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Bruce Willis Finally Figures it Out
Last year, Bruce Willis was advocating scorched-earth warfare against the cocaine trade:"I'm talking also about going to Colombia and doing whatever it takes to end the cocaine trade. It's killing this country. It's killing all the countries that coke goes intoâ¦And I think that's a form of terrorism as well." [UGO]Yikes! Fortunately, Bruce has been reading some books or something, because he's come all the way around on this:Bruce Willis has hit out at America's war on drugs, insisting it would be more productive for politicians to tackle the social problems that lead people to take narcotics in the first place.â¦"We fight it the wrong way. The war on drugs is a joke." [Star Pulse News]Maybe he could start Celebrities for Sensible Drug Policy. Of course, CSDP is already taken.
ONDCP Staffer Makes Threatening Phone Call to SSDP Office
Mere hours after SSDP's Tom Angell posted this amusing letter from ONDCP noting that the agency will respond to his FOIA request in 200 years, ONDCP's Assistant General Counsel Daniel R. Peterson called SSDP's office to voice his objections.Peterson, the author of this ironic typo, accused Tom of being childish and threatened to respond with similar tactics. Incredulous, Tom replied "so does that mean you guys are going to start mentioning us in your blog?" Peterson declined.Now I've got to admit to some sympathy for the other side here. This was a simple mistake, the severity of which pales in comparison to numerous things ONDCP does deliberately. Tom has previously humiliated the federal government with FOIA requests, so the idea of scrupulously drafting responses to perceived harassment from him must surely frustrate and distract these busy bureaucrats from their book-cooking.Unfortunately for ONDCP, the unintentional irony of the error makes for good fun in the blogosphere. Stalling, you see, has become a trademark of the federal drug war; a necessary tactic whenever facts come in conflict with the status quo. We've seen this with regards to ASA's Data Quality Act lawsuit, MAPS's marijuana research lawsuit, sentencing reform, needle exchange and marijuana rescheduling. Heck the entire federal drug war is really just a few agencies constantly stalling in the hopes that we'll eventually stop asking so many questions and learn to live with false promises and fake progress.So when Daniel Peterson tells SSDP that he'll respond to their FOIA appeal in 200 years, it's a perfect Freudian slip. Once again, ONDCP's most truthful and candid remarks occur entirely by accident.
Did John Belushi die from cocaine?
Reason's Jacob Sullum posts an interesting discussion in the Hit and Run blog, reacting to a New York Times story last Sunday titled "Cocaine: Hidden in Plain Sight." The NYT article observed: [F]or a generation that has not had its John Belushi to drive home the dangers of drug abuse, references and even use [of cocaine] are open, casual, even blatant. Did Belushi actually die from cocaine, though? Sullum quotes addiction psychologist Stanton Peele on the topic: John Belushi did not die from cocaine and heroin use, and our saying he did is a feeble way of trying to suppress the horrible conclusions his death suggests. This man did everything he could to guarantee he would not survive. It is at least as correct to say that he died of cigarettes, overeating, and alcohol as to blame his death on one or anotherâor more than oneâillicit substance. Bottom line, there is more than one way to destroy yourself -- it's not always the drugs, even if drugs are in the mix. By the way, former CASA #2 man Herb Kleber figures prominently in the NYT piece. This is a bit of minor history about Kleber from a 1996 article I put together for our original print newsletter, The Activist Guide: In the June 2 edition of the Jellinek Quarterly, a book review of a Ph.D. dissertation on HIV among drug users in Amsterdam referred to comments made by Dr. Herbert Kleber, of the Center on Addiction & Substance Abuse at Columbia University, that the author felt were motivated by ideology and conflicted with objective scientific findings. In a speech titled "Harm Reduction or Harm Production," Kleber said that HIV rates among drug users in the Netherlands had increased, and attributed it harm reduction programs like low-threshold methadone programs, needle exchange projects that he claimed "extended the addiction." An audience member pointed that HIV among drug users in the Netherlands had gone down, not up, and cited articles published in some of the most prestigious international journals. Dr. Kleber admitted that he was not familiar with those articles. Check back soon for a Chronicle review of the new book by continuing CASA #1 guy, Joe Califano.
Just a typo, presumably...
... or could ONDCP really intend to take two centuries to respond to SSDP's Freedom of Information Act request? You decide.
Airport Narcs Fired For Peeing on Luggage
Ok, they were dogs, but it's still funnyâ¦Two of Thailand's top canine agents in the country's war against drugs have been fired for "unbecoming conduct" that included urinating on luggage and rubbing up against female airport passengers.Despite having two of the highest seizure rates on record, the sniffer dogs working at an airport near the notorious "Golden Triangle" opium-producing region were fired after passengers complained about their behaviour. [CBC News]So in Thailand, police dogs pee on luggage and get fired. Meanwhile, here in the U.S., an utterly incompetent human narc can terrorize innocent people and get off with a one-day suspension.It's particularly galling considering that dogs are expected to pee on stuff, whereas police officers certainly arenât expected to terrorize the innocent. Or are they? The way today's public officials react to gratuitous police violence, you could easily expect more concern from a pet owner who finds a mess on the rug. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the punishment for police peeing on someone's belongings during a wrong address drug raid were remarkably lenient. And unfortunately, at this pace, I'm sure we'll have a chance to find out what it is before long. Q: Which is worse, an incontinent dog or an incompetent cop? A: The cop. He'll shoot your dog, at which point it will inevitably release its bowels anyway.
Stop the Drug War Against Addicts
We all need to understand that big business is behind the whole rampant spread of drugs inside the United States. Instead of exposing who the real evildoers are many American people blame drug addicts and many drug addicts become the victim of Amerika's War on Drugs.
Mexico is Bleeding
I can't avoid writing about Mexico again this week. Last week was one of the ugliest yet in President Felipe Calderon's newly energized war on drugs, with at least 46 people killed last week, including five civilians gunned down by soldiers at a roadblock in Sinaloa. So far this year, nearly a thousand have died as the cartels fight each other and the police and the army. It's all part of President Calderon's effort to break the power of the cartels, and it's all so absolutely predictable, with outcomes that are easily foreseeable. The Mexican army and police will undoubtedly effect some big-time captures or killings, the cartels will splinter into micro-cartels, and then begin the process of reformulating themselves into new cartels, killing off rivals and buying off (or killing off) police and soldiers. That's been the case every time a Mexican president has tried to stand tall against the power of the drug traffickers. In fact, the present round of violence is the legacy of former President Fox's 2004 war on drugs, and so far, there is every indication it will end the same way. I'll be talking to as many Mexican observers as I can this week, from academics to human rights watchers, along with Mexico experts here in the US. And Mexico continues to pay the price for America's war on the drugs it loves.
Police deliberately crash truck into car, and then steal car -- in order to search it.
Drug WarRant discusses this incident that even I almost find unbelievable... Okay, they use the word "tap," and not unfairly. But my use of the word "crash" has as much or more connection to reality than the word "conspiracy" has had in many drug cases that have put minor drug offenders in prison for decades. And even bumper taps have a small but non-zero chance of causing medical complications including death. I think all the police officers involved in this should be permanently banned from working in law enforcement or even private security. They have absolutely no reasonable concept of what constitutes responsible behavior with respect to the lives of other people. Or they had an incredibly poor judgment lapse, same difference.
Crack Cocaine Sentencing Headed to Supreme Court
The US Supreme Court has agreed to rule on the U.S. v. Kimbrough case, in which an eastern-Virginia US District Court judge, Raymond Jackson, sentenced a crack cocaine offender -- Derrick Kimbrough -- to a below-guidelines sentence, only to be overruled following an appeal by the government to the 4th Circuit. "Guidelines" here refers to the federal sentencing guidelines (similar to, but not to be confused with the mandatory minimums), in which certain very harsh sentences require only 1/100th the amount of crack cocaine to get triggered as is required of powder cocaine. The "government" here refers to federal prosecutors, who objected that Judge Jackson had based his view that the guidelines sentence for Kimbrough's offense was unreasonable (a requirement for downward departures in the post-Booker ruling federal sentencing world, at least for now) in part on his disagreement over the policy of the harsher sentences for crack offenders. The Court of Appeals in the 4th Circuit agreed, and Kimbrough's sentence was kicked back up to the much-criticized guidelines level. Also before the Court is the case of Victor Rita, another crack cocaine defendant. And the Court has promised to pick a case that deals with the same issue as the one that was at stake in the case of Mario Claiborne, who died earlier this year (info at same link). While there are far more whites who use crack cocaine than blacks, as the Associated Press reported today, "[m]ost crack cocaine offenders in federal courts are black." Why does the 4th Circuit Appeals Court see the intellectual path a judge took to get to a finding of unreasonableness as more important than the self-evidently unreasonable nature of the draconian sentences they are defending? Both Mr. Kimbrough and Judge Jackson are African American, by the way. They are also both veterans -- Kimbrough fought in the first Gulf War; Jackson has a decades-long military career that included a stint as a JAG and includes continuing service as a colonel in the Reserves. The 4th Circuit decision, which is only two paragraphs long, is not published online (or so I've read), but visit the post made about this case on the Sentencing Law and Policy blog and scroll down to the third comment to read it. Our topical archive on the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity is online here (though it only goes back to early fall -- you have to use the search engine for earlier stories). We also have a Federal Courts archive here Last but not least, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, click here to write to Congress in support of H.R. 460, Charlie Rangel's bill to reduce crack cocaine sentences to the same level as sentences for powder cocaine.
Charlie Rangel on Reentry, Crack Cocaine Sentencing and the Vote
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), a one-time drug warrior, made brief remarks on the floor of the US House of Representatives relating to criminal justice, including his support for the Second Chance Act (measures to help people coming out of prison to reenter society successfully) and for restoring the vote to people with past felony convictions, and his sponsorship of H.R. 460 to eliminate the harsher treatment that people convicted for crack cocaine offenses currently receive under the law relative to other cocaine offenses (along with other remarks that don't directly relate to drug policy). (Click here to write your US Representative in support of H.R. 460.) Nothing too huge here, but of interest, and good to see that the chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee is focused on things like this.
Why do we let cops be our "drug experts"?
We see this at all levels, from the local DARE officer misinforming the kids to national law enforcement associations lobbying for more funding to top cops explaining why marijuana is not a medicine. All will tout the dangers of their target drug du jour, and we listen to them as if they knew what they were talking about. Why? Police presumably "know" about correct drug policy because they deal with messed up drug offenders. But police also deal with domestic violence incidents, and we don't assume that makes them experts on marriage. (For anyone who does assume that, check out their divorce rates.) Law enforcement is not a dispassionate, disintered bystander in the debate over drug policy. It sucks greedily on the taxpayer's teat for ever-increasing funding, and it manufactures drug threats to do so. I await breathlessly the arrival of the "new heroin" or the next "worse than crack" drug, and I'm sure the cops are going to tell me all about it and explain why they need more money to fight it. Even if we are generous and grant that people in law enforcement want to do the right thing and save people from themselves, they are not the right people to be teaching our kids about drugs. The latest exhibit comes from Biloxi, Mississippi, where the local newspaper had a story with this headline: Officers Give Biloxi Students the Truth About Illegal Drugs. Here are the three "truths" I could discern from reading the article: The police investigator told the group that " Young people are actually taking this frog and licking it." The students couldn't believe their ears. Then the investigator explained how licking a certain kind of frog has the same effects as using LSD. He also said there were people willing to do it to get high. "Are you serious? A frog?" asked one boy. "That's nasty," a girl chimed in. The cop is referring to the Sonoran Desert Toad, which indeed excretes an hallucinogenic substance when agitated. I am unaware of any contemporary reports of a psychedelic toad-licking trend, but thanks, officer, for making the kids aware of this bizarre drug-taking possibility. The second "truth" I discerned from the article is this one: Richard Robinson said the most surprising thing he learned was "That crack kills." It's not quite so simple. Yes, one can die from a cocaine overdose, typically from cardiac arrhythmia, but I'm unaware of any wave of crack-related heart attack deaths. (Am I wrong? Anyone?). I did find one five-year study of Brazilian crack users that looked at 124 chronic users. After five years, 40% reported not using within the last year, and 23 of the original cohort had died during the five-year interim, a mortality rate above average. But the study noted that the most common cause of death was homicide, not drug overdose. Crack kills? Sometimes, maybe. But far, far more often, not. Finally, the third "truth" I discerned from the article: "We try to help them to determine what's real and what's not real. What's falsehood and what's a myth," said Sgt. Jackie hodes. "There's a myth that marijuana doesn't hurt you but it does. It definitely hurts you. It destroys your brain cells. So we just try to give them some truth so they can make more informed decision." Truth, huh? Here's the skinny on the tired old "marijuana kills brain cells" meme, courtesty of the Drug Policy Alliance's marijuana myths pages: Myth: Marijuana Kills Brain Cells. Used over time, marijuana permanently alters brain structure and function, causing memory loss, cognitive impairment, personality deterioration, and reduced productivity. Fact: None of the medical tests currently used to detect brain damage in humans have found harm from marijuana, even from long term high-dose use. An early study reported brain damage in rhesus monkeys after six months exposure to high concentrations of marijuana smoke. In a recent, more carefully conducted study, researchers found no evidence of brain abnormality in monkeys that were forced to inhale the equivalent of four to five marijuana cigarettes every day for a year. The claim that marijuana kills brain cells is based on a speculative report dating back a quarter of a century that has never been supported by any scientific study. I ask again: Why do we let cops pose as "drug experts"?
Motion for Remand : Denied
? Our Motion for Remand was denied on May 16, 2007 as we expected . The Motion was based on the errors our second attorney made . Some of those errors are pointed out in reference material, see: OSB disciplinary. My father and I were instructed by the attorney, our testimony concerning my sonâs Motion for new Attorney would not be needed . Only after we lost the trial, did we learn our testimony could not be allowed in the appeal....... because we did not testify . The Motion for Remand was our last hope to testify.
Flawed "Drugged Driving" Bill Under Consideration in Canada -- Testimony from BCCLA Online Here
Kirk Tousaw, chair of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association's Drug Policy Committee, delivered testimony at the House of Commons in opposition to a so-called "drugged driving" bill now being considered by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. A summary of the issue and his testimony is online here in the Reader Blogs. Read more about Kirk and his past work in our archives here.
Bill C-32 Drug Impaired Driving (and more) (Canada)
I testified today before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights of the House of Commons. I appeared as Chair of the BC Civil Liberties Association Drug Policy Committee to oppose Bill C-32, legislation that if passed would do several things:
"Snow Fall" Atlantic Monthly article articulates the sheer futility of the supply-side drug war
There's an interesting article by Ken Dermota in the latest issue of Atlantic Monthly, "Snow Fall," a discussion of the failure of interdiction and source country efforts to drive up the US street price of cocaine. Dermota points out the two sides of prohibition's price dynamic: [P]olicing has a big impact on cocaine prices: On the streets of Bogota, a gram of cocaine can be had for under $2. Recreational users in America, on the other hand, typically pay upward of $50 a gram... Yet over time, cocaine prices per pure gram in the United States have steadily fallen, from $600 in the early 1980s to less than $200 by the mid-1990s. The government's stated purpose for engaging in supply-side drug enforcement measures is to drive up the price, in order to reduce use. Given that prices have fallen so dramatically, it is safe to say that the supply-side strategy of increase prices has not decreased use (because the price increases never happened). Prohibition itself drives up the price of drugs (with calamitous effects on the people who are addicted to the drugs, indeed driving many of them to commit crimes that affect the rest of us, but that's a separate issue), but supply-side enforcement appears to have failed completely by its own measures. The period of time Dermota cited is about a quarter century, by the way, enough time to conduct a pretty conclusive test, IMHO. Dermota explains why the seizures of illicit drugs that government officials like to hype so much may actually illustrate failure, not success: In March, the US Coast Guard intercepted a freighter off Panama laden with 20 tons of cocaine, in the largest maritime bust ever. That was followed in April by Colombian authorities' seizure of a 15-ton cache most likely awaiting shipment to Mexico... Of course, the good news is soured by the fact that cocaine production remains robust enough to allow shipment in 20-ton batches. Drug policy reformer Judge James P. Gray of Santa Ana County in California has made this point as well. He should know -- as a prosecutor prior to joining the Superior Court he was involved in a seizure of heroin that at the time set the quantity record. When he delivered the speech that the link above points to in 1994, that record had long been dwarfed. (I helped to organize that conference, by the way, at Harvard Law School with the Civil Liberties Union of Mass., early during my activist career when I was still a volunteer. Afterwards I guided Judge Gray, former NORML director Dick Cowan and actor Michael Moriarty to the bed-and-breakfast where we put them up.) Dermota may be a legalizer, though not an optimistic one, and he doesn't directly say he is: Sea changes in policy, such as decriminalization or legalization of drugs, look politically untenable. Unfortunately, the link above to the article only gets you the beginning, you need to be a subscriber to see the whole thing, or get a hold of a copy of the magazine. Anyway, there's at least one good drug reporter in the country. :) Besides DRCNet's Phil Smith, that is. :) Thanks to Steve Heath for the heads-up.
Oops, Wrong House. Sorry We Threw Grenades and Kicked You in the Crotch.
Via Radley Balko, yet another wrong address drug raid disaster:This one's got it all. Terrified immigrants who don't speak English, a roughed-up pregnant woman, a man kicked in the groin, another woman with a heart condition, flashbang grenades, and assurances from the cops that this kind of thing happens "not very often." Fortunately no one was killed. Only terrified.The police never contacted the landlord of the residence to verify. And when they raided the "right" address, the place was empty.Of course, throwing grenades and kicking people in the nuts are highly questionable activities even when police invade the correct location. This issue goes way beyond just getting the address correct. Even when the police get it right, anyone inside is innocent until proven guilty, and should never be brutalized arbitrarily. When police conduct becomes remarkably similar to that of dangerous criminals, we've got a major problem on our hands.As Radley so often points out, the purpose of these raids is to stop people from getting high, which isn't a legitimate or achievable goal to begin with. The failure of prohibition is never more obvious than when police enter the homes of innocent people and beat or kill them in order to protect us all from drugs.
Wish I were there...
Jeralyn Merritt discusses the NORML Legal Seminar going on right now in Aspen, on TalkLeft.
Rhode Island Medical Marijuana Bill Vetoed, Override Anticipated
Last week we reported in Drug War Chronicle that Rhode Island's medical marijuana bill, to make the law passed last year a permanent one, had passed both houses of the legislature. As anticipated, Gov. Carcieri (to be referred to henceforth as "The Blue Meanie") vetoed the bill. He vetoed the last one, and the legislature overrode the veto and made the bill law anyway, and it's expected that that will happen again this time. But the status at the moment of this writing is that it's vetoed. Here's a Google news link to coverage of the bill. Also, a shout out to whoever sent our story around on StumbleUpon: thank you, it got us tons of hits.
Rudy Giuliani Doesn't Care About Sick People
Via Reason, Don Murphy of Republicans for Compassionate Access asked Rudy Giuliani about medical marijuana: MURPHY: You talked about abortion rights and how you trust people to make their own choices. Do you support the choice of cancer patients to use medical marijuana?RUDY: No, I don't think a cancer patient should use marijuana. There are other options.Other options, he says. Well that's no surprise coming from a hired consultant for Perdue Pharma, manufacturer of Oxycontin. Rudy even helped Perdue fend off the DEA when Oxycontin became linked to widespread abuse.To be fair, OxyContin can be a very effective option for many patients and there isn't necessarily anthing wrong with Rudy sticking up for Perdue in this context. Unfortunately, he fails to recognize that medical marijuana should be defended for all of the same reasons. Lots of sick people say it helps, and that's really all that matters. If widespread abuse and even death associated with OxyContin don't bother Rudy, what's his beef with medical marijuana? The problem might be that Rudy Giuliani is a horrible person.
Don't Tell Anyone About the Narc Ambulance
When we said drug abuse needs to be looked at from a medical perspective, this isnât what we had in mind:Local law enforcement narcotics agents now have a new tool in the fight against drugs.Med Life Ambulance Service has donated a used ambulance to serve as an enforcement vehicle for narcotics agents.The unit will be used by the Bastrop Police Department and Morehouse Parish Sheriff's Office during narcotics investigations and in the course of executing search warrants. [Daily Enterprise]Ok, rule number one for conducting narcotics investigations from an ambulance: don't tell everyone about it beforehand. I can't think of anything less discrete than doing a stakeout in a gigantic ambulance. Especially now that the ambulance is famous. Moreover, ambulances with always be better equipped to help people with drug problems than tactical narcotics vehicles.