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Will Foster Extradited to Oklahoma
Medical marijuana patient Will Foster is en route to prison in Oklahoma after being picked up Friday by Oklahoma law enforcement officials. He had been held at the Sonoma County Jail in Santa Rosa, California, for the past 15 months as he fought bogus marijuana cultivation charges there--he was a registered patient with a legal grow--and, after the California charges were dropped, on a parole violation warrant from the Sooner State. Foster had been arrested and convicted of growing marijuana in Oklahoma and sentenced to 93 years in prison in the 1990s. After that draconian sentence focused national attention on his case, he was eventually resentenced to 20 years in prison. He later won parole and moved to California, where he served three years on parole and was discharged from parole by California authorities. That wasn't good enough for vindictive Oklahoma authorities, who wanted to squeeze more years out of Foster. He refused to sign Oklahoma paperwork requiring him to return there to serve out the remainder of his sentence. He also refused to sign paperback that extended his original service. Oklahoma authorities issued a parole violation warrant, and the governors of both states signed it. Foster had sought to block extradition by filing a writ of habeas corpus--he had won a similar writ against Oklahoma earlier--but that effort failed on Friday, and Oklahoma authorities were there to whisk him away. Foster is scheduled to be held at the Tulsa County Jail before being assigned to a prison in the Oklahoma gulag. Efforts by Foster supporters to secure his release continue and are now focusing on Oklahoma parole authorities and the state governor. For more information about the Foster case, see our Chronicle story here and at Ed Rosenthal's blog here. Drug War Chronicle will continue to follow the Foster case. Look for a feature article next week.
Every Year is a Record Year for Marijuana Eradication
Each August, like clockwork, you can expect to see announcements like this one about the success of this year's marijuana eradication efforts:According to the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, a multiagency task force managed by the stateâs Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, this year is already one for the record books. In more than 425 raids since late June, some 3.4 million plants have been seized, up from 2.9 million all of last year. And, officials note, they still have roughly a month and a half before the campaign expires with the end of harvest season. [NYT]So, if more marijuana is seized each year, what does that mean? It means there's more marijuana every year. The harder you try to stop people from growing marijuana in the forest, the more marijuana they will plant. It's a very simple and predictable routine, such that one could easily republish last year's news coverage of this same phenomenon without changing a word and no one would know the difference. The only variable in this equation is the finite acreage of our forests, which will eventually be destroyed under a policy that serves to increase rather than eliminate the practice of illicit outdoor marijuana cultivation. Actually, come to think of it, there's a second variable here: our marijuana laws. If we changed them to allow personal marijuana growing on private property, then nobody would grow pot in virtually inaccessible patches of fragile wilderness. How many more harvest season eradication records will be set before that reality begins to sink in?
Cato Unbound Looks at the Mexican Drug War
Cato Unbound has a series of essays debating what to do about the situation in Mexico. I haven't had time to dig through it, but previous drug policy discussions at Cato Unbound have been very interesting, so I recommend checking it out. Pete Guither has some reactions here.
Mexico's new drug laws
Supposedly, as part of a plan to reduce small-time drug sales, the Mexican government has decriminalized the possession of what they consider appropriate for personal use.
Trust is not one of the things an undercover cop has a lot of
I spent 12 years working undercover drugs, in the beginning we were told this was a war, and the enemy was drugs.
If you have chronic pain, you're male, and take opioids. Please read this.
If you use opioids for chronic pain, have you doctor test your Testosterone levels. I've found that opioids deplete Testosterone levels.
Imitation is the sincerist form of flattery
"...I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." - George Wallace, Governor of Alabama; 1963 "Legalization is not in the president's vocabulary, and it's not in mine," - Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy; 2009
"Marijuana Is Safer" Book Bomb Set for Tomorrow
"Marijuana is Safer," the brand spanking new book by NORML's Paul Armentano, MPP's Steve Fox, and SAFER's Mason Tvert (who came up with the whole "marijuana is safer than alcohol" trope) is set for book bomb tomorrow. The idea behind a book bomb is to get large numbers of people to buy a book on a designated day, thereby driving it up the best-seller lists on Amazon. If enough people buy "Marijuana is Safer" tomorrow, we could drive it to #1 on Amazon and generate even more publicity for the book--and the message it sends. While we will no doubt offer the book as a premium at some point in the near future, I want to encourage people to participate in tomorrow's book bomb to help get the word out. You can find out more at marijuana book bomb. I'll be reviewing "Marijuana is Safer" for the Chronicle this week, but don't wait for the review. If you've been thinking about buying the book, tomorrow is the day to do it.
Blogging?
My apologies for the total lack of content in the blog this week. I'm up in Baltimore shooting the upcoming Flex Your Rights film 10 Rules for Dealing With Police, which has kept me up day and night for several days now. We've shot a bunch of fantastic content and we're hoping to have everything wrapped up this week, so I should be back in action here soon (notwithstanding a much needed vacation I might take for a couple days next week). In the meantime, there's plenty to read here, here and here.
Purple Clouds
Purple Clouds in the sky take your consciousness so very high Over the feindish Master Eye Capturing all, truth justified Purple Clouds Illigalized Decriminalized Unjustified Lies!
Confused Cop Worries That Medical Marijuana Could be Laced With PCP
Legal medical marijuana has been around for more than a decade now, but that certainly hasn't stopped bitter law-enforcement spokespeople from conjuring horrific doomsday fantasies about it. Police in Rhode Island are still struggling to understand the issue, it seems:State police Lt. Col. Steven G. OâDonnell said there is nothing prohibiting caregivers from lacing their marijuana with phencyclidine (PCP) or other powerful drugs. [Providence Journal]No, no, no, you misunderstand, sir. It's medical marijuana that's legal in Rhode Island, not PCP. Got it? Medical m-a-r-i-j-u-a-n-a. You can still arrest people for PCP. I doubt this will be an issue though, because for some reason, medical marijuana laws don't seem to result in increased use of PCP. It's awesome.But O'Donnell still doesn't get it. There's something bothering him about marijuana policy, but he can't quite figure out what it is:"Itâs very unregulated," he said. "It makes no sense to us. We regulate hamburger and food, but we do not regulate medical marijuana. There are no checks and balances."Here, lets try that line again, but this time without the word "medical." I think we're onto something here. If we could all just agree that marijuana â medical and otherwise â needs to be monitored for quality and sold by licensed professionals, maybe we can finally put this whole mess behind us.
Drug Czar Admits He Was Wrong About Medical Marijuana
Last month, Obama's drug czar raised eyebrows by claiming that "marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit."Â Though not an unusual remark for a drug czar to make, the comment came as a surprise given the new administration's stated policy of respecting state medical marijuana laws.Well, it looks like someone in the administration had a little talk with the drug czar, because he's already backtracking:Asked if he regretted what he said, Kerlikowske said, "Sometimes you make a mistake and you work very hard to correct it. That happens. I should've clearly said 'smoked' marijuana and then gone on to say that this is clearly a question that should be answered by the medical community." [KOMO News]Of course, this is still utter nonsense given the abundance of scientific evidence that medical marijuana works. But it's remarkable to hear the drug czar acknowledge making "a mistake." As false and obnoxious as his corrected statement may be, it's nice to know that the word "mistake" is in his vocabulary.
What Will the Cartels Do After Drugs Are Legal?
Opponents of legalizing drugs often argue that you canât really eliminate the cartels because they'll just move on to other crimes. Here's the drug czar's version of that argument:"Some think legalization will reduce the violence," Kerlikowske said. "It will not. If drugs were to become legal, I doubt very seriously that (the criminals) would take up jobs at Microsoft or Intel. Criminals are not going to change." [El Paso Times]It's an interesting debate in light of today's news that Mexican drug cartels have been tapping into oil pipelines, stealing astronomical amounts of oil, and then selling it to corrupt American businessmen. It's easy enough to assume that many of these diabolical criminal masterminds will look for ways to stay in business even if we take away their drug profits through legalization and regulation. There's some truth to this and it's pretty creepy to think about what these horrible thugs will do when their primary funding source suddenly vanishes. But that's not an argument against legalization.Making drugs illegal is what created these maniacs in the first place. Selling drugs is what made them greedy and evil. It's how they learned to launder money. It's how they paid for their weapons and armies. It's where they got the capital to fund other criminal enterprises like stealing oil from the Mexican government. All their power comes from selling drugs, and anyone who supports the drug war shares responsibility for what the cartels do next.Maybe legalization won't crush them overnight, but it will close down the massive criminal college that the drug war has become. It will stop future generations of potential super-criminals from ever becoming indoctrinated into a life of crime, because there will be far fewer jobs in the crime industry. In the meantime, those criminals that remain won't have any more drug money to line the pockets of public servants and pervert justice at every turn. They can attempt other criminal endeavors, but it will never be the same because selling drugs is the easiest most-profitable crime on the planet and it can never be replaced. More than a few drug war idiots have suggested that the drug lords will simply switch to human trafficking, as though you could just start selling slaves to the people who used to buy marijuana and cocaine. One could write a very long book about how stupid that is, but it wouldnât make a bit of difference.What would really happen to the cartels if drugs were legal? There's only one way to find out.
The Drug Cartels Have Their Own (Stolen) Oil Company
I thought I'd heard it all, but the latest news from Mexico is so ridiculously over-the-top, I was genuinely shocked:MEXICO CITY â U.S. refineries bought millions of dollars worth of oil stolen from Mexican government pipelines and smuggled across the border, the U.S. Justice Department told The Associated Press â illegal operations now led by Mexican drug cartels expanding their reach.Criminals â mostly drug gangs â tap remote pipelines, sometimes building pipelines of their own, to siphon off hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil each year, the Mexican oil monopoly said. At least one U.S. oil executive has pleaded guilty to conspiracy in such a deal. [AP]What the hell is going on here!? It's been clear for a while now that these people should never be underestimated, but this seriously sounds more like the plot of a James Bond movie than something that could be pulled off in real life. Once again, the situation in Mexico has managed to reach new heights of out-of-control absurdity and it seems to be doing so with increased frequency as of late.Does anyone honestly believe that pouring more money and lives down the drug war drain is the solution to this?
Drug Traffickers Plot to Kill Mexico's President
I've had a creeping feeling for a while now that the cartels might try to take things to the next level:MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has captured a drug smuggler believed to have been plotting to assassinate President Felipe Calderon in revenge for the army's crackdown on trafficking, a senior police official said on Monday.Dimas Diaz, a mid-ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel in northwestern Mexico, was arrested on Sunday in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan with four other traffickers, said Ramon Pequeno, head of the federal police's anti-drug wing."Government intelligence reports led us to find out the threat was from the Sinaloa cartel, with Dimas Diaz entrusted with the details of a possible attack," he told reporters. [Reuters]The magnitude of all this is quite incredible to behold. We've reached a point where anything is possible in Mexico (anything, that is, except victory in the bloody war on drugs). The prospect of a Presidential assassination is a deeply unnerving reminder that the situation in Mexico could actually become considerably uglier than it already is.I shudder to think what effect such an event would have on the already problematic level of U.S. involvement in Mexico's disastrous war on drugs. Please, let's just stop this now before it literally destroys everything there is to destroy.
Police Will Do Anything to Arrest People for Marijuana, Part II
One of the most pernicious lies in the marijuana debate is that police aren't aggressively working to arrest people for small amounts of pot. They are. Although there are parts of the country where marijuana is a low priority for police, there are also places like New York City, where police have developed finely tuned mechanisms for arresting and convicting as many minor marijuana offenders as humanly possible.What makes New York City's epic war on marijuana so remarkable is not just the staggering number of arrests (more than any other city on earth), but the despicable methods that are used to achieve that result. First, police must work their way around the fact that 1) possession of small amounts of marijuana is decriminalized in New York and 2) the 4th Amendment forbids searching people against their will without evidence of a crime.Basically, the program consists of stopping large numbers of people (primarily young black and Hispanic men) for no reason and then saying this: "We're going to have to search you. If you have anything illegal you should show it to us now. If we find something when we search you, you'll have to spend the night in jail. But if you show us what you have now, maybe we can just give you a ticket. And if itâs nothing but a little weed, maybe we can let you go. So if youâve got anything youâre not supposed to have, take it out and show it now.âWhen police say this, the young people usually take out their small amount of marijuana and hand it over. Their marijuana is now "open to public view." And that â having a bit of pot out and open to be seen â technically makes it a crime, a fingerprintable offense. And for cooperating with the police, the young people are handcuffed and jailed. [Alternet]Amazingly, you're not actually guilty of a crime until you attempt to cooperate with police. It is literally the act of showing them your stash that is a violation of the law and everything they say up until that point is designed to trick you into doing that. As is so often the case, policing in the war on drugs consists of tricking people into breaking the law so that the law can then be enforced. Don't let anybody tell you we're not waging a war on marijuana users in America. That's exactly what we're doing and that's why marijuana policy reform has nothing do with people wanting to get high. This is about justice, human rights, and common sense. To jettison these principles because of marijuana is an act of unfathomable lunacy.
Police Will Do Anything to Arrest People for Marijuana
Opponents of marijuana reform often try to act like it's already no big deal. They say no one really gets in much trouble for it and it's not a top priority for police. It's a pretty desperate and counterintuitive strategy. It's also total bullshit:(AP) â TIGARD, Ore. - The Tigard Police Department has ended a sex-for-marijuana Internet sting because officers posting the online ads posed as promiscuous women, not prostitutes.â¦The officers posting the Craigslist ads posed as women willing to a have casual sexual encounter with men who had marijuana. No cash was involved. When the men showed up for the encounter, they were charged with prostitution and delivery of drugs.Defense attorneys say the program was entrapment.Ya think? I couldn't ask for a better example of police taking advantage of people in order to put them in jail. The whole thing is perverted and I'm not talking about the people who responded to the ad.This story should be posted on every police department bulletin board in the country with "DON'T DO STUFF LIKE THIS" scrawled across the top of the page. Remember before the drug war, when the police officer's job was to prevent bad things from happening to people? Now we've got cops who think the best use of their time (and our money) is to trick people into breaking the law and then ruining their lives. When we talk about ending the drug war, it's not because we want more freedom to take drugs. It's because we want to take away any incentive our police have to do stupid and insane crap like this.
ABC News Says Marijuana Makes People Miserable
ABC News has one of those classic pot propaganda pieces that relies on anecdotal accounts to sound the alarm about marijuana addiction. We learn the sad stories of a couple people who smoked way too much pot for way too long and ended up unhappy. Meanwhile, buried within all of this is the one relevant statistic that puts it all in perspective:About 40 percent of all Americans aged 12 and older -- about 94 million -- have tried marijuana at least once, according to a 2003 survey by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA). Of those, about 3.6 million were daily users.Overwhelmingly, people who try marijuana don't get "addicted" to it. They also don't go on to try harder drugs. They donât get lung cancer, or psychosis, or any of the other horrible outcomes that are so commonly and shamelessly associated with America's most popular illegal drug. Yet according to ABC News, marijuana is dangerously addictive, and worse still, it's the legalization movement's fault that people don't know how bad it is:Since the 1970s, when marijuana was the symbol of political protest, the risks of marijuana dependency have been clouded by the legalization debate and long-held beliefs that the illicit drug is harmless.Nonsense. The reason so many people think marijuana is safe is because they've tried it and it was safe. Update: If you'd like to read some more about this ABC News story and why it's bad, then this post is for you.
Police and Clergy Speak Out Against the Drug War
new video from Common Sense for Drug Policy:
WHAT ARE WE DOING PEOPLE?
Just Chiming in, I Thought Prohibition was supposed to save us from ourselves? To protect us in some way?