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Grave Injustice from the Eighth Circuit
This weekâs most depressing story is that of Emiliano Gonzolez, an immigrant who consented to a police search only to have his life savings confiscated. The Eighth Circuit upheld the seizure even though Gonzolez was never even charged with a crime:
New Trial for Martyred Pain Doctor William Hurwitz
Dr. William Hurwitz, whose case weâve reported on extensively, has been granted a new trial.
Drug War Grandstanding: A Bridge to Nowhere
Another prohibitionist politician has been ousted by voters: From CBS NEWS: Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski, stung by accusations of arrogance and stubbornness, lost his bid for a second term Tuesday after polling last in a three-way GOP primary. Arrogant and Stubborn indeed, Murkowski has repeatedly disregarded Alaskan Supreme Court precedent, and public opinion, in his effort to re-criminalize private marijuana possession in his state.
Intern at ONDCP
The Office of National Drug Control Policy looking for interns for the spring semester. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Student Internship Program is structured to challenge and reward a select number of students from across the country. The goal of the program is to allow students to gain an outstanding educational and work experience within various components of ONDCP. The program is intended to provide the students with knowledge, tools, skills, and real life work experiences that they can readily apply to future challenges and professional pursuits. Anyone interested in drug policy ought to find this pretty exciting. But theyâre a bit picky about the applicants:
Myanmar Drug Trade May Be Fueling Sri Lankan Civil War and Terrorism
A conflict that doesn't make the US radar screen as often as it merits is the civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers. The Tigers are a nasty group that among other abuses uses children as soldiers. I don't know enough about Sri Lanka's government to venture an opinion on its own human rights record, though a quick web search did not turn up anything quite so obvious or outrageous. I'm not too familiar with the causes of the conflict or issues that are driving it. Regardless of that, the Tigers are bad. Naturally, press living closer to the conflict cover it much more prominently.
My South Dakota Medical Marijuana Lawsuit Research
Our article about the South Dakota medical marijuana initiative and the likely lawsuit against state Attorney General Larry Long over what initiative supporters contend is his biased and possibly illegal description of the initiative that will appear on the ballot, got bumped this week, but we expect it to happen next week. I held off for a couple of reasons: First, the lawsuit has yet to actually be filed. Second, I couldn't manage to make contact with South Dakotans for Safe Access sole spokeswoman Valerie Hannah until Friday morning. Hannah, a Gulf War veteran who suffers from nerve gas exposure, will fill me in on what's going on Monday.
Don't Go to Indiana
From the Tribune-Star in Terre Haute, Indiana: The Vigo County prosecutorâs office, the Terre Haute Police Department and Vigo County Sheriffâs Department will be conducting intermittent driverâs license checks at an undisclosed location in Vigo County. When I hear that Indiana police are conducting âdriverâs license checksâ, my constitutional spidey-sense goes off. Afterall, these are the folks who brought us the drug checkpoint. And when that got overruled by the Supreme Court, they came out with the similar, but more sinister âfake drug checkpoint.â
Trouble in Paradises
The last week of June saw grizzly news from the popular Mexican resort town of Acapulco, according to Reuters, severed heads found in garbage bags near the US border and in front of government offices, and the police chief gunned down, all believed to be related to the drug trade. Violence including ambushes and executions of police officers has become routine in Tijuana as well, the article reported.
No Honor for Last Holdout State Against Needle Exchange
A few weeks we reported in Drug War Chronicle that New Jersey had become the only state in the nation not allowing needle exchange programs in some form or at least syringe purchase without a prescription -- the second to last state, Delaware, passed a needle exchange law last month.
It's Aghanistan and England in the featured stories tomorrow
I wanted to do South Dakota and the lawsuit over the the medical marijuana initiative ballot language, but the lawsuit hasn't happened, and the appointed spokeswoman for the initiative hasn't returned my calls. I contacted the Senlis Council for some comment about increasing support for their opium licensing initiative. No response. Nada. I find these guys increasingly insufferable.
New "Meth Gun" Not as Cool as it Sounds
Courtesy of Pete Guither at DrugWarRant comes this terrifying story. From CNET News: A new "meth gun," in development by Maryland-based CDEX, enables police to use ultraviolet light to detect trace amounts of chemicals left by methamphetamines and other illegal drugs. Civil libertarians have been concerned for some time that drug war profiteers would begin marketing something like this. Of course, the obvious problem with this type of technology is that it will inevitably be wrong sometimes.
Drug Trade Hurting Mexican Environmental Efforts -- Prohibition to Blame
A piece in Mexico's El Universal called illegal drugs the "root of evil for conservationists." From deforestation in Chihuahua's Copper Canyon by marijuana and opium growers to make way for their crops, to cocaine dumping near the fragile reef nurseries in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico by traffickers, writer Talli Nauman laments:
The Ever-Changing Coming In the Chronicle This Week
So it goes. No word yet on either the South Dakota medical marijuana lawsuit or whether the Portland initiative made the ballot (although I'm hearing disquieting rumblings on the latter), which were going to be some of my features this week. So I'm now shifting gears and attempting to pull enough material together for two more probable features: The NATO takeover in southern Afghanistan (European politicians are beginning to murmur about the Senlis proposal as NATO troops start getting killed in larger numbers) and the call for a rational drug classification system in Britain.
Mother Nature Implicated in Massive Marijuana Grow-Op
Your tax dollars at work: From the The Norman Transcript A call from a concerned farmer in southeast Norman led Cleveland County Sheriff's Department deputies and Norman police officers to a field of 8,889 "wild" marijuana plants growing on private property early Monday morning. The plants ranged in size from 3 feet to 9 feet tall and would have a street value of up to $1,000 each, or around $8 million total, if allowed to grow and be harvested in the coming months, said Captain Doug Blaine, of the Cleveland County Sheriff's Department. Now Iâm not surprised about the plants. Feral hemp, also known as ditchweed, is indigenous to the region. The shocker here is that these officers, in a fit of unbelievable idiocy, actually attempted to place a street value on it. Ditchweed doesnât get you high! Itâs as worthless as the dirt it was yanked from.
Structural Change Also Needed to Stop Drug Trade Violence in Besieged Community
Following the life-without-parole murder convictions of three ringleaders of the Chester, Pennsylvania "Boyle Street Boys," an editorial in the DelcoTimes called on the community to "unite to defeat the criminals." The operation sounds pretty ugly. According to the editorialist, Andre Cooper and brothers Jamain and Vincent Williams ran a lucrative cocaine operation in the Highland Gardens section of Chester until 2003 and "[f]or years... depended on the "Snitch & Die" mentality to ensure the silence of those who witnessed their illegal drug and weapons business... One of their murder victims was a teenage drug dealer whom the gang members suspected of being a police informant... Another was a federal witness, a 33-year-old mother of two, who was executed in her sisterâs car the day before she was going to testify against gang members. Her own cousins were among those who plotted her killing."
Coming in the Chronicle this week
I've been down with pneumonia, so I haven't talked to my sources yet this week, but I think I will be writing about a lawsuit filed against South Dakota's attorney general over the ballot summary language with which he is describing the state's medical marijuana initiative. And again, I await word from Portland on whether that city's "lowest law enforcement priority" initiative makes the ballot. I'm sure there is another story or two that'll break this week, and I've already got a bunch of other interesting items ready to go.
You Can Put Your Weed in it
Iâve seen these before, but never in the news: From the Coventry Evening Telegram: Drug users will be able to dump their illegal stashes without getting in trouble before they enter a massive dance festival near Stratford this weekend. Warwickshire Police will again have an amnesty zone just before the entrance of Global Gathering at Long Marston airfield. But why would anyone do that?
Push Down, Pop Up Even Worse
An article this morning in the Daily Journal in northeast Mississippi reports that efforts to restrict purchase of the chemical components of methamphetamine have caused a reduction in the number of meth labs in Lee County. But don't get too excited: there's just as much meth available in the county now as before. Now, though, it's imported, and the stuff is worse -- it's crystal meth, also known as ice, and according to Sheriff Jim Johnson it's a lot more potent than the stuff people are making locally.
Another Sad Shooting Death in the Projects
A several part story by Audra Burch in the Miami Herald Sunday discussed the shooting death of nine-year old Sherdavia Jenkins, her life before it and her family in the aftermath. Jenkins was a bystander, playing with a brother and sister and friend, when she was struck down by a stray bullet in "an open space between two buildings that police say became a shooting gallery for a smalltime drug peddler and a street tough." It's the kind of tragic story that is tragically too common to always make the papers.
They Should Put Surveillance Cameras in Police Stations
From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Allegheny County district attorney's office has launched an investigation into what happened to $4,000 that Glassport police failed to return to a local bar owner when drug charges against him were dropped. "The fact that money was seized and placed in an evidence locker and turned up missing is unacceptable," said district attorney's office spokesman Mike Manko. I agree, but Iâd go a step further and call it a crime. Grand larceny to be specific. Of course, Glassport officers think itâs just a procedural problem: