uproar about the drug policy of schools in Carroll Country, Maryland. It seems that if students are at a party or with a group of friends and there is even the presence of drugs or alcohol, they can expect to be kicked off of their sports teams, even if they never touched drugs or alcohol. And America deplores communism because it is too controlling and doesnât let people live their lives the way they see fit? I canât wait until high schools start to tell students they have to leave the room while their grandmothers take arthritis medicine. The high school I attended in northern New York also seemed to think this was the best course of action when dealing with illicit drug use and underage drinking. During junior year in high school, at least two winter sports teams had to forfeit most of their season because a hockey party got busted at which approximately three fourths of all the student-athletes were in attendance. I can guarantee everyone who got kicked off was not drinking, let alone smoking. I can see possibly justifying kicking someone off of an athletic squad whose behavior is detrimental to the team, someone who is drunk or high enough to get the cops called to their house perhaps needs a little intervention. But someone who has done absolutely nothing wrong? Thatâs ludicrous. What happens if every sober person suddenly leaves a party? There are no designated drivers to shuttle intoxicated people home or rush someone suffering from alcohol poisoning or a drug overdose to the emergency room. Furthermore, what is gained from expelling an innocent kid from their soccer or volleyball team? They did nothing wrong except spend time with their friends. What the school system has done is punished a good kid for being responsible and not taking part in underage drinking and illicit drug use. Some students live for the sports they play â not everyone excels at school, and when something as monumental as that is taken away, the school district is in essence telling them what matters to them is irrelevant and inconsequential. What happens if sports are their anti-drug?
I forgot the count
Another drug war turf battle hit tonight.Information is scarce but it's a young Indo-Canadian male with a bullet in the back of his head.Sounds really familiar.I wonder what Wally will tell us about this one.One of these days the cops will actually solve one of these hits and we won't have to listen to lame excuses for what everybody but the police knows is just drug gang violence as the result of the prohibition of drugs.If I have to listen to one more stupid police theory i'm gonna puke.It's like the lunatics are in charge of the asylum.People keep dying and all we get is more tough talk and more ways to throw the wrong people in prison.Congratulations to our US brothers for finally jailing more people per capita than we do.We held that distinction for far too long.Have no fear,though,Harper's here.I'm sure his new legislation will quickly fill the gap and we'll retake that little distinction.Then there's Ms.
DEA Opens Drug War Fantasy Camp
Last year, the DEA was teaching people how to cook meth. Now they're teaching people how to shoot other people with guns.Just watch this news report about the DEA's exciting public outreach program, which shows almost nothing except a bunch of people shooting guns and seemingly having an exhilarating experience. There sure is a lot of shooting involved in saving us from drugs. Of particular interest is the instructor's reaction when the participating FOX reporter accidentally shoots an unarmed suspect. He laments the inevitable newspaper headlines, as though bad press is the real tragedy when someone is accidentally shot in the drug war. To be fair, we don't get to hear everything he may have said, but the clip is creepy either way when one glances over at the pile of innocent bodies our drug war has accumulated. As an undergrad criminal justice major, I had the opportunity to take on a million dollar "shoot/don't shoot" simulator at a sophisticated police training facility. It was a unique opportunity to appreciate the difficult positions police officers can find themselves in. The weapon was a real glock, outfitted to shoot invisible lasers instead of live ammo. When you pulled the trigger, an amplified boom shook the floor and a simulated kickback threatened to rip the weapon from your grasp. More than a few of my classmates panicked quickly, emptying their clips at the slightest provocation, and earning admonishment from the instructor. I performed well, taking down a disgruntled employee on a shooting rampage in an office building, then managing not to shoot an angry motorist who reached for his wallet in an aggressive manner. I've spoken ever since of my newfound appreciation for the awesome responsibility law enforcement officers bear when making life and death decision within a fraction of a second.I've also never been more convinced that police must not be asked to make such decisions in the name of preventing drug transactions between consenting adults. The risk is too great and the reward far too small. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â [Thanks, Paul]