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The $1 Million Drug War Trial That Means Nothing
Why is the U.S. government spending $1 million to bring drug charges against a man who's already going to die behind bars? Colombian rebel leader Ricardo Palmera is already serving a 60-year prison sentence. Convicted in a hostage-taking conspiracy, he has no chance of parole and is likely to die in prison.But U.S. prosecutors are about to begin a monthlong trial, which could cost more than $1 million, seeking to prove that Palmera and his guerrilla allies are drug traffickers. [AP]So what's the point? AP explains it as well as I could:For the U.S., however, the outcome matters a great deal. The Bush administration has taken a hard line against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, branding them not just a terrorist group but a violent drug cartel. A courtroom win would reinforce that stance.As Pete Guither points out, the story's headline "US Seeks Symbolic Drug War Victory" couldn't more perfectly describe what's going on here. We are spending $1 million to stamp the "drug trafficker" label on a guy that's already been branded as a terrorist. In the absence of actual tangible progress in the war on drugs, these sorts of symbolic endeavors are the lifeblood without which the morale of the great drug warrior army might wither and disperse. And when all is said and done, the only fact of any significance to emerge from this will be that drug prohibition provides income for violent paramilitary armies to buy guns and bombs for their political wars. Even when the desired verdict is handed down, the drug war is nothing other than an exhibit in its own futility.
People Don't Inject Marijuana With Hypodermic Needles. They Smoke It.
Via Paul Armentano at the new NORML Blog:According to a recent news item making international headlines, a journalist in a forthcoming BBC 'documentary' will "inject" herself with the "main ingredient" of so-called "skunk cannabis" in an effort to warn viewers of the "dramatic" and "unpleasant" effects of marijuana.And so, we're reminded yet again that there is simply no level of absurdity to which the purveyors of anti-marijuana hysteria will not stoop. It shouldn't be at all necessary to explain that no one shoots THC straight into their veins. So when we find this intrepid "journalist" rolling around on the floor soiling herself or whatever, let's just keep in mind that it won't happen again unless this ridiculous stunt somehow catches on. And if that happens, it will be BBC's fault, not marijuana's.Of course, while this preposterous exercise will teach us nothing about the effects of recreational marijuana use, it does illustrate two important points worth considering:1. Marijuana is sufficiently mild in its effect that anyone attempting to vividly depict its horrors must resort to the most extreme and unrealistic experiments imaginable. Showing footage of normal marijuana users using marijuana normally would be utterly boring and insignificant. Thus, the choice to approach the subject under such bizarre conditions tells you everything you actually need to know about the integrity of marijuana's critics.2. Marijuana is so amazingly safe that this journalist can confidently inject its main ingredient straight into her veins. Do you think the BBC or the doctors involved in this mindless charade would have allowed this to proceed if there were any real danger? This whole trainwreck is really just a giant concession that marijuana is medically safe even in atypically massive doses. Once again, we can count on marijuana reporting in the British press to be injected with everything but the truth.
You Know the Drug War's Gone Too Far When It Shows You Its Penis
Allegations of weird and inappropriate behavior by narcotics officers have become so commonplace that one struggles to feign shock or surprise upon learning of them. A drug informant's allegations that a Marin narcotics agent offered her leniency in exchange for three-way sex - and then sent a photo of his penis to her cell phone - have left a legal mess at the Hall of Justice that could take months to clean up. [Marin Independent Journal]This poor woman agreed to cooperate after being arrested for selling an ounce of marijuana, and the next thing she knows, there's a penis in her phone. Prosecutors subsequently dropped the charges against her, so the penis was ultimately the only punishment she received. Not a bad deal by drug war standards, but it does make you wonderâ¦Will investigators be contacting other female informants this detective worked with? My understanding is that people who like to show other people their penis tend to do so habitually. For all we know, this cop could have been going around for years targeting women for arrest and then texting them pictures of his penis. The bottom line is that the entire process of turning arrestees into informants is inherently coercive and morally dubious to begin with. When you have undercover cops making shady deals with drug defendants, it's just a matter of time before someone sees a penis.
On Barry Cooper's latest avoid-getting-busted video release
Former Texas police officer Barry Cooper is at it again. Granted instant media notoriety when he switched sides and released a 2006 video, "Never Get Busted Again," Cooper provided tips and advice to people about how to travel with marijuana and avoid getting nailed. (Our colleagues at Flex Your Rights have criticized some of Cooper's advice, but that's not what this post is about.) Today, Cooper begins shipping his latest effort, "Never Get Raided," a primer on how to possess, grow, and sell pot without getting busted. Cooper is not well liked in the drug reform community. He got off on the wrong foot by falsely affiliating himself with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, as noted above, his advice has been criticized, and his personal behavior has been called into question as well. He has also been accused of being a mercenary (for not giving away his videos). I'm sure a lot of those criticisms are well-founded, but that's not what this post is about, either. I haven't seen Cooper's latest effort. I don't know if it delivers the goods, and I'm not here to say you should go out and buy it. But I certainly support any effort to blunt the ability of the cops to bust people for pot offenses. What roused me from my dogmatic slumber on this was LEAP executive director Jack Cole's quote in a Dallas Morning News article about Cooper and the new video. What Cooper is doing is wrong, Cole said: "We don't agree philosophically at all on these issues," said Cole. "He thinks he should be able to school people on how to break the law, we believe in changing the law." Sorry, Jack, I'm with Barry Cooper on this one. There is no moral, ethical, or philosophical justification whatsoever for terrorizing, arresting, prosecuting, and jailing people for marijuana offenses. Anyone who can teach the nation's millions of pot smokers have to avoid the cops deserves kudos, not criticism. It's not like he's teaching people how to be better killers or robbers. We are talking about a non-violent activity that does no harm to anyone except, arguably, the pot smoker himself. As old-school American dissident Henry David Thoreau once noted, ""Unjust laws exist. Shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them and obey them until we succeed, or shall we transgress them at once?" Or shall we, like Mr. Cooper, tell people how to successfully transgress them? Hell, yeah. I understand where Jack Cole is coming from. LEAP needs to be viewed as responsible law enforcement opposition to the drug war, not as a bunch of drug crime facilitators. But I don't carry that particular burden, so I say good on Barry Cooper (provided, of course, that his advice is good). Yes, of course, we need to change the drugs laws. But in the meantime, as 800,000 people get arrested each year on pot charges, we need to reduce the harm, and helping people avoid arrest and prosecution for marijuana offenses is doing precisely that. The pot laws need to be subverted, and if Barry Cooper's videos help do that, more power to him.
legalize it and make money instead of wasting it.
i think that it is time to legalize pot and stop the drug war. it is not working it never did and never will. if alchol and cancancer sticks are legal well but god then so should pot. even the playing field.
B.C. Supreme Court Ruling Favors Privacy Over Police
For years,people in Canada have watched courts south of the border throwing out cases over technicalities. Canadian courts have traditionally sided with the police in cases where the line has seemingly been crossed.
Opponents of Marijuana Reform Constantly Contradict Themselves
This article on a marijuana decriminalization effort in New Hampshire provides a useful case study in the utter confusion and desperation of the anti-pot peanut gallery:â¦Exeter Police Chief Richard Kane, among others, is adamantly opposed. "If we reduce the penalty for small amounts of marijuana, it will eventually lead to legalization and I think that's heading in the wrong direction," he said last week.Nashua Police Chief Donald Conley also said it would be a mistake to take the sting out of the law. [Boston Globe]So the Police Chief begins by arguing that we must go around stinging people for possessing pot. But when reform advocates argue that too many young lives are being derailed by harsh punishments for petty offenses, Conley completely changes his tune:But Conley said it is rare for first-time offenders to get jail time for possession of small amounts of marijuana."As far as someone getting arrested and their lives being ruined, I don't think that's the case," he said. "Employers are more forgiving in this day and age, and police prosecutors frequently reduce marijuana cases down to violationsâ¦"Wait, so should we be stinging people or not? He begins by defending aggressive sanctions and ends by claiming the sanctions aren't aggressive. The contradiction is transparent and embarrassing.It is, in fact, not at all uncommon to hear defenders of harsh marijuana laws speak approvingly of the fact that most offenders avoid jail time. Thus, it is not necessarily the practice of ruining lives for marijuana which they crave, but rather the discretion to do so should the urge happen to arise. Meanwhile, millions of otherwise law-abiding Americans are branded as criminals so that people like Chief Conley can live out their authoritarian fantasies.
Save the Rainforest From the Drug War
U.S.-sponsored efforts to fumigate Colombian coca crops have utterly failed to prevent cocaine production. But they have been very effective at destroying Colombia's national parks:Leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries, and narcos that control the billion-dollar cocaine trade have invaded the 2.5-million-acre Macarena, laying waste to much of it to plant coca. Most of Colombia's 48 other national parks and nature reserves are suffering similar fates. Chased from more accessible sites by U.S.-sponsored aerial fumigation, coca growers relentlessly clear forests knowing that they are beyond the reach of the U.S.-Colombian fleet of planes because spraying of the parks is prohibited by law. [Los Angeles Times]So what's next? Are we gonna spray crop killers on this precious irreplaceable ecosystem? Doing that will just force the drug lords to burrow deeper, leaving an ever-expanding trail of flaming destruction in their tracks. Let's face it, rainforests are awesome. They are filled with jaguars, anacondas, and large spiders that eat chickens. I don't know what kinds of animals live in Colombian forests specifically, but I'm sure there are some wicked cool creatures in there that are worth saving.Unfortunately, there's nothing in this entire LA Times article that even vaguely resembles a plan for stopping drug traffickers from completely destroying everything. The Colombians' best idea is literally to ask that people please stop doing cocaine, a plan so useless it isn't worth the trees that died to print it out. We are on an irreversible trajectory towards the total permanent destruction of many of the world's most unique natural resources as long as current efforts to thwart illicit drug production continue. That is just a fact.This would all be a terrible price to pay to get rid of cocaine, except that we haven't even come close to accomplishing that and we never will. Invaluable natural resources are being destroyed for nothing. Only by ending the drug war immediately can we even begin to address this rapidly expanding ecological crisis.
Where should the money be spent?
That was the question for the day's discussion at the third of three drug awareness conferences held in Vancouver,B.C. Canada. Today's (Wed.Feb.27'08) meeting was a breath of fresh air as the prohibition movement and it's proponents finally got the message and went to form their own group somewhere.
Should Candidates For Public Office Be Drug Tested?
No, but it certainly is tempting to subject our political leaders to the same rampant privacy invasions endured by millions of Americans in the name of the war on drugs:The S.C. Senate Judiciary Committee last week adopted a proposal that could result in a constitutional amendment requiring candidates to take a drug test before seeking public office. As tempting as it seems on the surface, lawmakers should analyze it carefully before they plow into it. There could be rocky ground ahead.Many believe that if drug testing is employed widely in business, it should be employed in the government, too. What is good for private citizens should be good for elected officials. The goal is to eliminate the use of illegal drugs from the workplace, where a variety of harms might arise. [Beaufort Gazette]Ok, I understand that people believe that, but why candidates specifically? Is there any evidence of party-prone politicians bumping blow on the public dime?The proposal's origin started when former S.C. Treasurer Thomas Ravenel was indicted for possession of cocaine. He awaits sentencing, but shortly after the arrest, he checked into a rehabilitation facility. South Carolinians were embarrassed, and rightly so.South Carolinians have dealt with tarnished images before. In 1903, Lt. Gov. James Tillman shot and killed N.G. Gonzales, a co-founder of The State newspaper, on Main Street in Columbia. Former Congressman John Jenrette was convicted in Abscam. Many S.C. lawmakers were indicted in Operation Lost Trust. S.C.'s agriculture commissioner was arrested for taking at least $20,000 to protect illegal cock fighting.Cocaine! Murder! Bribery! Cockfighting! What do all these things have in common? You can't prevent them with drug testing. And yes, that includes cocaine, which only stays in your system for a couple days. Just pause for one moment and contemplate the collective stupidity of all this. Aside from these presumably non-drug related cock-fighting scandals and whatnot, this pretty much comes down to one guy doing some coke and now everyone wants to drug test candidates for public office even though anyone can blast rails of coke all weekend and just declare their candidacy on a Wednesday.Once again, the popularity of drug testing thrives on the failure of its proponents to comprehend basic facts about how drug testing works. I'd propose the creation of some sort of website to provide that information, but there are already 12 million of those. And, of course, if anyone on South Carolina's Senate Judiciary Committee comes forth to point out that drug testing isn't really very effective against cocaine to begin with, they inevitably render themselves susceptible to accusations of cocaine use and possibly even cock-fighting.
Thailand's Drug Strategy: Mass Murder Thousands of Drug Suspects
Via DrugWarRant, Thailand's new prime minister has pledged to continue his nation's shameful quest to maintain the most brutally evil drug policy in the world:"My government will decisively implement a policy against drug trafficking. Government officials must implement this policy 24 hours a day, but I will not set a target for how many people should die," said Samak Sundaravej, the new prime minister.The interior minister Chalerm Yubamrung, said: "When we implement a policy that may bring 3,000 to 4,000 bodies, we will do it," [Telegraph]They've tried it before, but it didn't work, so they're trying it again:During a three-month killing spree in 2003 as intense as a full-scale armed conflict, thousands named on police "black lists" were shot dead, allegedly on government orders.Yet the government's narcotics control board concluded that more than half the victims had no involvement in drugs. One couple from north-eastern Thailand were shot dead after coming into unexplained wealth and being added to a black list. They were, in fact, lottery winners. What can even be said about this? It is just a perfect exhibit of the fact that drug prohibition will still fail even when taken to the greatest heights of inhumanity and totalitarianism. It is the temptation of any drug warrior to seek the gradual removal of any and all safeguards that impede progress towards purging and destroying the enemy. In America, we raid houses based on unreliable informant testimony, we confiscate property without establishing guilt, we tamper with juries, conceal exculpatory evidence, intimidate witnesses, overvalue seized contraband at trial, and we interpret and/or adjust our laws as needed to ensure that the people we accuse of drug crimes are convicted and punished quickly and severely.The consequence of all this, ultimately, is that innocent people can't defend themselves from the drug war any better than the guilty. It is for this reason that you'll never hear American drug warriors rise to condemn human rights abuses fueled by foreign drug wars. Our political leaders thoroughly lack the moral standing to preach about the due process of drug prohibition. Rather than becoming placated by the observation that our own drug war could be far worse, let us ask ourselves what sorts of vicious atrocities await should we ever dare to take our eyes off American drug warriors for even a moment.
Keep the work up and prohibition will end.
Now that police keep screwing up and bringing the swat type enforcement into middle America the love of police is fading. I know a lot of people who do not dare call police for anything, they take care of it themselves. It's too dangerous to call cops, they cause more trouble than they are worth. I have seen the person who called for help be the one arrested when it was all said and done, now that is screwed up if I may say so. Just keep the fight up and we the people will end this nightmare we live in.
Drug Czar Pledges to Finally Do Something About All These Pot Smugglers
Gangstas better watch out. Hippies better stock up. The Drug Czar has had enough of the multi-billion dollar marijuana market, so he's decided to try even harder to stop it:MEXICO CITY (AP) â Marijuana is now the biggest source of income for Mexico's drug cartels and the U.S. is committed to cracking down harder on traffickers, U.S. drug czar John Walters said Thursday."We're trying to increase the force with which we're attacking this problem," Walters said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "This is a focus because of the overlooked importance marijuana has in the violence."Previously, you see, the Drug Czar was just trying really hard. But now he's gonna try really extra super 110% hard. It sounds like his strategy so far consists of issuing some sort of edict to prosecutors, probably by email, asking that they please put more people in prison for pot:He added that the U.S. is "looking at additional ways in which we can have a stronger prosecutorial response," including requests for more funding and personnel.So the Drug Czar, confronted with the failure of everything we've been doing for decades, will now request more funding to continue the same wasteful, destructive, redundant charade. Marijuana-related violence is one of the most unlikely and counterintuitive phenomena in human history, and yet it has become commonplace thanks to drug prohibition and its infinitely corrupting influence. The only remaining question is how many more declarations of redoubled drug war our nation's Drug Czars can pronounce before being pushed off their proverbial podium.
Bank Robbery Capital of the World?Vancouver,B.C.Canada
Or at least of Canada.Some of my best friends were very good bank robbers.Nice guys unless you stood between them and their next fix.They used to throw money around like it was free.But then I guess it was.
Former Staffer Accuses Drug Czar of Ignoring Research
Recent years have brought a long overdue and richly deserved implosion in the Drug Czar's credibility. It seems the truth is slowly catching up with the entrenched drug warriors at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, as the U.S. Senate, the anti-drug community, and even former staffers have joined the chorus to demand accountability from one of Washington D.C.'s most insulated institutions.Today John Carnevale, a long-time ONDCP insider who served under four Drug Czars, has publicly slammed ineffective supply reduction efforts and called for a redistribution of federal anti-drug funding. A press release from Carnevale Associates, LLC. entitled "FY02-09 Budget Emphasizes Least Effective Ingredients of Drug Policy" directly questions the Drug Czar's strategy and accuses the nation's top drug office of wasting resources:A review of the federal drug control budget shows that the current administration continues to favor supply reduction programs over demand reduction programs to reduce the demand for drugs by youth and adults. Since federal fiscal year (FY) 02, the budget has emphasized what research has shown to be the least effective ingredients of a federal drug control policy. This translates into almost a decade of lost opportunity in achieving performance results.These charges are just remarkable considering their source. While Carnevale remains committed to many of the most destructive aspects of the U.S. war on drugs, these criticisms of his former office reflect a growing consensus that ONDCP has become utterly divorced from reality. The office has simply lost its prestige within the anti-drug community and, with the flood gates fully opened, must now absorb biting criticism from every conceivable constituency. Once disgraced, the schoolyard bully can now expect to be kicked in the shin routinely and can't anticipate where the next challenge will come from.Of course, our nation's costly and fantastically unsuccessful supply reduction efforts are just the tip of the drug war iceberg. But it is notable to witness drug war insiders beginning to come to terms with our failed international drug war diplomacy. By exposing ONDCP's propensity for ignoring research, Carnevale inadvertently reveals a great deal about how that office approaches basically everything.
Drug Conference What Do We Tell the Kids? Vancouver,B.C.Canada
The meeting started with the usual speeches from the podium Which were on topic and fairly focused.Then the people in attendance began speaking and it was clear from the start that there were some other agendas in the room.First was the fact that people were very unhappy with the way the government,at all levels,was failing our children.The fact that we all know that B.C.
PRN + Patients hold Press Conf. to Reopen Pain Clinic...
PRN at Fed. Court - Reynolds and Patients Try to Reopen Schneider Clinic - Associated Press; WIBW TV; 2008-02-19. Source. (Includes: video of TV news coverage of the Press Conference) Excerpt: ... The patients held a news conference this morning outside the federal courthouse in Wichita. They wanted to draw attention to their plight and the civil lawsuit filed against the government last week on their behalf. The lawsuit, filed by the New Mexico-based Pain Relief Network, claims the government put patients in mortal danger and created a public health disaster. ... The news conference today was announced in a Press Release, Tuesday Feb. 18, 2008, WICHITA, Kansas:Pain Relief Network Sues to Halt Government Actions Taken Against Kansas Patients
Drug Testing Welfare Applicants Will Only Cause Horrible Problems
From the State of Virginia emerges this week's dumbest drug war idea:Some welfare applicants and beneficiaries would be required to pass a drug test and receive counseling to receive public assistance under a controversial bill being considered by the Virginia General Assembly.Under the proposal, which has been approved by the Senate, people applying for or in the state's job-training program, which is required to receive welfare, would be questioned about substance abuse. Those thought to be abusing drugs could be required to take a drug test. [Washington Post]I can just hear the chorus of self-righteous legislators insisting that we mustn't subsidize addiction with public funds. But I have a few questions. Who's going to intervene when a mother of four gets a false positive and suddenly can't feed her family? Will there be monitoring to prevent racial disparities in who is subjected to testing? How will any of this address the far larger problem of alcohol abuse?If our society is going to offer public assistance to those in need, we cannot afford to shape such programs around the blunt instrument of urinalysis. When it works, drug testing tells you whether someone has used drugs. It doesn't tell you if they need treatment or whether their welfare check is being put to legitimate use. When drug testing doesn't work, it falsely accuses innocent people and subjects them to undeserved sanctions and stigma.Even when it hits its target, the program just creates more problems:Limited resources for treatment present another challenge. The state has a waiting list of 800 to 1,000, depending on the type of substance abuse service. The average wait is several weeks. Adding people to the list will tax government programs further, critics say.This is the exact program you have to attend in order to regain eligibility for public assistance, but you can't get into it because Virginia's too busy busting and drug testing people to pay for treatment. The whole thing is just a massive escalator to nowhere.Whatever one thinks about government assistance, it should at least be clear that infecting existing programs with the blind and corrupt influence of the drug war will merely ruin more lives.