BLOG
Alito Free Speech Comments -- a Hint on "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" Case?
Drug WarRant spotted the following comments by Justice Alito, printed by the Washington Post, comments that suggest he might go the right way in the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" free speech case: "I'm a very strong believer in the First Amendment and the right of people to speak and to write," [...] "I would be reluctant to support restrictions on what people could say." [...] "it's very dangerous for the government to restrict speech." View pictures from the March demonstration outside the Court here.
New ONDCP Video Demonstrates Exactly Why Their Ads Don't Work
"Stoners in the Mist" is a fake documentary from AboveTheInfluence.com in which "Dr. Barnard Puck," clad in safari clothes, observes stoners and performs various experiments on them. This is worth discussing only because it perfectly illustrates the lack of seriousness that still dominates the marijuana debate. I don’t know how anyone could watch this and conclude that the people who made it are a credible source of information about the effects of marijuana. Among the highlights: * A practically comatose stoner fails to notice when a tracking collar is placed around his neck * Unable to move, two stoners sit on the same couch for 72 hours * A stoned girl forgets her friend's name and has brownies in her hair * Despite repeated attempts, a stoner is unable to grasp objects tossed to him at close range * Categorical statements such as "we have learned through our intensive research that both male and female stoners tend to lack the motivation to maintain proper hygiene" are made. At the risk of increasing their traffic, you have to watch it to appreciate how far-fetched and derogatory this video really is. It reminded me immediately of D.W. Griffith's racist classic The Birth of a Nation, which glorifies the Ku Klux Klan and depicts African Americans as incoherent slobbering rapists. So yesterday, when an ONDCP staffer called SSDP and basically threatened to increase the childishness of his office's activities, we just laughed because there's really no lower level of discourse available to them. Two weeks ago, I witnessed ONDCP's David Murray indignantly challenge the seriousness of his critics, yet it is Murray himself who lobbies for more funding to produce utterly banal and sophomoric nonsense like "Stoners in the Mist." So if the Responsible and Serious Youth Advocates at ONDCP can't figure out why they've alienated everyone, let me spell it out: it's because you're having your own made-up conversation about marijuana that no one else can participate in because it is completely fictitious and insane. No, this is not a video about the effects of marijuana. It is a parting shot from an entrenched clan of spiteful, sniveling spin-doctors who continue to sling mud in desperation even as their puddle dries up.
The drug war is for real...
Via EconLog: Official stats from the Dept. of Justice show that the ratio of violent offenders in jail to drug offenders was 2.6:1 in 2003 -- up from 9:1 in 1980. The drug war is for real. And anyone who doesn't think this is a huge distraction from the fight against real crime doesn't know how to multiply or add...
Latest Entry in the Annals of Excess Department
This is not directly drug war related, but this is such an asinine abuse of both police and prosecutorial power that I thought I needed to share it. Alright, here's the tale in a nutshell: Kid riding in pick-up that gets pulled over, kid videotapes cop during encounter (just as cop-car camera videotapes the pick-up), cops seizes camera, arrests kid, cop consults with prosecutor, then charges kid with felony wiretapping, punishable by up to seven years in prison. To stupidly repressive to be true? Here it is:
Montel Williams Calls on Connecticut's Governor to Sign Medical Marijuana Bill
Montel Williams, who suffers with multiple sclerosis, continues to crusade for medical marijuana, this time with a letter to Connecticut's governor, Jodi Rell (R), published on Alternet. Writes Montel: Medical marijuana has allowed me to live a productive, fruitful life despite having multiple sclerosis. Many thousands of others all over this country -- less well-known than me but whose stories are just as real -- have experienced the same thing. Now it's up to Gov. Rell to show if she is a reasonable, compassionate leader, or a heartless political hack. Montel at a 2005 press conference with Rep. Maurice Hinchey
New York Medical Marijuana Bill Wins Assembly Vote
The late-breaking news today is that the New York Assembly has passed a medical marijuana bill -- 92-52, according to an email from MPP. Richard Gottfried (D), who has been supporting the issue for years, was the sponsor. Last I checked on Google News, the vote had not made any of the news stories, but I'm sure that will happen anytime now. One encouraging report I gleaned from the articles is that Gov. Spitzer, who opposed medical marijuana during the campaign, says he's rethought the issue. Next stop, the State Senate, probably next week...
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: