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U.S. Government Encourages Drug Offenders to Choose the Army Instead of College
We can now add to our long and growing list of drug war grievances that this terrible crusade has become a fully functional army recruitment tool. The U.S. Military has changed its rules to make it easier for drug offenders to enlist. Meanwhile, the aid elimination penalty of the Higher Education Act denies federal financial aid to students with drug convictions. That's right, folks. The federal government thinks drug users don't belong in college, but has no problem sending them to die in Iraq.Our friends at Students for Sensible Drug Policy have a great new video explaining the absurdity of all this:Of course, we support the U.S. Military's new hiring policy. Past drug use should never be a factor in assessing a person's qualifications. But making it harder for drug offenders to go to school, while making it easier for them to join the army, is shockingly barbaric and hypocritical. One can only hope that this bizarre situation may expose the fraudulent logic by which drug offenders are denied college aid to begin with. After all, military service is widely considered an honorable profession; one which requires great courage, character, and intelligence. The very notion that past drug users can serve their country in combat destroys the myth that these Americans are somehow handicapped because they took drugs. Now that the U.S. government has acknowledged this principle in one self-serving context, it bears a powerful moral obligation to examine and abolish other forms of discrimination against drug users. Freedom, however one may choose to define it, cannot be defended so long as we arbitrarily injure and obstruct our fellow citizens over such petty indiscretions.
Garrett's Law needs revised
I don't completely disagree with this new law. But it does need to be revised. The testing should be done at different intervals in the pregnancy, not after the baby is born. What good does that do, the damage is already done by then. My baby was taken from me 24 hours after she was born. She was perfect, not addicted to anything, a good healthy weight, and no problems. Yet I was still robbed of hospital photo's, the braclet, all the certificates, and everthing that should go into her baby book, all because I smoked a little pot while I was pregnant. So now I will have to explain to her why her picture doesn't match the rest of the kids' and why she has blank pages in her book. I still don't have custody of her even though she is in my care, partially, I'm not allowed to be left alone with her. I have never done anything to hurt any of my children, and I've had 3 others, not to mention the ones that I misscarried, or buried.
Tired of the run around I get from Drs.
Hi I'm Jon and I have had 2 hip replacements and have been suffering from fibromyalgia for about 4 years now. I was DX 6mo. ago and haven't been able to get the relief from pain I have the right to. Tramadol is all I can get for now and it don't do sh** for my pain so I suffer in vain.
The Drug Czar's Blog Accidentally Admits That Drug Laws Ruin Lives
Yesterday, in a post titled "Random Drug Testing Can Save Lives," the Drug Czar once again blogged himself into a corner. The piece quotes extensively from a Kentucky newspaper article, which argues that random drug testing will save students from getting arrested:"There was a tragedy in Scott County last week. A young man's future was ruined, and the events that took place will likely haunt him for the rest of his life.Unless you've been on vacation, you've probably already heard that a superstar athlete on the Scott County basketball team was arrested on felony drug charges, which could result in him going to prison for as long as 10 years. [Georgetown News]That's awful. But what does this have to do with random drug testing?...Whether we realize it or not, the real tragedy is this young man wasn't caught sooner, through a less punitive program intended to help youthful offenders, not send them to prison. The greater tragedy, to my way of thinking, is that we, as a community and a school system, haven't seen fit to acknowledge reality and implement a random drug testing program in our high school, and perhaps our middle schools.So what exactly did this young man do that could get him locked away for 10 years? He was arrested for 1.6 grams of crack on school grounds. Crack/powder sentencing disparity + school zone = 10 years for a one-day supply of drugs.By conceding that this young man's life has been ruined, the Drug Czar does far more to indict our brutally unfair sentencing laws than to promote random drug testing. He is literally telling us that we should let him collect urine from our children, otherwise his drug soldiers will put them in jail for a decade.And if that doesn't make your head spin, consider that cocaine leaves your system in 1-2 days and will rarely come up in a drug screen anyway. You can smoke crack all night on Friday and pass a drug test on Monday, so none of this whole insane conversation about saving people from crack laws with drug testing even makes sense to begin with.
The Truth About Why Republican Candidates Oppose Medical Marijuana
McCain, Giuliani, and Romney have all attracted unwanted attention this week with their pledge to continue the federal government's unpopular war on medical marijuana patients and providers. The question is "why?" Everyone knows mainstream republican politicians are often a tough sell when it comes to drug policy reform, but given massive public support for medical marijuana, their callous position appears politically unwise and thus more difficult to explain. First, it helps to clarify how narrow and simplistic their argument really is. The McCain/Giuliani/Romney consensus on medical marijuana is grounded in the claim that "other medications" are available and should be used instead. This one argument virtually encompasses the totality of their opposition to medical marijuana. It is their only talking point, which is why they move on quickly to the next topic after saying it.Still, I don't believe this argument actually tells us very much about their true motivations. When Mitt Romney recommends "synthetic marijuana" to a wheelchair-bound patient, it becomes clear that he understands the medical efficacy of the drug. Indeed, these "other medications" are often derived from synthetic cannabinoids, so the debate is clearly not over whether marijuana has medical properties. We've moved beyond that, thankfully.At this point, it becomes a question of how patients should be acquiring and administering their medicine. Giuliani and Romney both faltered when the patients they encountered explained that they were allergic to pharmaceutical alternatives to marijuana. If they take these patients at their word, they must then confront the insufficiency of these drugs and recognize the unique predicament in which certain patients find themselves. Perhaps this new information will sink in, but that is all beside the point.Ultimately, McCain, Giuliani, and Romney have access to all the same facts about medical marijuana as everyone else. Their problem is not a misunderstanding of the issue. They've met and spoken with the patients. They know doctors are recommending it. Their real concerns have nothing whatsoever to do with the medical efficacy of marijuana. They are worried about something else entirely:"But having legalized marijuana is in my view an effort by a very committed few to try to get marijuana out in the public and to ultimately legalize marijuana. It's the wrong way to go." â Mitt Romney"I believe the effort to try and make marijuana available for medical uses is really a way to legalize it. There's no reason for it." â Rudy GiulianiThis tells us everything there is to know about opposition to medical marijuana from republican presidential candidates, and for that matter, the Drug Czar himself. The whole anti-medical marijuana machine is merely a conspiracy to prevent the outright legalization of marijuana. Its adherents are fearful that telling the truth about the drug's medical value will pave the way for a shift in public attitudes about marijuana in general. They dread the "marijuana lobby" and will concede nothing to it, even if doing so forces them to take unpopular and transparently flawed positions on medical use.Cynically, they focus on the role of marijuana legalization advocates in promoting medical access, while ignoring the much larger constituency of medical marijuana supporters who donât advocate recreational legalization. That is why support for medical marijuana from mainstream organizations such as the American Nurses Association and the American Public Health Association is ignored, while the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project's position is cited routinely. Of course, when the truth about medical marijuana becomes a political hostage in the broader legalization debate, it is legitimate patients rather than marijuana activists who suffer the consequences. Fortunately, the rise of internet video has given voters a front row seat in this enduring and increasingly ugly debate. The next victims in the war on medical marijuana may be those candidates who would sacrifice the seriously ill to drug war politics.
When The Drug Czar Says We're Winning The Drug War, It Means Nothing
The insufferable Robert Caldwell at Human Events writes love letters to the drug war. His latest masterpiece begs presidential hopefuls to entice him by sharing their most hardcore drug war fantasies. Oddly, Caldwell tries to explain the urgency of the matter by claiming that everything's going phenomenally well. His entire argument consists of a tiresome series of Drug Czar quotes. "John Waltersâ¦begs to differ", "Walters offered a slew of statistics", "Walters argued, persuasively", "Walters rightly cites", "Walters notes," and on it goes. The whole thing might as well have been signed by John Walters under the title, "My Awesome Drug War."Yet, as Pete Guither notes in a helpful new page, it is literally the job of the Drug Czar's office to distort facts in support of the drug war. The GAO even admits it:Given this role, we do not see a need to examine the accuracy of the Deputy Director's individual statements in detail.So we really can dispense with the notion that the Drug Czar is available to give us unvarnished assessments of drug war progress. It is, in fact, illegal for him to do that. Asking the Drug Czar how the drug war is going is like asking Colonel Sanders if his chicken is any good.
Mitt Romney's Horrible Encounter With a Medical Marijuana Patient
I thought it couldn't get any worse than McCain and Giuliani, but I was so wrong. Republican front-runners are literally competing to see who cares the least about medical marijuana patients. And the winner is…Mitt Romney. Romney may be toeing the party line, but I don't doubt his handlers have had a word or two with him about not insulting people in wheelchairs on CNN. I mean, really, could he have handled this any worse? Let's set one thing straight here: if you oppose medical marijuana, you support arresting patients. It is just that simple. If you leave patients under the jurisdiction of the DEA, you know what's going to happen. Mitt Romney's unqualified, "I'm not in favor of medical marijuana," is an endorsement of every atrocity – past, present and future – that patients inevitably suffer at the hands of the heavily armed cavalry that so clumsily and callously insists on its right to police their private medical decisions. Stay tuned, folks. Rumor has it Fred Thompson plans on drop-kicking a paraplegic down a flight of stairs.
The 3 R's
The honorable David WU (D-OR) Member of Congress 110th U.S. Congress Office of National Drug Control Policy Drug Enforcement Agency Does anybody in this country have any common sense when it comes to this issue? These are not Rambling Rantings of Rhetoric but an essay on the Reality of Regulation for Revenue; just as The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain, as well as Australia and Canada are now realizing and recognizing the full ramifications of the failure of prohibition.
Mass Incarceration of the Mentally Ill
I have a rather long post up on Senator Jim Webb's recent senate hearings: Senator Jim Webb On Mass Incarceration
What Will It Take?
I have a lot of theories about what it will take to end this infernal Drug War which has been misdirecting resources for way too long. Most of my ideas about change leading to justice and liberty revolve around non-violent means, but it would be ignorant and short-sighted not to consider some more rigorous form of counter-attack, especially when dealing with Fascists. Once I settle into this blog, I will share those ideas which may be useful in ending this oppression as soon as possible with the least number of casualties on both sides of the issue.
McCain and Giuliani Say Terrible Things to a Medical Marijuana Patient
Via MPP, battle lines are being drawn on the campaign trail over medical marijuana. Linda Macia of Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana suffers from nerve damage, fibromyalgia, reflex sympathetic dystrophy and degenerative arthritis. She's allergic to other medications and has only found relief through medical marijuana. You'd think that anyone hoping to become president would show some compassion for this unfortunate woman, but alasâ¦Notice how McCain turns his back to her the moment she utters the phrase "medical marijuana." Words could not better describe his position. McCain goes on to claim he's seen no documentation of medical marijuana's effectiveness, even though Granite Staters' Stuart Cooper had personally presented him with sound scientific evidence.Will she have better luck with Rudy Giuliani? Let's seeâ¦Ouch. Giuliani struggles when she explains that she's allergic to the "other medications" he recommends. He also claims not to have lobbied on behalf of OxyContin, which I guess depends on your definition of "lobbying." Sometimes we don't get the answers we want. That's what happens when you look to the drug war for answers. But at least we're asking the right questions, and asking them often. Perhaps next time we should ask if they've seen the polling on medical marijuana. Maybe that will get their attention.PS: Also watch McCain insult a New Hampshire student who asks him about medical marijuana, then apologize to him.
Franklin Pierce University Forced by Local Police to Help Bust its Own Students
Drug war lunacy has taken hold in Rindge, NH and it isn't pretty. A new policy of notifying local police about suspected drug use on campus has disrupted the school's educational mission and provoked widespread alarm among students. After discovering a marijuana grinder during a routine maintenance check, campus security called police to investigate. Police then locked students out of their residence for 26 hours while obtaining a search warrant. This video made by Franklin Pierce SSDP members shows how several students were denied access to all of their possessions, including their school work, for a full day so that one of them could be investigated for drug paraphernalia:If this sounds like a typical college campus misconduct case, it's not. Sources familiar with the situation have informed me that Rindge Police threatened campus security themselves with arrest if they didn't start sacrificing students to the local drug war. It's like saying, "We know people smoke pot on campus. Help us bust them, or we'll bust you."It's hard to understand what could motivate this type of law-enforcement. Small-town police departments with less to occupy their time are frequently prone to drug war excesses. College town culture clashes are nothing new either. But the sheer audacity of all this is stunning, and it raises important questions about whether this police department understands its proper role in the community. Beyond that, it highlights how quickly the war on drugs can become a war on education itself. Throughout the nation, students bear the stigma of presumed drug involvement and are targeted, not just by law-enforcement, but by federal law that removes young people from school for petty offenses. The behavior of police at Franklin Pierce University is symptomatic of the corrupted drug war mentality that we must investigate and destroy our young people if necessary in order to discourage drug use. This is not a war which seeks to protect and uplift America's youth. It is many things, but it is so clearly not that.
Drug War to Figure Prominently in Sen. Webb's Incarceration Hearing Tomorrow -- Available by Webcast
The state of Virginia has not traditionally been in the vanguard of criminal justice reform -- maybe the other way around -- but it does have some political figures who are enlightened on such issues. Rep. Bobby Scott of Richmond is one who has played a leading role in fighting this good fight for many years. Now, Virginia has Sen. Jim Webb. Last March we reported on remarks he had made on ABC about how mass incarceration is tearing the country apart and those are the kinds of issues he wants to work on. He's coming through. Tomorrow is Webb's first public hearing on the issue, "Mass Incarceration in the United States: At What Cost?" At the time of this writing, it is the top news link and prominently displayed on Webb's Senate home page. Follow the links from there and you'll find a lot of the things we've been saying for years, about incarceration in general and the drug war in particular. We've heard that at least one of the speakers is going to call for an end to the drug war. The venue where this is taking place is the Joint Economic Committee, comprised of members of both the Senate and House. New York's Chuck Schumer is the top Democrat on the committee, an influential figure in criminal justice policy. It's hard to tell in advance, but this feels like it could be a significant turning point, even if like most hearings it is likely to be a quiet one. Click here from 10:00am onward tomorrow morning to watch it live, or afterward for a video archive.
John McCain is Sick of Being Asked About Medical Marijuana
SSDP activist Jon Perri just nailed John McCain over his opposition to medical marijuana. McCain is noticably frustrated about being forced to repeatedly explain his lack of compassion for patients. He belittles Perri, only to subsequently apologize for doing so.Note how McCain emphasizes his opposition to medical marijuana, but still claims he would not arrest patients. That's sort of the point of the question, Senator.Cheers to Jon Perri for asking the question smartly and maintaining his composure despite McCain's interruptions. At this pace, one wonders if the Senator will have a complete meltdown the next time this question is asked of him.
Obama Comes Out Against Mandatory Minimums
It's about time. We've been concerned about Obama's perspective on drug policy, but it looks like he's coming around:Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) outlined his civil rights platform Friday, saying that if elected president, he would target racial disparities in the U.S. justice system through a host of measures, including relaxing drug sentencing laws.â¦"We have a system that locks away too many young, first-time, non-violent offenders for the better part of their lives - a decision that's made not by a judge in a courtroom, but all to often by politicians in Washington and state capitals around the country," Obama said. [AHN]Obama also pledged to address the crack/powder sentencing disparity, which he's sounded reluctant to do previously.How could anyone disagree with him? Sentencing reform has become standard fair for the democratic candidates, and I've yet to hear the republicans dispute it. Maybe, just maybe, this one issue can escape the icy death grip of partisan politics. Maybe we can all just agree to stop treating petty drug offenders like murderers and rapists. Can we give this a try? Please?
Does Partnership for a Drug Free America Oppose Random Student Drug Testing?
As the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) parades around the nation promoting random student drug testing in schools, one of its biggest allies has remained conspicuously silent on this controversial issue. The Partnership for a Drug Free America (PDFA) has been the loudest "anti-drug" voice in America ever since its famous 1987 "This is your brain on drugs" ad and currently produces ad spots for ONDCP's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. Yet despite extensive cooperation between the two organizations, PDFA appears not to have bought into ONDCP's hype surrounding random student drug testing. PDFA Parental Advisory Board Member Judith Kirkwood has vocally condemned the practice in the press and on her blog, calling it ineffective and invasive. Meanwhile, the PDFA website, which provides extensive "anti-drug" resources for families, only recommends drug testing at the discretion of parents, with suspicion of drug use, and under medical supervision. For clarification, we contacted PDFA to verify the organization's stance on student drug testing. Surprisingly, their media contact was initially unprepared to address the issue. We eventually heard back from PDFA Deputy Director of Public Affairs Josie Feliz, who acknowledged that "We stay away from that a little bit. It's an individual decision for parents to make." Finally, when pressed, she said, "We don't have policy one way or the other on this."Of course, saying drug testing is "an individual decision for parents to make," certainly sounds like a policy statement, and one which contrasts sharply with that of ONDCP. The Drug Czar has aggressively touted random student drug testing as a central tool in the effort to reduce drug use among youth. Indeed, his goal is without a doubt to collect urine from as many students as possible with minimal supervision and no individualized suspicion of drug use.We can only guess why it might be that PDFA does not advocate random student drug testing, but possibilities abound:*Tests frequently return inaccurate results. *Numerous studies show testing does not reduce drug use.*Testing treats innocent students as drug suspects.*Testing encourages use of less-detectible/more dangerous drugs.*Tests are easily obscured by cheating. *Testing requirements discourage participation in extra-curricular activities.*Testing requires school administrators to look at students' genitals while they urinate.*Testing takes money away from programs that actually work.*Testing distracts students and teachers from educational priorities. Whatever their concerns may be, PDFA's unwillingness to promote random student drug testing is the correct position to take. It is unlikely that they would part ways with their colleagues at ONDCP -- undoubtedly a politically uncomfortable situation for them -- if they were not convinced that random student drug testing is the wrong answer in the fight to reduce youth drug abuse. All of this is symbolic of the growing consensus among physicians, addiction specialists, educators, parents, and students that these programs are severely misguided.
Record Marijuana Seizures Mean There's More Pot, Not Less
The Drug Czar's blog once again demonstrates a remarkable misunderstanding of how drug enforcement works. Or they're just pretending not to understand:Pot Seizures Way Up in OregonMore bad news for Mexican drug cartels:"Harvest season this year has law enforcement scrambling to deal with the largest crop of marijuana in Oregon history.From counties long known for illegal foliage to those where marijuana is rare, narcotics agents say they are tracking and hacking an unprecedented number of plants in remote and rugged rural areas.By mid-September, they had seized about 220,000 plants statewide, nearly a 100 percent jump from last year's haul of about 120,000 plants. Almost all of the crops, DEA officials say, are grown by Mexican drug cartels expanding their California operations." [Oregonian]Government anti-drug officials, of all people, should understand that high seizures mean there's just lots of marijuana to be found. The article even says it's "the largest crop of marijuana in Oregon history." This isn't bad news for Mexican drug cartels, it's bad news for the 20-year-old federally-funded marijuana eradication effort that hasn't accomplished anything. The problem is just getting worse.What could be more dishonest than pretending that a record crop is good news for marijuana eradication? That is just like saying that record forest fires are good news because we're putting out more fires than ever before. As usual, the DEA eagerly claims that "almost all of the crops" are grown by Mexican drug cartels, as though white people in Oregon want nothing to do with marijuana cultivation. Um, have you seen those people? Seriously, I've met lots of white people from Oregon, and I swear half of them were just waiting for me to stop talking so they could go water their pot plants in the woods.And, as I've explained previously, no one ever gets caught planting pot in the woods anyway, so how could police possibly know who's doing it? They have no clue, and it's precisely because no one ever gets caught growing pot in the woods that more and more people are planting more and more pot in the woods. How long must all of this go on before the Drug Czar's office stops citing it as evidence of the effectiveness of marijuana eradication?
Drug-free smokers wanted
I was walking through the halls of my school today and saw an flier seeking participants in a survey. It reads "Smokers Wanted. Quiting not neccesary." Upon closer inspection I saw a small line that read "Participants must be drug-free."
Opportunity for Activism
I see a great opportunity to educate people during the release of Denzel Washington's new move American Gangster. When it is released on Nov. 2nd, I am going to hand out LEAP promotional DVDs. I am hoping their are others interested in doing so.