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Anal Cavity Searches: Another Horrible Drug War Atrocity
I hate how easy it is to find new and insane stories of drug war villainy each and every day. Today's episode comes to us by way of Detroit, where a couple young drug cops have become known as the "Booty Boys" due to their thorough approach when searching drug suspects: Two Detroit cops dogged by accusations of illegal body cavity searches during various traffic stops in 2006 are finally getting their day in court.â¦A civil trial is under way in which Terence Hopkins of Highland Park says he was groped by the officers known on the streets of southwest Detroit as the "Booty Boys."â¦Two other men who sued the cops on similar allegations, Elvis Ware and Marcus Wrack, are expected to testify on Hopkinsâ behalf. Both men received small settlements from the city.The officers have been the focus of eight lawsuits claiming such searches filed by 10 men in U.S. District and Wayne County Circuit courts in Detroit.Two men, Byron Ogletree and Marjjo Clyburn, with similar allegations against the officers, received payouts from the city two years ago of $349,000 each without filing a lawsuit. [Detroit Free Press]The officers claim it's all just a conspiracy, but it sure sounds like a lot of different people have the same beef with them. I don't know these cops, but I know the drug war, which makes me a sympathetic audience for claims of excessive anal cavity searches.This is what happens when you tell police their top priority is to catch people in possession of tiny objects. It's bad enough that our stupid drug laws would ever lead people to hide drugs in their butt. But when police actually begin operating under that assumption, that's just a nightmare for everybody. Now that the cops' faces are in the paper, I wonder how many more victims will come forward. Moreover, I wonder how many more headlines like this it will take to convince the American public that modern drug enforcement is inherently abusive and disgusting. We've created a monster and there's just no limit whatsoever to the perversion that it unleashes on our streets every hour of the day. As long as these laws exist, as long as police are incentivized to do these unbelievable things, no one will be safe.
Opponents of Medical Marijuana Are Getting Lonely and Discouraged
I like this post from Pete Guither about a small group of Californians plotting to fight back against the medical marijuana movement. The odds are stacked against them in that the public opposes them, they keep losing in court and they donât have any money to fund their advocacy efforts. I can't help but think that this is how drug policy reformers must have felt during the Reagan years. It's amazing that we've come so far now, our opponents are the ones bunkered down trying to figure out a way to stop the momentum of marijuana reform.
Free Marc Emery!! Canada's Prince of Pot Has Begun His Journey Into America's Gulag
Marc Emery is no longer a free man. Canada's Prince of Pot was taken into custody today. He turned himself in at the BC Supreme Court in Vancouver, and is now jailed in Vancouver awaiting imminent extradition to the US, where he is set to plead guilty to one count of marijuana distribution for selling pot seeds over the Internet. Emery is expected to be sentenced to five years in federal prison in the US for his seed sales. He sold millions of seeds in the decade prior to his 2005 arrest and became a leading hemispheric advocate for marijuana legalization, using the profits from his seed sales to fund reformers across the continent. He also called out then drug czar John Walters for lying about marijuana and interfering in Canadian domestic politics, leading then DEA head Karen Tandy to issue this press release lauding his arrest as a blow to the legalization movement: Today's DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group -- is a signficant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement. His marijuana trade and propagandist marijuana magazine have generated nearly $5 million a year in profits that bolstered his trafficking efforts, but those have gone up in smoke today. Emery and his organization had been designated as one of the Attorney General's most wanted international drug trafficking organizational targets -- one of only 46 in the world and the only one from Canada. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery's illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canda. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on. Can you say politically motivated? I knew you could. One American attorney familiar with his case told me this weekend that Emery could have fought the prosecution and sought to have shown that it was unlawfully politically motivated, but that Emery and his Canadian legal team didn't want to take that risk. That's understandable, given that Emery was looking at decades or even life in prison if he lost. Now, America's legions of unknown marijuana martyrs are being joined by one very big name. Let's hope that Emery's unjust imprisonment turns a spotlight on the hideousness of a US federal legal system that turns a blind eye to torture but cages a man for selling pot seeds. The Vancouver Sun's Ian Mulgrew sums it up nicely in an op-ed piece entitled Marc Emery's Sentence Reeks of Injustice and Mocks Our Sovreignty: After two decades as Canada's Prince of Pot, Marc Emery will surrender himself today in B.C. Supreme Court and become the country's first Marijuana Martyr. Emery will begin serving what could be as long as five years behind bars as Uncle Sam's prisoner for a crime that in Canada would have earned him at most a month in the local hoosegow. It is a legal tragedy that in my opinion marks the capitulation of our sovereignty and underscores the hypocrisy around cannabis. Emery hasn't even visited America but he was arrested in July 2005 at the request of a Republican administration that abhorred his politics. He is being handed over to a foreign government for an activity we are loath to prosecute because we don't think selling seeds is a major problem. There are at least a score of seed-sellers downtown and many, many more such retail outlets across the country. In the days ahead, once the federal justice minister signs the extradition papers, Emery will be frog-marched south to Seattle where his plea bargain will be rubber-stamped and he will be sent to a U.S. penitentiary. For comparison, consider that the B.C. Court of Appeal last year said a one-month jail sentence plus probation was appropriate punishment for drug and money-laundering offences of this ilk. The last time Emery was convicted in Canada of selling pot seeds, back in 1998, he was given a $2,000 fine. There's more at the link above, but you get the gist. Mulgrew, of course, is right on the money. The Canadian government has shamefully failed to protect one of its citizens from the crazed drug war machine south of the border, and the US government is shamelessly imprisoning yet another non-violent pot person--this time mainly to shut him up. We should demand that Marc Emery and all other marijuana prisoners be immediately released. Short of that, we should, as Emery requests, demand that he be allowed to serve his time at home in a Canadian prison.
Homeless just can't stand the attention
Canada's poorest postal code,also known as the down town east side is home to a variety of people from all across the country.Most arrive here with little money and no idea where to go and a lot wind
Denmark's "Street Lawyers" Help the Addicted Reduce Harm
This new video by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union highlights the Danish group Gadejuristen -- "Street Lawyers" -- a 10-year old Copenhagen based organization that advocates for the human rights of drug users in Denmark and which has played an important role in the promotion of innovative harm reduction programs. Earlier this year, the Danish government commenced heroin maintenance programs for addicts. But according to HCLU, Denmark still has no safe injection sites, and the many users who therefore take heroin on the streets can face police harassment. A particular problem is that "no-go-zones" designated by local police can make it difficult for users to get to their needle exchange programs.
Police Discover World's Most Expensive Marijuana
Police in Texas just made a remarkable discovery that could potentially turn the domestic marijuana industry upside down. Although a recent drug raid only turned up a single marijuana plant, officers determined that it is the most valuable marijuana ever reported. According to Sheriff Thomas Kerss, this type of marijuana has a street value of $6,000 per ounce!That's some very impressive pot. According to the government's own data, collected by the National Drug Intelligence Center, high-grade marijuana prices top out at around $7,500 per pound in high-value markets. That's around $470 an ounce. Similarly, the marijuana magazine High Times estimates the average price of high-grade marijuana at $428 per ounce in August 2009. As you can see, the marijuana just discovered in Texas is more than 12 times as valuable as anything currently on the market. Even the hippies at High Times have never heard of anything like this, but maybe that's because the police are doing such a good job keeping it off the streets.*****Or maybe the police lied about how much it's worth. After finding only one little pot plant in a big dramatic drug raid, they wildly inflated the value of their drug seizure in order to make newspaper headlines. It's happened before, although this is by far the most laughably outrageous marijuana price ever claimed by police in the three years I've been documenting this behavior. At $6,000 an ounce, that would mean one little joint costs $200. A dimebag would be invisible to the naked eye. It just doesnât make sense, which is why I refuse to believe it's an honest mistake when cops say stuff like this. Narcotics investigators buy drugs all the time so they can arrest people for selling to them. They know the market well and if their estimates come out all crazy, it's because they're trying to impress people with the fruits of their filthy labor.But the stupidity doesnât end there. Lying about the value of marijuana rather obviously encourages people to grow it. If these guys really gave a damn about "winning" the war on drugs, they wouldnât be running around in the middle of an economic crisis telling people you can make thousands of dollars from a single marijuana plant. Nonsense like that could quickly blow up in your face.Unless, of course, the people who get paid a good salary and benefits to bust marijuana growers actually want more people to do it. Say it ain't so. Update: I just heard back from KRTE9 News and the online version of the story has been corrected to say $6,000 per pound, which makes a lot more sense. I'm told that "the DEA mistakenly told the sheriff 6,th an oz," which is pretty weird. That means multiple law enforcement agencies were involved in disseminating this number and no one noticed how absurd it was? I'll take their word for it that someone just screwed up here, which is what a couple readers suggested to me as well. But please understand that this is hardly the first time I've encountered police claiming ridiculous marijuana prices that artificially inflated the value of their drug seizures. Whether it's done deliberately or not, this behavior serves to misinform the public and shouldnât be tolerated.Please click here to give this story a vote on Digg. Thanks!
Dr. Drew & The Drug Czar Join Forces to Scare Parents About Marijuana Legalization
As a teenager I used to listen to Dr. Drew's Loveline radio show every night. I learned a lot about sex and drugs that I was better off hearing on the radio than finding out the hard way and I'll always be grateful for that. But I gotta say, I liked Dr. Drew a lot better when he was co-hosting with Adam Carolla, as opposed to the, um, drug czar. This live web chat is so painfully boring and redundant you can guess where I found the link. But at least they had the guts to sort of vaguely pretend to respond to a marijuana legalization question: shortpumppreppy: There is so much public buzz in favor of the legalization of marijuana, how can I keep my teens from being swayed? Director Kerlikowske: I think that the biggest influence on young people is often the parents or the caregiver in the house. If they stress the risks and dangers of drugs, regardless of what the discussion in the media might be about marijuana being legalized, they will have more influence than what happens on a news report that night. The marijuana today has a very high content of THC, which is the psychoactive component in marijuana, and it can have very serious effects on adolescents. The research on this is very clear. Dr. Drew: Once again the Director and I agree. Not only that, but addiction to cannabis is probably the most common one I deal with today. Make no mistake about it. In addition, I would urge parents to ask their children to move away from the idea that there are "good" drugs and "bad" drugs; let the legal process do that.Let the what? Yeah, who needs doctors anyway when we can let lawyers tell us what drugs we need. I agree that it's dumb for parents to lump all drugs into one of two extreme categories. But it's even dumber when the government does that. Maybe Dr. Drew is hinting at the idea that the harms of drugs are circumstantial rather than purely pharmacological, which would be a valid observation. If he'd actually said that, it would've been his most interesting and helpful contribution to the entire conversation. But it also would have confused the living hell out of the drug czar, whose appalling cluelessness about drugs is probably the reason Dr. Drew was brought in to begin with.
Another Sign That "Tough on Drugs" Politics Are Fading Fast
Last week, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) proposed a nasty amendment to deny housing aid in New Orleans to entire households that included people convicted of certain drug offenses or other crimes. These folks paid their debt to society and got crushed by a hurricane, only to have David Vitter (who's not exactly perfect himself) come along and try to put their whole family on the street. The whole thing is too sickening for words, fortunately I don't have to craft many, because the U.S. Senate voted it down decisively.Meanwhile, that same day, reformers scored a huge victory in the House of Representatives, which passed legislation significantly limiting drug warrior Mark Souder's vicious "Aid Elimination Penalty" that blocks education for students reporting drug convictions.These may seem like no-brainer issues that anyone with a fraction of a conscience would easily comprehend, but it hasn't always been that simple. One rarely finds the U.S. Congress making two smart drug policy decisions on the same day. It would be crazy to think that bad drug war legislation is a thing of the past, but I do think it's safe to say we're moving slowly but surely into a new political battlefield in which the word "DRUGS!" is no longer a massive landmine that invariably stops politicians dead in their tracks. Each success we achieve in Washington, D.C. is big, and not just in terms of the specific policy implications of a particular event. We're dealing with a political culture that has long deemed it suicidal to deviate even slightly from the drug war doctrine. There's a powerful lesson to be learned each time the drug war loses the vote and no one gets sent home over it.
When Cops Play Nintendo
A 9-hour drug raid in Lakeland, FL might not have taken as long if the raiding officers hadnât spent an hour playing Wii in the suspect's home. Little did they know, there was a hidden camera running the whole time: I suppose this is pretty amateur stuff when it comes to police misconduct in the war on drugs, but there's still no excuse for it. Too often, we hear police defending the drug war as some sort of grand noble crusade for the salvation of our society. Apparently, for some of these guys, it's more of a personal playground than an epic battle to save our civilization.
World Drug Czar Proves Once Again Why He Deserves That Title
Pete Guither has a good post looking at the latest nonsense from U.N. Drug Czar Antonio Maria Costa:His attempts to own the word âcontrolâ go to ridiculous lengths.Drugs are controlled (not prohibited) because they are dangerous.I beg your pardon? Drugs arenât prohibited? Since when? Where? You canât just waive a magic wand and say that since you donât like the word âprohibitedâ you declare it to mean something else.The fact that our opponents have resorted to revising their understanding of the English language is a powerful statement about how far we've come in the drug policy debate. It's hard to imagine a more confused and desperate defense of the drug war than this, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time before someone achieves it.
Cheye Calvo Takes a Stand Against Corrupt Drug War Policing
Ever since police killed his dogs in an epic â yet typical â episode of botched drug raid debauchery, I've been repeatedly awed by Cheye Calvo's judgment, composure and commitment to justice. He didn't pick this fight, but it's become crystal clear he won't give up until it's finished. So if the arrogant police officials in Prince Georges County, MD think that continuing to stall will spare them any embarrassment or accountability, this Washington Post Op-ed should put their delusions to rest.I'm not going to block quote this because I hope each of you will read the whole thing in its entirety. It's hard to imagine a more honest and powerful response to police who think the drug war gives them the right to abuse the people they serve.Mayor Calvo's bravery deserves our applause and continued support. I agree with Radley Balko that he should consider running for a higher office in Maryland. There's no better way to establish accountability than to become the person performing the oversight.
Surprise! Police Chief Makes Bad Argument Against Legalizing Marijuana
Nobody opposes marijuana legalization except more than those who personally profit from prohibition. That much is easy to understand. What's not so easily understood are the arguments they use:[El Centro Police Chief] McGinley says if pot is legalized in California, it will be a devastating blow to a battle law enforcement has been fighting for years.â¦McGinley says the move would turn back the clock, and take away all the time and effort law enforcement has spent educating people on the dangers of drugs. [KSWT 13 News]Actually, that time and effort is already gone. And I love how he uses the term "educating" as a euphemism for smashing down doors, handcuffing people and taking them to jail.Still, if you think about it, his argument really strikes at the heart of why law enforcement tends to instinctively oppose fixing our drug laws. They've been "educating" the hell out of everyone for decades and hurting an awful lot of people in the process. It would be supremely embarrassing if it suddenly became clear to everyone that legalization actually works a lot better.
My Apologies, But There Will Be No Chronicle This Week
Some of you may have noticed that I have been in South Dakota quite a bit recently. That's because I was returning to my home town to be with my adult son, who had been in an eight-year battle with mesothelioma. He died at home on Friday evening. His name was Travis Bales. (To answer the questions of anyone scratching his head after reading the obituary, I was Travis's biological father, married briefly to his mother in an ill-fated teenage marriage. We divorced and both remarried and started new families. When I left South Dakota for Texas in 1979, I agreed to let his mom's new husband, Steve Bales, adopt him, but he was always part of my life, and vice versa.) Today is his visitation, tomorrow is his funeral, Wednesday I fly back to San Francisco, Thursday the NORML conference starts. I won't have the heart or the time to do the Chronicle this week. I will try to at least blog something from the conference over the weekend. Travis was always a supporter of the cause, and he enjoyed the kind bud as much as anybody. He and I walked the mean streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside together, and the mean streets of Mexico City. He made it to Jamaica and Bob Marley's grave with his friends--I still haven't done that. Travis would, I'm sure, cut me some slack this week, but then he would tell me to get back to work on making things right. I'll start doing that again next week.
Gangs,violence,media,the Olympics and new leadership.Vancouver waits for new direction??
It looks like the Vancouver (Metro)police have taken to the media in their fight against the gang war resulting from drug war policies.The deaths from gang violence have resumed in full if they ever s
Colonel Peppers Going Viral
I declare the entire "Colonel Pepper's Channel" on youtube is going to go viral.
Former Mexican President Proposes Legalizing Drugs in Mexico AND the U.S.
As President Calderon's leadership continues to drive Mexico deeper into the abyss of cyclical drug war violence, his predecessor Vicente Fox is looking for real solutions instead of hollow, tough-guy rhetoric. And it sounds like he found the answer:Mr. Fox says a thirst for riches propels the street violence. So legalizing drugs â as Holland has done â could have the same effect that ending Prohibition had in the United States in 1933: Removing the incentive for criminals.But if the domestic market in Mexico collapsed because of legalization, the export market might become even more valuable. Any move toward legalization would work only if done in concert with the United States, Mr. Fox said. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]Those are strong words coming from the man who was leading the Mexican drug war just three years ago. Fox knows as well as anyone how powerful prohibition has made the cartels and he's rapidly becoming the nation's loudest voice for reform.It's almost become a cliche at this point, but the observation that Mexico canât change the direction of its drug policy without U.S. backing is probably correct. It's awfully hard to just come out and tell the Americans, "Hey, you guys are on your own now. We're not fighting anymore. Good luck locking down your borders and convincing everyone to stop buying drugs." Even if drug sales in Mexico were tightly regulated, the fight over lucrative smuggling routes will continue. You can regulate marijuana sales in Tijuana, but the government can't be arbitrating trade disputes between international drug organizations or issuing permits to dig tunnels under the border.Nevertheless, the present hopelessness griping the country could form the framework for a massive popular movement to end Mexico's war against the cartels. Everyone already knows the whole mess owes its origins to American drug demand and it may be only a matter of time before a politically significant portion of the Mexican population stops supporting politicians who take drug war orders from the U.S. State Department. The next presidential elections in Mexico will likely bring about the most interesting drug policy dialogue that's ever taken place there.No one knows what's going to happen next, but I can guarantee you that the current strategy of fighting it out in the streets isn't going to change the game. As hard as it is to imagine a combined U.S. and Mexican withdrawal after decades of aggressive interdiction efforts, it stands to reason that the one viable policy solution will eventually emerge. With leaders like Vicente Fox beginning to speak out, that moment may come sooner than we expect.
A Victory in the House of Representatives
Update: Souder concession speech -- "... I was probably going to lose today." It's an interesting glimpse into the prohibitionist mindset. Today the US House of Representatives passed a student loan bill that includes language limiting the infamous "Aid Elimination Penalty" -- a law stripping students of financial aid because of drug convictions -- to include only sales convictions, not possession. The law was previously limited to offenses committed while attending school and receiving federal financial aid. If the Senate follows suit, on this reform or something similar, it will be limited yet again. Yesterday we alerted our members that Rep. Mark Souder, the author of the law, was planning to offer an amendment on the House floor to strip out the language and keep his law the way it is now. Souder withdrew the amendment before it came to a vote. Check back at Drug War Chronicle for further info tonight or tomorrow. It's not a done deal until it passes the Senate, until it survives the conference committee, and then until the larger bill it is part of passes both chambers of Congress in its final form. But things are looking good. We including me personally have been working on this for 11 years, and this is a big day for us. Thank you to everyone who took action, this week or before, to help make this possible.
The Marijuana Ads That ABC, FOX, and CBS Refused to Show You
New York City is the marijuana arrest capital of the world, which makes it harsh terrain for seriously ill patients who rely on medical marijuana for relief. An effort is under way to legalize medical marijuana in New York and remove sick people from the drug war battlefield.Unfortunately, three of the biggest TV stations in New York City don't want you to know about it. ABC, FOX, and CBS affiliates all refused to run ads in support of protecting medical marijuana patients. This is the message they don't want you to hear:These are seriously ill patients fighting for compassion and equality. To silence them is an act of appalling cruelty and ignorance. Whatever petty political considerations might motivate these TV stations to censor the medical marijuana debate are trivial compared to the real human suffering that will continue if patients are denied the opportunity to speak up. Medical marijuana is supported by 76% of New Yorkers, so to suggest that there's anything inherently offensive about airing that viewpoint is just pure fiction. According to MPP's Bruce Mirken, CBS stated that they rejected the ad because they're "concerned about viewer reaction." Really, CBS? Is there anything objectionable about the idea of not arresting people with auto-immune disease? The most likely "viewer reaction" is that people will agree to support legislation that protects patients from arrest.Please help us show these TV stations that their censorship is what's offensive, not the effort to protect seriously ill patients. Click to contact ABC, FOX, and CBS and let them know that silencing patients is both politically and morally wrong.
This America is a Nightmare Version of the Dream!
I hear more and more people say they are getting that Alice in Wonderland feeling. This changeling America our war-and-fear-mongering leaders are selling is unacceptable.