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Marc Emery
I can only pray that the Canadian government does the right thing and refuses to extradite Marc to the US.
Actually,I have no qualms about saying "I told you so"
Yesterday I wrote about the local paper's campaign to invoke searches of babies and small children visiting prisons. Last night 179 prisoners at the medium security Matsqui institution in the Frazer Valley took over the yard and did some damage and lit some things on fire.
Put the lunatics in Charge
The Vancouver Province and columnist Joey Thompson have out done themselves this time. Always on the prohibitionist side of the drug issue, now they're going after addicts already in prison. Some guard complained (what else's new) about some visitor having ions from some kind of hi-tech scan that was positive for drugs and reported it to child welfare.
Randomly Sad But True
The following oddly-worded advertisement, presumably computer-generated, popped up in one of our Google ad boxes: Prohibition Looking for Prohibition? Find exactly what you want today. Yahoo.com Sad but true. Not forever, though, if we have our way...
Welcom to Mexico
As I'm sure most of you have heard, the Mexican government has sent the army to the US border to referee the fight between two cartels for the US drug market. We've all heard about the kidnappings and murders and the fact that the cops are taking sides.
It's Really Easy to Put Innocent People in Jail for Drugs
In an effort to protect our society from drugs, we've created laws that endanger everyone:A federal judge decided Tuesday to free 15 men from prison because their convictions were based on testimony of a government informant who lied on the witness stand and framed innocent people.Collectively, the men have served at least 30 years behind barsâ¦The case is a blow to the federal justice system, which relies heavily on informant-based testimony, lawyers said. The men, some with no prior run-ins with the law, were given long prison sentences based almost exclusively on the word of informant Jerrell Bray and Lee Lucas, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent who supervised Bray. [Cleveland Plain Dealer]Stories like this emerge regularly, and yet one can only imagine how many such travesties of justice will never come to light. The process is so simple: informant makes up stories to get himself out of trouble, someone else get in trouble, informant doesn't. You couldn't design a more efficient system for collecting innocent people and tossing them behind bars.The 15 innocent people that will now be set free are incredibly lucky (if you wanna call it that) that the people who set them up happened to be exposed as serial liars. That is really the only thing you can hope for when your conviction resulted from a conspiracy between shady snitches and dirty drug cops.This is what you get when you pull back the curtain and behold the drug war for what it truly is and not what it is supposed to be. The Drug Czar with all his tricky talking points and misleading rhetoric canât and won't ever attempt to defend injustice such as this. But it is that very same anti-drug propaganda that has served to blind our eyes and deafen our ears to the sickening unfairness that characterizes the practical application of these brutal laws.When one comes to appreciate the totality of the lies, errors, and overkill that are inevitably included in the drug war package deal, it ceases to even matter what one thinks about drugs. This war would be a disaster even if it worked the ways it's supposed to. But it doesn't. And it never will.
Idiot Steals Two Crocodiles and a Monkey, Blames Marijuana
I'm so sick of people blaming marijuana for the stupid things they do. Lest we should all be further stigmatized by his mischief, someone needs to stop hooking this guy up:DARWIN, Australia (AP) â An Australian teenager[*] blamed the influence of marijuana for his decision to steal two crocodiles and a monkey, local media reported Wednesday.â¦Watts said he planned to sell the stolen baby crocodiles and the marmoset but had been unable to find buyers, ABC reported.â¦Watts' lawyer told the court his client admitted it was a "dumb stoner" thing to do and had written to Crocodylus Park to apologize. [AP]Marijuana isn't for everyone, to be sure, but most people are more than a few tokes away from busting into the zoo and stealing crocodiles. I think he's just embarrassed to admit that these are the sorts of things he generally feels inclined to do. But there's also a revealing subplot here that's worth exploring. Consider that this young man snuck into the zoo high on marijuana, successfully captured two crocodiles and a monkey, and escaped undetected. It's a rather impressive outcome compared to the carnage that ensues when drunken zoo-goers attempt to interact with the animals.A victim of the recent San Francisco tiger attack was at twice the legal limit when he taunted the tiger until it leapt over the wall and attacked him. A drunken Lithuanian was hospitalized in May after climbing into a Giraffe exhibit and getting trampled. Then there's the intoxicated Chinese man who entered the Panda cage at the Beijing Zoo to "hug" the Panda and ended up biting the bear when it attacked him. Not to mention the drunken Ukrainian who tried to show off for friends by taking on a caged grizzly and was nearly killed, or the corpse found in the grizzly den at the Belgrade Zoo during an annual beer festival. Clearly, from a harm reduction standpoint, marijuana is the safer choice for zoo-going trouble-makers.*Since his name was omitted, I've been unable to verify whether the culprit was Corey Delaney.
The Drug Czar's Awesome Plan to Blame Hugo Chavez for Everything
Drug Czar John Walters went off the rails this week, suggesting that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was somehow involved in the drug trade. According to Walters, the best evidence of this is the lack of any evidence. Read it, it's hilarious:"Where are the big seizures, where are the big arrests of individuals who are at least logistical coordinators? When it's being launched from controlled airports and seaports, where are the arrests of corrupt officials? At some point here, this is tantamount to collusion," Walters said in an interview. [Los Angeles Times]Indeed, the Drug Czar is so confounded by the ongoing failure of international drug prohibition, he can only assume that entire nations are conspiring to undermine him. The whole thing is just so crazy, The Los Angeles Times was forced to qualify his statements by pointing out that he couldnât back them up with facts (emphasis mine):Walters said the volume of Colombian cocaine moving through Venezuela, believed to represent at least one-third of Colombia's production, continues to increase with no discernible effort by Chavez government to impede it. He provided no statistics to back up his assertion.Awesome. I nominate this reporter for a Pulitzer. You could add that sentence to the end of every paragraph ever written about the wild nonsense that spews forth out of John Walters mouth like a broken water main.As Pete Guither points out, Walters's bizarre assertions are probably an attempt to blame someone -- anyone he can find -â for this:MIAMI -- U.S.-directed seizures and disruptions of cocaine shipments from Latin America dropped sharply in 2007 from the year before, reflecting in part a successful shift in tactics by drug traffickers to avoid detection at sea, senior American officials disclosed Monday in releasing new figures. [News Tribune]Walters can blame Hugo Chavez as much as he wants. But the failure of international drug prohibition will never have anything to do with Venezuela's refusal to fight a futile drug war at the behest of bullying bureaucrats from Washington D.C. The drug war is failing because that is the only thing it knows how to do.
It all make sense now
I just read a quote from Albert Einstein: "Problems cannot be solved by the level of awareness that created them." It puts the whole drug war thing in perspective. No wonder the politicians can't find a solution.
Our Drug Laws Literally Allow Police to Steal From Innocent People
I received this email through the Flex Your Rights website a few weeks back and found it quite disturbing, though perfectly typical and unsurprising by drug war standards:I'm a retired police lieutenant from a large midwestern city. Prior to my retirement my department, like so many others, saw dollar signs when new laws in response to the "drug war" (gawd, what a mistake THAT has turned out to be) allowed law enforcement to seize property with either flimsy or non-existent probable cause. Special police units were posted on the expressways leading into the city with instructions to stop as many cars as possible, search them and the occupants, and if anyone had more than a few dollars, SEIZE IT. Our command staff gleefully reported to us that the burden of proof was on the citizen to prove that the money was NOT drug proceeds, and since the amount of money seized would often be less than the amount that the citizen would have to spend to sue us, that we could be assured of keeping the bulk of the money. I was flabbergasted. To make things worse, part of my yearly performance rating as a police lieutenant was based on how much money and other real property, such as cars, that my troops seized. On my instructions, my troops never seized a dime. Turning law enforcement officers into bounty hunters is one of the most tragic mistakes this country has ever made. Keep up the good work.Lieutenant Harry Thomas (ret.)I can't verify any of this, but I really don't need to. Lt. Thomas describes the asset forfeiture epidemic that corrupted law enforcement agencies throughout the nation, necessitating the formation of Forfeiture Endangers American Rights (FEAR) in 1992 and the passage of the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000. And now that forfeiture laws have been "reformed," police have since felt free to continue confiscating property under the most ludicrous circumstances because the drug war says it's ok.Lt. Thomas's story provides a particularly disturbing picture of police officers being commanded by their superiors to operate as an extortion ring. The recognition that citizens would have a difficult time proving their property "innocent" demonstrates an unconscionable willingness to seize property from law-abiding citizens. Put simply, the behavior described above is theft in both effect and intent. Make what you will of this particular account, but if you think that one could implement forfeiture laws such as ours without provoking this exact behavior, then I dare you to put your life savings in a briefcase and drive around Indiana consenting to police searches.
Added to the List
The two men killed in Yesterday's shooting incident have been confirmed as gang members. This adds them to a long list of gangsters murdered in a war that continues to rage over drug turf and bragging rights.
Gotham Restaurant: the scene of wild shooting spree
As I write this, two bodies lie dead in the intersection of Georgia and Seymour streets in Vancouver. Police rushing to the scene collided at a nearby intersection. Witnesses testified that police armed with Armalites and M-16's were patrolling the area.
Repost this message - Free Marijuana
The U.S. government has heard the will of the people and they don't care. It's time to fight back. Why should the residents of America or anywhere else care to follow their wishes? They ignore their own laws and stretch the power of the executive branch way beyond the power of the people! It's time to fight back.
Vancouver man part of Alaska smuggling ring
A Vancouver man has been charged with smuggling millions of dollars worth of marijuana stashed in snow mobiles, inflatable boats and travel trailers into Alaska. The thirty-six year old was named in an indictment by a grand jury in anchorage.
Obama Pledges to Continue the Drug War
How shall I respond when a prominent politician rejects drug legalization, while in the same breath criticizing the costs and consequences of our wildly bloated criminal justice system? Should I condemn his tacit endorsement of the drug war or give him credit for at least recognizing a problem that so many still pretend doesnât exist? I guess I'll try to do both.Here's what Barack Obama said when a questioner pointed out how lucky he is to have avoided arrest for his past drug use and asked if he would consider ending the drug war:"I'm not interested in legalizing drugs,'' Obama said, adding that he prefers an approach that puts more emphasis on a public health approach to drugs and less emphasis on incarceration.He said there should be more programs to keep young people from using drugs. And he said first-time offenders should be given help to overcome their drug use instead of being locked up at massive taxpayer expense from which they emerge as unemployable ex-convicts."All we do is give them a master's degree in criminology,'' Obama said. [AP]What a shame that Obama's most forward-thinking comments on criminal justice reform must be prefaced with a rejection of the one idea that has a chance of working. The inherent flaw in Obama's narrow, palatable rhetoric is revealed unintentionally by The Weekly Standard's Jonathan Last:The only problem with this is that there are very, very few people incarcerated for first-time drug use. Last goes on to laboriously downplay the persecution of first-time offenders in our criminal justice system. It's an outrageous attempt to argue that everyone in prison deserves to be there. But it does have the effect of reminding us how limited Obama's proposed reforms truly are. The root of our drug war-fueled incarceration crisis lies in the practice of vigorously arresting and criminalizing people for having drugs. As long as this machinery remains in place, our prison population will continue to grow exponentially. Obama's first-time offender focused model of criminal justice reform is like trying to drain an olympic swimming pool with a pint glass.Meanwhile, the drug war itself continues to function as a massive black market job recruitment program; a fully functional drug offender factory whose participants are often much more addicted to grocery money than drugs. Treatment-focused reform strategies don't address or even acknowledge this. Still, it remains perfectly commonplace for proponents of partial criminal justice reform to insist that we continue imprisoning suppliers while searching for ever more suppliers to imprison, all while failing entirely to disrupt supply.The silver lining here is that important people are becoming increasingly comfortable admitting that something is wrong. When the reforms they've agreed upon fail to address the problem, they can't just go back and pretend to be cool with it. They've promised to fix our criminal justice system and if they continue to follow the trail of clues, they will eventually find themselves face to face with the war on drugs.
DEA Agents Sue NBC Universal Over the Film American Gangster
Beneath their flak jackets and blast shields, the super-tough drug soldiers at the DEA are just like everybody else. They have feelings too, and when someone says not-so-nice things about them, it can really hurt:A group of retired federal drug enforcement agents sued NBC Universal on Wednesday, saying the movie "American Gangster" falsely portrayed them as villains in the story of a Harlem heroin trafficker.The suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, claims that the movie defamed hundreds of DEA agents and New York City police officers by claiming at the end that Frank Lucas' collaboration with prosecutors "led to the convictions of three-quarters of New York City's Drug Enforcement Agency."â¦According to the lawsuit, no DEA agents or New York City police officers were ever convicted as a result of tips provided by Lucas."This is absolutely off the wall," said Dominic Amorosa, a prosecutor in the federal case against Lucas in 1975 who now represents the DEA agents. "I don't know what these people were thinking, but they are going to pay for it."A Universal Pictures spokesman, Michael Moses, said in a written statement that the lawsuit is "entirely without merit." [AP]I have no knowledge of the specific legal issues involved here, but it's a little creepy to see drug warriors turning to civil court in an effort to suppress the well-known fact that police corruption is commonplace in the war on drugs. Will they now sue us for running our "This Week's Corrupt Cops Story" feature each week?If you ask me, the DEA impugns its own reputation each and every day as its agents continue to target sick people for using medical marijuana and doctors for prescribing pain relievers to patients in chronic pain.If DEA agents or police in general are concerned about negative public perceptions, they can begin by rejecting the war on drugs and its infinitely corrupting influence. They can abandon the "Blue Wall of Silence" and endeavor to purge misconduct from the ranks. And on that glorious day when all the crooks, liars, and cowboys have been stripped of their uniforms, then perhaps it will be possible to sue Hollywood for misrepresenting the profession without provoking amusement.
Update: Marc Emery
The article in the paper was so small I almost missed it. I guess no-one's particularly proud of this one. Mr. Emery not only got to serve his time in Canada, he managed to get his co-accused off the hook as well.
Press Coverage of the Drug War is So Flawed it Actually Encourages People to Sell Marijuana
I wrote yesterday about an absurd report in The Philadelphia Inquirer which valued marijuana at over $100 per joint. As I pointed out, boastful law-enforcement sources frequently collaborate with slothful reporters to produce wildly inaccurate news coverage of the drug war.Obviously, it is just unacceptable to have major news sources reporting frivolous and false information. The laugh-out-loud craziness of implying that a joint costs $100 just shouldnât have made it to print, and we can all gaze at this spectacle and shake our heads as we recognize that the incompetence which made this report possible is perfectly typical. It explains volumes about the media's neglectful role in permitting drug war indoctrination to permeate our collective consciousness each day. It is 2007, and we shouldn't even be reading celebratory drug bust stories anymore, because each new one is a mere exhibit of the failure of those that came before it.But, beyond all of that, it stands to reason that such coverage has a remarkable potential to entice individuals to enter the drug trade in the first place. The theoretical deterrent value of reporting on major drug busts and the fate of the perpetrators is surely undermined when profit margins are overstated so dramatically.If one believes The Philadelphia Inquirer that 16 pounds of high-grade marijuana can be sold for $812,000, and one subsequently stumbles across an opportunity to acquire that amount for the (more likely) price of $50,000-80,000, they might be intrigued. By routinely exaggerating the street value of illegal drugs, the press renders itself an inadvertent advertising campaign for the lucrative business of black market drug distribution.I've heard, but cannot confirm, that the Canadian press has sought to scale back this exact behavior after a revelation that constantly reporting on multi-million dollar marijuana seizures was having the effect of convincing people that it's easy to make a million dollars growing pot. I have no idea whether this is accurate, but it's certainly amusing to consider the possibility that all of this reckless drug war reporting is simply emboldening prospective marijuana entrepreneurs.One wonders, therefore, how many more of these drug bust press conferences our intrepid journalists are willing to snooze their way through before becoming overcome with déjà vu and finding themselves compelled by the distant call of journalistic integrity to do anything other than cut and paste the predictable pontifications of the proud pot police into the morning paper.
Prince of Pot Pleads Out
Marc Emery, the self-styled Prince of Pot has accepted a plea bargain which would see him serve five years in a Canadian prison. It's difficult to gauge how much influence the numerous petitions and letter campaigns had in the justice system offering this deal.