Virginia_Resner R.I.P. Activist Against Drug War Injustice

Mother and daughter
DWR: Monday, July 23, 2007 Link

A woman in her forties and her daughter in her twenties were smoking marijuana together in their parked car "in advance of a Nickelback concert at Centennial Park in Sarnia [Ontario], part of the Bayfest festival."

What a nice moment. An adult mother and daughter spending some nice quality time together, enjoying a concert. It should be a Hallmark moment. Until...

Police seized 14 marijuana cigarettes and arrested and charged the pair.

There's something really sick in our society to allow these two to be arrested (or anyone else for that matter who simply wants to enjoy some good music in a time-honored way).
The Chatham Daily News misses the point entirely in their editorial Family Values Going Up in Smoke

Call us old-fashioned, but we find it deeply unsettling when parents take recreational drugs with their kids.

No, I'm not calling you old-fashioned. I'm calling you stupid.

This mother and daughter have more family values than most people, including the editorial writers at the Chatham Daily News. And what happens to family values when you promote a drug war that rips apart families, jails parents, fills family members and steals children away?

Or is family values just for the father and son in beer commercials?

And I just want to add another point to this. There's a reason the police go to concerts in search of drug busts. They know that people like to use marijuana when listening to music. But they don't talk about why.

Marijuana isn't necessary to enjoying good music. Neither is good speakers. You can listen to music through crappy little speakers and have a wonderful experience. However...

I know someone who is a genius with sound reproduction and speakers. He once invited me to his home and had me sit in "the chair." He had built all of his speakers himself and had the exact perfect spot in this large room for the very best sound. And I admit, I had never heard sound like that before. It was breathtaking.

Marijuana affects many people listening to music in a similar way. Time shifts, and subtle effects of the music come through with a power as though a dormant tuning fork had been activated inside you. Why do you think the history of jazz is tied to marijuana?

But of course, this is just another aspect of marijuana that the government would prefer not to articulate -- it doesn't fit their propaganda of marijuana alternately causing violent behavior or making you sit for hours on Pete's couch.

"Don't use marijuana -- it'll make music sound like you're listening to the best speaker system on earth and it'll make Hostess Ding-Dongs taste like a 5-star French restaurant's Creme Brulée." Hard to sell a drug war that way.

[Tanya at Blame the Drug War reacts to this story as well.]

Family Values Going Up In Smoke
Chatham Daily News

Consider Decriminalization Daily Observer, The (CN ON)

Marijuana Maverick Says It's About Rights Barry's Bay This Week (CN ON)

U.K eyes tougher pot possession laws The London Free Press (UK)

"The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before. The understanding of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high sometimes carries over to when I'm down."
-- Carl Sagan, in "Marijuana Reconsidered"

Carl Sagan Portal



The Drug WarRant Annual Harry J. Anslinger Propaganda Award
DWR: Monday, July 23, 2007

Marie had a very interesting idea in comments -- an annual Anslinger award.

I like it. I think we might be able to do something good with this, so let's work out some details.

1. Timing. What's the best time of the year to give out the award -- end of the calendar year? Some other time?

2. Graphics. We need a logo and/or award design. Any ideas?

3. Categories. I think we'll do better by having several categories, rather than just one overall award. Here's some off the top of my head:
* Elected official (Souder, etc.)
* Bureaucrat (Walters, Tandy, etc.)
* Private operator (DuPont, Califano, Bensinger, etc.)
* Media outlet (network, newspaper, wire service, etc.)
* Reporter (a specific reporter or feature writer)

4. Criteria: I'm thinking that we'd want a representative item or statement to show off the depths of their propaganda, but the decision could be made based on their body of work over the year. Or should it be solely based on a single propaganda item?

5. Selection: All Drug WarRant readers would be able to nominate individuals/pieces throughout the year. Then open voting at the end? Just some initial thoughts. What are your ideas?

Update: Feel free to give your suggestions and ideas either in comments or at the messageboard.



Hastert to leave?
DWR: Sunday, July 22, 2007

It was a good day when Dennis Hastert was no longer the Speaker of the House.
Now, Think Progress reports...

According to the Politico, columnist Robert Novak will report this weekend:
Former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert has indicated to a close former aide that it is likely he will not run for a 12th term from his northern Illinois district and may even resign from Congress before his present term concludes.

I have no love for Hastert , and would be thrilled to see him leave power entirely. The question is why he would leave before his term is up (if the rumor is true).

Could it have anything to do with his alleged connection with the Turkish drug mafia?

"No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. .... the 63% of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, HOWEVER TEMPORARY, to stamp it out."
TOTAL POLICE STATE TAKEOVER by William L. Shirer

THE POLICE STATE COMETH by Rep.Ron Paul

The State vs. Doctors by Congressman Ron Paul, MD

Ron Paul Archives

New York Tmes: The Antiwar, Anti-Abortion, Anti-Drug-Enforcement- Administration, Anti-Medicare Candidacy of Dr. Ron Paul

Chicago Tribune article about the drug war and racism : Drug war enforcement hits minorities hardest

"There was a thought back in the 1980s that it was better to be tough on crime than to be said not to be tough on crime; that if you just lock these people away that somehow that's going to solve everything," Evans said. "Hasn't worked. And I believe now the pendulum is swinging away from lock 'em up and throw away the key back toward trying to find a rational way of solving this problem."

Nonsensical drug war article from Reuters. This fails even rudimentary journalistic standards. I'm not even sure what it's about. But they did get a chance to highlight this quote: Drug traffickers, said Donovan, are "the epitome of evil."

Here's another really stupid editorial from Danny Zahara of the Central Peace Signal (whatever that is) in Alberta

A couple of good articles from Montana.

* Meth Project founder critical of 'crazy' drug policy
* Rehberg praised for medical pot

Ninth cabinet minister admits smoking dope Should be a non-story, if it wasn't for the overall blatant hypocrisy of politicians wanting to lock everybody else up that does what they did.

Good article at Grits for Breakfast: If you don't have probable cause just fabricate it, say drug enforcers and some TX prosecutors. It's scary the degree to which conventional thinking says anything law enforcement does is justified if it's part of the drug war.

Councilman Michael Polensak (Cleveland) has a little too much time on his hands. He actually wrote a letter (on City of Cleveland official stationary) berating an alleged drug dealer who had been arrested, including these gems:

Mr. Winston, you have to be "dumber than mud." [...] In closing, I told you just recently to stay out of my neighborhood, you crack dealing piece of trash. [...] Go to jail or the cemetery soon,...

LA City Beat reminds people about the History of Federal Confusion and Persecution Over the 'Evil Weed'


november.org

Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

Marijuana: Drug Czar Calls Pot Growers Dangerous Terrorists

Harm Reduction: Jersey City Signs Up for Needle Exchange

Drug Use: One in 12 US Workers Uses Drugs , SAMHSA Says


november.org

DEA Raids Pot Clinics in LA County By Andrew Glazer
CN Source: Associated Press July 25, 2007 Los Angeles, CA  

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided 10 medical marijuana clinics Wednesday just as city leaders backed a measure calling for an end to the federal government's crackdown on the dispensaries.

Federal officials made five arrests and seized large quantities of marijuana and cash after serving clinics in Los Angeles County with search warrants, said DEA spokeswoman Sarah Pullen. She refused to disclose the clinics' locations and other details.
Continued...cannabisnews/23202

Just one more reason to get rid of Alberto Gonzales
DWR: Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Not that we need any more... but in his testimony today, he was asked by Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, who has introduced a bill to reduce the crack-powder cocaine sentencing disparity, what the DOJ thought of it. Gonzales replied:

"Personally, as I sit here today, I'd say that where we're at today is certainly reasonable. We think crack is more dangerous. It's related to, I think, addiction more quickly. It's more related to more dangerous crimes. The effects of it, I think, are more dangerous. So from a law enforcement perspective, it makes sense to have the kind of sentences that exist today."

Where we're at is reasonable? Makes sense?

I'm sorry, but why isn't Gonzales spending the next 55 years in prison for what he's done to this country? He's much more dangerous than crack.
[Via Tim Grieve]

http://www.EvolveFISH.com/fish/media/B-StopWarOnDrugs.gif

Drug war on crack
Ian Welsh has a very good article at firedoglake: The Assault on Due Process and Civil Liberties, where he notes that the current attacks on our rights related to the war on terror and the increase in executive power didn't just spring to life out of thin air -- they were spawned from the drug war.

The joke about the "War on Terror" is that it's the "War on Drugs... on crack". As with most good jokes, it hurts and it's funny, because it's true - the "War on Drugs" is where America lost a lot of its civil liberties and due process. [...]

Of course, many things did start under Bush - torture, repeal of habeas corpus and so on. But it's worth remembering, at the end of the day, that what has happened in the last 6 years did not happen in a vacuum - it was an acceleration of a trend that already existed towards the land of liberty becoming a land where due process was only something that some people, the right sort of people, had access to.

It is, of course, something we've been talking about for years.



Denver Cops Say State Pot Laws Can't Be Ignored By Nick Martin
CN Source: Denver Post July 25, 2007 Colorado  

Thousands of people in Denver sent a literal message to the city this week, saying they want a vote on whether cops and prosecutors should ignore some of the state's marijuana laws.

On Tuesday, police and city officials were left asking: Is ignoring a law even possible? "This is an entirely new beast, and I don't know what it means," said assistant city attorney David Broadwell.
Continued...cannabisnews/23198

Santa Barbarian's Wiley Hyena
Barisone Challenges New SC Marijuana Law


leap.cc

The Crisis in Democracy
Prohibitionism And The Police Fiasco.
Why Will It Work In Iraq,
If It Does Not Work In DEAland?

We Live In Interesting Times
The Elections and the Cannabis Reform Movement.
The Problems With Making Democracy Work
Against Prohibitionist Propaganda.

How the Success of NORML’s New York Ad Campaign
Demonstrates The Failure of the Mass Media to Serve Democracy.

RCMP = Really Conservative Marijuana Police
Law Enforcement, Prohibition and Democracy. Are More Americans In Favor Legalization than Canadians? Politicians Ignore the People, Who Ignore Police.



The Banality of Evil – Canadian Style
Canada Rejects Steve Tuck’s Request for “Pre-Removal Risk Assessment”
Adding Insult To Injury. We Will Appeal, Of Course.

War on Drugs
Links to resources and info on the drug war

* Drugs Are Bad: The Drug War Is Worse By Craig Horowitz
* Disparity in Crack, Powder Cocaine Sentences By Eric E. Sterling
* DRCNet The Drug Reform Coordination Network
* DRCNet Online Library
* Case File C.I.A. and Drugs
* Drug War Facts
* DrugSense
* Ecstasy Harm Reduction Project
* November Coalition
* Stop The Drug War
* Think for Yourself, a Drug Policy Reading Room on the Drug War
* Vigil to Repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws
* War On Drugs Organizations Focused On the Effects of the War On Drugs
* Frontline: Busted - America's War On Marijuana

The War on Drugs blog is presented from a personal freedom point of view.  It in no way promotes the use of illegal drugs.  It does however advocate the end to the prohibition of illegal drugs and the end of the war on drugs.
Continued...WarOnDrugs/ReadingList

The closer we get, the harder they will fight & waste taxpayers money to do it! Give them enough rope and........

Reefer Madness Redux
By Paul Armetano and Marsha Rosenbaum  
CN Source: Orlando Weekly July 27, 2007 USA  

Heard the latest buzz about cannabis? Word on the street is that today’s pot is exponentially more powerful, and thus more dangerous, than the marijuana available some 20, or even 10, years ago.

The nation’s drug czar says so. (“We’re no longer talking about the drug of the 1960s and 1970s,” John P. Walters recently warned Reuters; “this is Pot 2.0.”) Law enforcement says so.
Continued...cannabisnews/23216



Pot Potency? Boomers' blissfully unfazed by mere facts.

Average Pot Potency No Stronger, Study Says
July 1, 2004 - Lisbon, Portugal
The overall strength of marijuana available in Europe has remained stable despite claims from US officials and others that it has increased significantly in recent years, according to a study released this week by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

The myths behind 'potent' pot
By Paul Armentano and Marsha Rosenbaum

"Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days --
Hashish goads users to bloodlust."
--Hearst newpapers nationwide circa 1936

US House & Brits Nix Sanity

The Politics of Pot

Potent Pot Myth Undermined By Report From The Ultimate Authority.
Cited By Swedish ProhibitionistWho Don’t Seem To Understand. As Usual.
Posted by Richard Cowan on 2000-02-10
Marijuana Prohibition And Potency, Price, And Safety

"Is Marijuana Stronger Than It Was Back In the '60s
"When Everyone Thought It Was Harmless?"

Analysis By Richard Cowan (MarijuanaNews note: The prohibitionists like to claim huge increases in marijuana average potency make it much more dangerous today. That is simply not supported by the official data. Amusingly, I found this on the web site of the Swedish prohibitionist propaganda organization, Hassela Nordic Network. Obviously, they don’t understand how devastating this is to the party line. Quite often that is the case. They are blissfully unfazed by mere facts.)


Rare Vietnam Brisk Tea ("Acapulco Gold and Vietnam blend" 1960s - early 70s

Drugwar Distortion 11: Marijuana Potency False.

Federal research shows that the average potency of cannabis in the US has increased very little. According to the federal Potency Monitoring Project, in 1985, the average THC content of commercial-grade marijuana was 2.84%, and the average for high-grade sinsemilla in 1985 was 7.17%. In 1995, the potency of commercial-grade marijuana averaged 3.73%, while the potency of sinsemilla in 1995 averaged 7.51%. In 2001, commercial-grade marijuana averaged 4.72% THC, and the potency of sinsemilla in 2001 averaged 9.03%.
Source: Quarterly Report #76, Nov. 9, 2001-Feb. 8, 2002, Table 3, p. 8, University of Mississippi Potency Monitoring Project (Oxford, MS: National Center for the Development of Natural Products, Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 2002), Mahmoud A. ElSohly, PhD, Director, NIDA Marijuana Project (NIDA Contract #N01DA-0-7707).



15 States Busted/WoD Collateral Damage

It's estimated that over 17 million people have been arrested for marijuana since 1965.

That's more than the combined populations of Alaska, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

GAO: $1 Bil.+ Anti-Drug Effort Ineffective
A Government Accountability Office probe of the White House's anti-drug media campaign has found that the $1 billion-plus spent on the effort so far has not been effective in reducing teen drug use. The report recommends that Congress limit funding until the Office of National Drug Control Policy "provides credible evidence of a media campaign approach that effectively prevents and curtails youth drug use."



Operation Alesia is Another Exercise in Futility By Paul Armentano
CN Source: Record Searchlight July 27, 2007 California  

Operation Alesia has come and gone, and judging by the public’s divided reaction to this extravagant anti-pot campaign, it appears that many Northern Californians are unconvinced that America is winning the war on weed. They have sound reason to be skeptical.

Despite statistics indicating that Operation Alesia resulted in the elimination of some 280,000 illicit marijuana plants — more than all of the pot confiscated in Shasta County in 2006 — does anyone really believe that this operation will tangibly reduce the demand or availability of marijuana in the local area?
Continued...cannabisnews/23215



Eradicated Marijuana Is 98 Percent Ditchweed

According to the data, of the estimated 223 million marijuana plants destroyed
by law enforcement in 2005, approximately 219 million were classified as "ditchweed," a term the agency uses to define "wild, scattered marijuana plants (with) no evidence of planting, fertilizing, or tending." Unlike cultivated marijuana, feral hemp contains virtually no detectable levels of THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis, and does not contribute to the black market marijuana trade.

"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices."
-- Voltaire

Say No To Green Harvest & C.A.M.P.

Hawaii: County Council Rejects Federal Funding For Pot Eradication Efforts
June 7, 2007 - Hilo, HI, USA

STATE LEADERS: DITCHWEED ERADICATED (2005)
Indiana (212,441,768 plants confiscated)
Missouri (4,529,695 plants confiscated)
Kansas (1,177,976 plants confiscated)
Wisconsin (272,650 plants confiscated)
Oklahoma (100,736 plants confiscated)

STATE LEADERS: CULTIVATED CANNABIS** ERADICATED (2005)
California (2,011,277 plants confiscated)
Kentucky (510,502 plants confiscated)
Tennessee (440,362 plants confiscated)
Hawaii (255,113 plants eradicated)
Washington (136,165 plants confiscated)
**DEA footnote: "May include 'tended' ditchweed."

For more information, please contact NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre or NORML Senior Policy Analyst Paul Armentano at (202) 483-5500 * DL

Spraying Ditchweed Could Devastate Midwest Game Bird Populations
Outdoor Life, June 1971 p.53

Audubon Magazine - Legalize It!

Mon$anto'$ WoD on Ditchweed


High on Hemp

Casting the first stone at the mote in the prodigal son's eye...
DWR: Sunday, August 5, 2007

Perhaps because I'm a preacher's kid, it bothers me especially when I see so-called "Christians" who appear to have never read Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
Link

Becknell -- a devout Christian known to many as "Brother John" -- pulls out a pen and an inch-thick docket, mostly of drug and alcohol cases. For the next three hours, he takes diligent notes on the judge's actions, the attendance of police officers, repeat offenders making another appearance, and so on.

The purpose? To make sure drug offenders in eastern Kentucky are getting what they deserve. [...]

The Community Church of Manchester is leading the way through "Court Watch," a program in which volunteers attend court hearings to monitor judges overseeing drug-related cases. [...]

Becknell began to work with Operation UNITE, a federally funded drug task force that covers 29 counties in southeastern Kentucky and which created Court Watch. He said that during his first few sessions as a court observer, he noticed officers not showing up, cases getting dismissed, judges doling out lenient sentences and the same defendants appearing before the same judge. [emphasis added]

I've heard my dad talk about his times working with prison ministry, so I can definitely connect better with Rev. John Rausch, director of the Catholic Committee on Appalachia...

Churches should focus on drug counseling and ministering to inmates, he said, citing part of the Gospel of Matthew (25:36) concerning the final judgment: "When I was in prison, you came to see me."

"It isn't 'I was up for charges and you made sure they threw the book at me,"' Rausch said.

The Lord… hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.
(Isaiah 61:1)

Bush. Religious drug treatment in Texas
MapInc Source: Washington Post (DC) 05 May 2000 CORPUS CHRISTI, Tex

Putting Faith In a Social Service Role; Church-Based Providers Freed From Many Rules

Over the door of one church-based drug treatment center in Houston, a sign printed in foot-high letters announces: "Drug Addiction Is NOT a Disease. It's a Sin." At another, clients pass by a poster of an addict in a hospital bed, ripping IV tubes out of his arms and throwing his pills in the garbage. An angel hovers nearby, offering her protection from this plague of prescriptions.

And at a Christian young adult home in Corpus Christi, police recently took the unusual step of arresting a supervisor after teenagers complained that they were beaten and roped to a bed, all in the name of Christian discipline. More arrests are anticipated, authorities say.
Continued...endingcannabisprohibition/13

Warning To States on Funding Faith-Based Charities

McCaffrey's Brain On Drugs by Paul Rako
mapinc Source: Liberty Magazine June 2000 WA (US)

May 1993, 50 senior federal judges, including Jack B. Weinstein and Whitman Knapp of New York, had exercised their prerogative and refused to hear drug cases. Federal District Judge Stanley Marshall remarked, "I've always been considered a fairly harsh sentencer, but it's killing me that I'm sending so many low-level offenders away for all this time." A Gallup poll of 350 state and 49 federal judges who belong to the American Bar Association found 8 percent in favor of and 90 percent opposed to the federal mandatory minimums for drug offenses,
famm

Christian Extremism and Terrorism In History

Prison Profit and Slave Labor
As if exploiting the labor of prison inmates was not bad enough, it is legal in the United States to use slave labor. The 13th Amendment of the Constitution states that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within the United States."

The Real Price of Prisons

'Relax Your Muscles as Much as Possible'

"The horrors experienced by many young inmates, particularly those who are convicted of nonviolent offenses, border on the unimaginable. Prison rape not only threatens the lives of those who fall prey to their aggressors, but it is potentially devastating to the human spirit. Shame, depression, and a shattering loss of self-esteem accompany the perpetual terror the victim thereafter must endure."
--U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Farmer v. Brennan



FBI Bows to Modern Realities, Eases Rules By Dan Eggen
CN Source: Washington Post August 06, 2007 Washington, DC  

The buttoned-down FBI is loosening up: Under a little-noticed new hiring policy introduced this year, job applicants with a history of drug use will no longer be disqualified from employment throughout the bureau.

Old guidelines barred FBI employment to anyone who had used marijuana more than 15 times in their lives or who had tried other illegal narcotics more than five times.
Continued...cannabisnews/23237



Debt and infrastructure
DWR: Sunday, August 5, 2007

Drug WarRant Commenter Kaptinemo has often talked about the financial aspects of the war on drugs within the context of seriously endangered federal and state budgets.

Well the implications of the collapse of a bridge got me thinking about that some more. While I have no interest in using the bridge disaster as some kind of political finger-pointing weapon, I believe that it is useful to discuss how the bridge collapse makes us think about priorities.

This article by Robbie Gennet in Huffington Post has some interesting (and disturbing) material as a discussion jumping-off point.

Our National Debt is about $9 trillion. That's almost $30,000 for every man woman and child in the US. The National Debt is owed by the "General Fund" which is funded by our income tax. Most of that goes to the ever-rising interest on that debt and to the military.

The three largest holders of that debt are (in order) Japan, China and the UK. As long as they hold our debt, they OWN us. Interest to Japan alone is $30 billion. [...]

Our nation's infrastructure is underfunded, sometimes dangerously so. Our government can't afford to fix roads and bridges at the rate that they are deteriorating, leaving us open to more Minneapolis-like disasters. It's only a shock that it's taken so long for this to happen.

But our government has been put under so much debt that it can't afford the things that affect us all, rich and poor alike:maintaining our nation's infrastructure (roads, bridges, sewers, etc), securing our borders, guarding our chemical plants, nuclear plants, refineries, ports and airports adequately (if at all), protecting our food supply, funding the public education system, getting off the oil teat and becoming energy independent or even helping it's struggling citizens after a disaster like Katrina.

People think these things just magically work without realizing that the money to make it all happen comes from somewhere and right now, that somewhere does not exist.

And that is the problem, of course. People seem unable to connect the cost of government with the source of the funding. Everybody says "don't raise taxes" but nobody complains about government spending, so debt and hidden taxes become the politicians' friends.

The question is whether, prior to some kind of financial disaster, the people can be persuaded to demand fiscal responsibility (which seems unlikely). How many bridges have to collapse?

Of course, while I fantasize about fiscal responsibility, my thoughts inevitably turn to the criminal justice system. What a bizarre fiscal fairyland! It often seems that accountability is based on the amount of money you can spend.

Take prosecutors. You hear prosecutors brag about how many people they put behind bars and how long the sentences were -- in other words they managed to spend as much of the taxpayers' money as possible. And if they put away more people than there are prisons, well we just build more prisons. Same with police. There's no incentive to find alternative solutions to prison.

Imagine another world -- where prosecutors would run for office by bragging how efficient they were -- a world where they were given a limit on overall resources used. Let's say that a prosecutor was given a maximum of _x_ prison-bed-years to use each year. The pressure would be on to use them wisely -- you wouldn't want to use them up on pot smokers or you'd have hell to pay when it came time for your evaluation (the voters would demand that you and the police focus on the dangerous criminals).

Yeah, I know. I'm dreaming. But it's a nice dream.

Here's a start, though. Could not communities or states mandate the publication of an estimated total-cost-per-successful prosecution? This would be a ballpark number including all the estimated public costs in current dollars (prosecution, imprisonment, parole, etc.). So, for example, when the newspaper publishes a story about somebody sentenced to 40 years for drug trafficking, they would include "estimated costs in 2007 dollars, assuming serving 80% of time sentenced, comes to $1,385,500.00 for this case."

I wonder if that would make the costs seem more like real money.



Would these Unfettered Capitalists lie about Ganja?

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
From Jurgen Fauth & Marcy Dermansky

Unfettered Capitalism Running Amok

Guide Rating - As somebody who routinely skips over the newspaper's business section, I'll confess that I found the prospect of a documentary about Enron, the energy company that imploded in the spectacular scandal, less than enticing. Even I already knew the basic storyline: in their greed, the managers overextended themselves, perpetuated a gigantic fraud, and eventually the entire house of cards collapsed, taking billions of dollars and the employees' retirement funds with them. Was this really worth 110 minutes of celluloid?

POLITICS/CORRUPTION Archives

Elkhorn Manefesto
Today, thanks to the efforts of pioneer hemp researchers and public advocates such as Galbraith, Jack Fraizer, Jack Herer, Chris Conrad, Ed Rosenthal, Don Wirtshafter and others, the federal government's unjustifiable suppression of our state's right to develop our most valuable and versatile natural resource, is facing increasing opposition from an informed public. Hemp is now recognized as the number one agriculturally renewable raw material in the world, and perhaps the only crop / industry which can guarantee us industrial and economic independence from the trans-national corporations.

Journey for Justice

So the House gave Gonzalas the OK to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists. But who are the terrorists? Growers? Advocates and Sick people? Whomever they deem fit? They're like corporatists CEO's. The worse job they do the more power and money they get. The United States Inc.

Demonizing Drugs

The rhetoric of the "drug war" pervades the media. News reports, papers, prosecutors, and politicians all assert that America and the world are in the clutches of a horrible drug "epidemic." They assure us drugs are a terrible "scourge," and that drug users are the despicable enemy of all good and decent folk.
--Drug War Propaganda by Doug Snead

de·mon·ize tr.v.
de·mon·ized, de·mon·iz·ing, de·mon·iz·es,

1. To turn into or as if into a demon.
2. To possess by or as if by a demon.
3. To represent as evil or diabolic: wartime propaganda that demonizes the enemy.

demon·i·zation n.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."
--Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, Nazi Air Force (Luftwaffe) commander, the Nuremberg Trials

House approves foreign wiretap bill By CHARLES BABINGTON
Associated Press Writer Sun Aug 5, 2007 WASHINGTON

The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.

The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate's approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature.

Late Saturday, Bush said, "The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, has assured me that this bill gives him what he needs to continue to protect the country, and therefore I will sign this legislation as soon as it gets to my desk."

The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency's ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the United States." Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congress.

The bill updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. It gives the government leeway to intercept, without warrants, communications between foreigners that are routed through equipment in United States, provided that "foreign intelligence information" is at stake. Bush describes the effort as an anti-terrorist program, but the bill is not limited to terror suspects and could have wider applications, some lawmakers said.
Continued...yahoo/20070805

The roll call vote for the surveillance bill can be found at: S. 1927



Money and an apology
DWR: Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Three years ago I mentioned a pretty horrific, unjustified school strip search.

CHESTERTOWN, Md. (AP) - Authorities entered an "unclear" legal area when they sent four dogs into the local high school for a drug search without a warrant, patted down 16 students and ordered two female students to partially disrobe, the Kent County sheriff said. [...]

Sixteen students were subjected to "pat-down" searches, while the other two received what the sheriff would describe only as "more thorough searches."

One of the two, Heather Gore, 15, said Thursday that a female deputy ordered her to remove her skirt, then lifted her tank top, exposing her breasts. Gore said she was then told to spread her legs while the officer checked her underwear.

Well maybe now, schools will decide that they need, at the very least, a little probable cause before subjecting students to such humiliation in the name of the drug war.

2 Women Get Apologies, Are Awarded $285,000 For Experience During High School Drug Sweep

Kudos to Heather Gore and Jessica Bedell, who showed remarkable strength in dealing with a very uncomfortable (and public) situation (at a time in their lives that can be extremely traumatic). Instead of trying to hide and pretend it didn't happen, they and their families fought for their rights and for an apology. (The money to pay for college is a nice bonus.)

"I told our clients that the apology might actually be the most rewarding aspect because it's the hardest to get," said Deborah A. Jeon, the state ACLU's legal director. "We think this is very significant."


rodolfowalsh

Silly beyond belief

The Washington Times has given the Drug Czar a platform to defend one of his pets -- the spectacularly disastrous Plan Colombia.

Drug czar John P. Walters yesterday praised a long-standing anti-drug initiative in South America known as Plan Colombia, calling efforts by Democrats in Congress to cut funding for the program "silly beyond belief."

"It's hard to explain what they're thinking," Mr. Walters told editors and reporters at The Washington Times.

Um. Is it really that hard?

Let's see... spending billions upon billions for years in Colombia (because of course we have no need for such money here) with absolutely nothing to show for it. No reduction in overall cocaine availability.

Oh wait -- but I'm wrong -- we do have something to show for it:

* Poisoning farmers' crops (and families)
* Destruction of rainforests (as profitable trafficking is merely displaced to environmentally sensitive areas)
* Corruption of government officials
* Increasing the profits to major criminal organizations
* Human rights abuses

Yeah, those Democrats are silly beyond belief...

...for only threatening to temporarily withhold the money or to reduce it, rather than eliminating it outright.

It's hard to explain what they're thinking.

Comment on Plan Colombia's Herbicide Spraying By Latuff

Is Drug Prohibition a Worthy Enough Goal to Destroy the Amazon?


narconews
U.S. Drug Czar John Walters and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Are Destroying Farmland, Farmers – and the Amazon Rainforest – in the Name of the War on Drugs

Monday, August 6, 2007

Fascinating story of jury duty on a "big-time" drug trial.

Black Agenda Report says that the very white Green Party is leaving Democrats behind in actually caring about the treatment of blacks in the drug war.

Bill Conroy has more on the House of Death scandal that won't go away.

Via Scott Morgan -- Cliff Shaffer and Marijuana Dealers Offer Schwarzenegger One Billion Dollars

Are you on Facebook? Here's an free and easy way to help SSDP get a $1,000 grant.

Jacob Sullum ridicules Romney's medical marijuana statement.

FBI Bows to Modern Realities, Eases Rules By Dan Eggen
CN Source: Washington Post August 06, 2007 Washington, DC  

The buttoned-down FBI is loosening up: Under a little-noticed new hiring policy introduced this year, job applicants with a history of drug use will no longer be disqualified from employment throughout the bureau.

Old guidelines barred FBI employment to anyone who had used marijuana more than 15 times in their lives or who had tried other illegal narcotics more than five times.
Continued...cannabisnews/23237

Why Lower Standards? By Mark Souder
CN Source: USA Today October 23, 2005 USA
Among the thousands of applicants, are there so few who have not broken the law? One wonders what it is about repeat drug abusers that the FBI thinks it needs. What in particular would these individuals contribute that is not already available from the considerable number of applicants? It is important to remember we're not talking here about informants. We're talking about FBI professionals — people with enormous power and enormous responsibilities.


Mark Souder is the scum of the earth DrugWarRant

A Lie College Students Might Want To Tell By Ryan Grim
Source: Slate April 13, 2006 USA

In 1998, Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., an advocate of stringent drug laws, slipped into a House bill an amendment denying federal financial aid for college to anyone who had been convicted of either selling or possessing drugs. No congressional committee voted on the amendment. But it passed as part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, first enacted in 1965 to create federal financial aid for college students.

While Nixon Campaigned, FBI Watched John Lennon By Adam Cohen
CN Source: New York Times September 24, 2006 USA

In December 1971, John Lennon sang at an Ann Arbor, Mich., concert calling for the release of a man who had been given 10 years in prison for possessing two marijuana cigarettes. The song he wrote for the occasion, “John Sinclair,” was remarkably effective. Within days, the Michigan Supreme Court ordered Mr. Sinclair released.

What Lennon did not know at the time was that there were F.B.I. informants in the audience taking notes on everything from the attendance (15,000) to the artistic merits of his new song. (“Lacking Lennon’s usual standards,” his F.B.I. file reports, and “Yoko can’t even remain on key.”) The government spied on Lennon for the next 12 months, and tried to have him deported to England.
Continued...cannabisnews/22199

Marijuana Revolution by John Sinclair (Thread)



"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
-- George Bush sr

The Distinctly Non-Christian Origins of the U.S.A

Bush's 'Born-Again Drug War' August 13, 2004
Despite Constitutional restrictions requiring the separation of church and state, George W. Bush's ardent Christianity remains the staple of his administration's anti-drug platform.

Bush. Religious drug treatment in Texas

HIGH SCHOOL, youngsters who turn to banditry for thrills, girls who leap from skyscraper windows, striplings who chop their parents to death . . . .The list of holdups, sex crimes, murders and suicides by marijuana addicts could be multiplied indefinitely.  
THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY  - June 29, 1938

Bush Puts Faith in a Social Service Role May 5, 2000

"Drug Addiction Is NOT a Disease. It's a Sin."


The Anti-Pat Robertson/Christian Coalition Site

Police Terrorize Students in Ill-Conceived Drug Raid
National Student Group Condemns Heavy-Handed Tactics

On Wednesday, fourteen Goose Creek police officers occupied Stratford High School in Berkeley County, South Carolina. Police stormed the school and detained 107 students at gunpoint, demanding they lie on the ground and submit to an extensive search involving drug-sniffing dogs. No drugs were found.

Getting Busted for Pot Can Cost Your Right to Vote Silja J.A. Talvi

No Prison for Gore III? Margaret Dooley
New Studies Expose Government Lies About Medical Pot Paul Armentano
The Purple Brain: America's New Reefer Madness Marsha Rosenbaum, Paul Armentano
So Much for Big Pharma's 'Anti-Pot' Pill Paul Armentano
The Futility of Random Drug Testing Marsha Rosenbaum

Collateral Consequences by Robin Levi & Judith Appel
Denial of Basic Social Services Based Upon Drug Use
Prepared by Office of Legal Affairs, Drug Policy Alliance June 13, 2003



Bush Cabal Hides Patriot II Police State in HR2417

"The Clinton administration's paranoid and prurient interest in monitoring international e-mail is a wholly unhealthy precedent especially given this administration's track record on FBI files and IRS snooping. Every medium by which people communicate can be subject to exploitation by those with illegal or immoral intentions. Nevertheless, this is no reason to hand Big Brother the keys to unlock our e-mail diaries, open our ATM records or translate our international communications."
- JOHN ASHCROFT, as a U.S. senator, opposing the Clinton administration's request for broadened authority to eavesdrop on high-tech communications. From his Aug. 12, 1997 op-ed piece in the Washington Times, "Welcoming Big Brother."

PATRIOT II AND THE VICTORY ACT
The draconian Patriot Act II would have empowered the federal government to conduct secret arrests, collect DNA samples from anyone "suspected" of terrorism and allow the government to take away an American's citizenship. Despite its comforting title, the June 27, 89-page draft of the Victory Act does contain provisions similar to some found in the Domestic Security Enhancement Act.

SHADOW OF THE SWASTIKA

"You know, it's a funny thing, every one of the båstards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob? What is the matter with them? I suppose it is because most of them are psychiatrists." Just What Was He Smoking?
--Richard Nixon missing tapes



cannabisnews/Terror

Drug-Terror Connection Disputed
Terror War Takes a Back Seat to War on Drugs
Drug Office to End Ads Linking Drugs, Terror
DEA: Drug Money Funds Terror Group
Exhibit Links Terror, Drug Traffic
Hashish & the War on Terror
U.S. Uses Terror Law To Pursue Crimes
New Terror Laws Used Vs. Common Criminals
President Seeks More Anti-Terror Authority
Target: 'Narco-Terror'
Ashcroft Pushes Anti-Terror Law Expansion

The central message of a traveling Drug Enforcement Administration exhibit unveiled at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry yesterday is that terrorism and drugs are inextricably linked.

Target DEAth Merchants
The latest assault on living as Americans...

Museum of Science and Industry embarrassed by DEA Exhibit
DWR by Pete Guither Friday, August 11, 2006

Unfortunately, we have failed to learn the lessons from alcohol prohibition. Today's drug trade violence, criminal profits, and corruption (as well as many of the dangers of drug abuse) are a direct result of drug prohibition.

TARGET AMERICA

"If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government's ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees."
- US President Bill Clinton



GWB secrecy "Executive Order 13233" The Impeachable Offense
Planttrees Sun, 9 Mar 2003
John Dean was Nixon's White House Counsel. He makes the case here that BOTH Republicans and Democrats in the Congress can support impeachment against an imperial president...

Bush Family Values Photo Album
For more than a half century, members of the Bush family have been setting policy and making decisions for all Americans.  Let's look at the family that has had such an impact on the lives of human beings worldwide

Bushît: Timeline of Treason

1936 - 1938: William Randolph Hearst's newspaper empire fuels a tabloid journalism propaganda campaign against marijuana. Articles with headlines such as "Marihuana Makes Fiends of Boys in 30 Days; Hasheesh Goads Users to Blood-Lust" create terror of the "killer weed from Mexico."

Through his relentless disinformation campaign, Hearst is credited with bringing the word "marijuana" into the English language. In addition to fueling racist attitudes toward Hispanics, Hearst papers run articles about "marijuana-crazed negroes" raping white women and playing "voodoo-satanic" jazz music.

Driven insane by marijuana, these blacks -- according to accounts in Hearst-owned newspapers -- dared to step on white men's shadows, look white people directly in the eye for more than three seconds, and even laugh out loud at white people. For shame!
Cannabis Timeline

Bushladen and the Terrorists Carlyles Groups

"How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy money changers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top?"
--Pat Robertson, The New World Order, p.227

RCMP Assaults Freedom Tour Activist, Then Lies About Incident!
Neil Magnuson is the man behind The Freedom Tour. For a second time in two years, he is rollerblading from Victoria, BC to Ottawa, Ontario to raise awareness about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and to educate police, politicians, and the public along the way about the failed policy of cannabis prohibition. Neil was assaulted by an RCMP officer, and it was caught on tape. Watch the video of the shocking unprovoked attack on YouTube. full story
Continued...cannabisculture/5044



Why Does This Canadian Pot (Seed) Dealer Support Ron Paul?
Marc Emery agrees his campaign-organizing effort for some 2008 U.S. presidential candidates is a bit unorthodox. He's Canadian, his political base of operations is the B.C. Marijuana Party in Vancouver, and he can be arrested if he sets foot into America. Still, "We have a saying up here: "American politics is far too important to leave to the Americans,"" says Emery, 49, who is trying to raise cross-border support for dark-horse White House candidates. Click here to see the CC Forums discussion about this story! Continued...cannabisculture/5045



Cannabis Culture Sponsors "Ron Paul: Hope For America" Bicycle Marathon in S.C.
Cannabis Culture Magazine is sponsoring a Ron Paul "Hope for America" bicycle awareness tour in South Carolina. From September 15th to the 23rd, marathon cyclist Ken Locke will ride through South Carolina armed with one thousand "Ron Paul: Hope For America" buttons, two thousand 3x5-inch information cards, a bicycle sign reading "Ron Paul: Hope For America, President 2008", and a trailing flag that says "Ask Me About Ron Paul for President!"
Continued...cannabisculture/5043



THE POLICE STATE COMETH by Rep.Ron Paul

The State vs. Doctors by Congressman Ron Paul, MD

Ron Paul Archives



Moralism and the United States Gulags
DWR: Friday, August 10, 2007

In The Nation, Daniel Lazare has an amazing piece about the drug war and incarceration in the United States: Stars and Bars

How can you tell when a democracy is dead? When concentration camps spring up and everyone shivers in fear? Or is it when concentration camps spring up and no one shivers in fear because everyone knows they're not for "people like us"...

This is a powerful indictment of the incarceration by-product of the drug war (and its racial emphasis), and Lazare doesn't let anybody off lightly:

Several of the leading Democratic candidates, for example, have recently come out against the infamous 100-to-1 ratio that subjects someone carrying ten grams of crack to the same penalty as someone caught with a kilo of powdered cocaine.

Senator Joe Biden has actually introduced legislation to eliminate the disparity--without, however, acknowledging his role as a leading drug warrior back in the 1980s, when he sponsored the bill that set it in stone in the first place.

At a recent forum at Howard University, Hillary Clinton promised to "deal" with the disparity as well, although it would have been nice if she had done so back in the '90s, when, during the first Clinton Administration, the prison population was soaring by some 50 percent.

Although he is not running this time around, Jesse Jackson recently castigated Dems for their hesitancy in addressing "failed, wasteful, and unfair drug policies" that have sent "so many young African-Americans" to jail. Yet Jackson forgot to mention his own drug-war past when, as a leading hardliner, he specifically called for "stiffer prison sentences" for black drug users and "wartime consequences" for smugglers.

"Since the flow of drugs into the US is an act of terrorism, antiterrorist policies must be applied," he declared in a 1989 interview, a textbook example of how the antidrug rhetoric of the late twentieth century helped pave the way for the "global war on terror" of the early twenty-first.

In other words, cowardice and hypocrisy abound.

The article draws a lot of powerful material from Sasha Abramsky's book: American Furies: Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment -- a book that details how the prison system came to be more about punishment and vengeance (without any real legitimacy) than about rehabilitation.

Lazare's conclusion is depressingly vivid:

American mass incarceration is not what social scientists call "evidence based." It is not a policy designed to achieve certain practical, utilitarian ends that can then be weighed and evaluated from time to time to determine if it is performing as intended. Rather, it is a moral policy whose purpose is to satisfy certain passions that have grown more and more brutal over the years.

The important thing about moralism of this sort is that it is its own justification. For true believers, it is something that everyone should endorse regardless of the consequences. As right-wing political scientist James Q. Wilson once remarked, "Drug use is wrong because it is immoral," a comment that not only sums up the tautological nature of US drug policies but also shows how they are structured to render irrelevant questions about wasted dollars and blighted lives.

Moralism of this sort is neither rational nor democratic, and the fact that it has triumphed so completely is an indication of how deeply the United States has sunk into authoritarianism since the 1980s. With the prison population continuing to rise at a 2.7 percent annual clip, there is no reason to think there will be a turnaround soon.



Plan Mexico (and other drug war fun and follies)

Heh. It looks like it won't be too hard to get the "Plan Mexico" label out there.

Why is TIME such a clueless rag? Tim Padgett's The War Next Door is really reaching for a way to avoid the real truth:

Why is Mexico's drug war worsening? Democracy may be one culprit.

That's right... Ignore the natural economic consequences of a black market, the escalation of violence through the idiocy of the U.S. and Mexican governments, and the fact that some of these violent drug lords that were directly created and trained by those governments... and blame it on Democracy?

Anthony Papa at Huffing Post: The Upside Down Flag -- Art, the war on drugs, and a country in distress.

Last week I pointed out the moronic giggle writing of Gareth McGrath in the July 27 Wilmington Morning Star. This week, the Charlotte Observer ran the same article, but without the opening and closing Cheech and Chong lines. Either somebody in Charlotte practices better journalism, or the ridicule of this blog made a difference.

If I left right now, I could make it in time to hear Willie Nelson at Austin Freedom Fest. Boy, I'm tempted.

Transform's Tools for the Debate is now available for download. An excellent resource.

Mexicolombia
DWR: Thursday, August 9, 2007

Even as Plan Colombia is being scrutinized by Congress for possible cuts after years of throwing money down the drain, secret talks have been underway to put together a drug war package for Mexico.

The price tag on the more ambitious aspiration is $1.2 billion, but a more modest proposal is emerging in recent weeks in the area of $700 million, said one person familiar with the talks.

Yep. Just like Plan Colombia. Except that everyone knows it can't be at all like Plan Colombia (even though it'll be exactly like Plan Colombia). Neither Mexico nor the U.S. want the scrutiny, visibility, or publicity of a Plan Colombia. They just want the money, the corruption, the influence, the power... of Plan Colombia.

Mexican officials bristle at any comparisons with the Colombian operation, which they view as too ambitious and an infringement on Colombian sovereignty, given the heavy scrutiny by U.S. Congress and direct involvement of U.S. personnel and equipment.

''Any type of a package called Plan Mexico,'' said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, a Mexico specialist with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, ``would be dead on arrival.''

How about "Scheme Mexico" or "Calamity Mexico" or "Debacle Mexico"?

What's in a name? that which we call a drug war
By any other name would smell as rank;
.................
Meanwhile, in the other Mexicolombia,

Authorities in the Colombian city of Cali increased security measures Wednesday, ahead of a possible war for control of the drug trade in the wake of the arrest of boss Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia in Brazil.

Ah, yes. Finally. Realization of what "success" in the drug war really means... More violence.

Yeah, the Free Mexican Air Force is flyin' tonight

Ganjawar Puppets Cave... again


A man shows a marijuana cigarette at a protest in Mexico City

Legalise Drugs to Beat Terrorists
DWR: Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Nice to see an OpEd like this in the Financial Times. Written by Willem Buiter, professor of European political economy at the London School of Economics' European Institute.

It's not the best writing. But the content is well reasoned and takes the bold steps regarding overall legalization and regulation of illicit drugs.

He addresses dealing with drug problems through regulation, education, and rehabilitation rather than criminalization and takes on the so-called health care arguments for prohibition:

The argument that countries with publicly funded or subsidised healthcare have the right to proscribe the use of drugs likely to cause harm to the user is a ludicrous misuse of the concept of an externality. Should we ban rugby because it is more dangerous than tiddlywinks?

But the biggest part of this OpEd (while it does require some slogging through dense passages), is his view that full legalization will cut out profits to the Taliban.

Following legalisation, the allies in Afghanistan could further undermine the financial strength of the Taliban and al-Qaeda by buying up the entire poppy harvest. If a sufficient premium over the prevailing market price were offered, the Taliban/al-Qaeda middle-man could be cut out altogether, and thus would lose his tax base. Winning the hearts and minds of poppy growers and coca growers is a lot easier when you are not seen as intent on destroying their livelihood.

This proposal for legalising poppy growing regardless of what the poppy is used for is much more radical than the proposal from the Senlis Council to license the growing of poppy in Afghanistan only for the production of essential medicines. The Senlis Council proposal would not end the problem of illicit poppy cultivation co-existing with licensed cultivation. With the illicit price likely to exceed the licit price, the Taliban would retain a significant tax base.

He then goes on to explain why full legalization is the only way to eliminate the availability of black market profits to terrorists, and finishes with the part that will be the most difficult for people who are not prepared to wrap their minds around legalization -- the actual legal distribution of drugs like heroin.

If opium and heroin were legalised, the allies' stash could be sold to regulated producers/distributors of opium, heroin and other formerly illegal poppy derivatives. Our chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and indeed our cigarette manufacturers, would be well-positioned to enter this trade. The profits made by the allies on the sale of the stash could be turned over to the Afghan government. It surely makes more sense for the government to tax the poppy harvest than for the Taliban to do so.

So legalise, regulate, tax, educate and rehabilitate. Stop a losing war, get the government off our backs, beat the Taliban and deal a blow to al-Qaeda in the process. Not a bad deal! [emphasis added]

This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

Illegal Search Kills Prosecution in Largest Heroin Bust in California History

in(t)-su-'rek-shun
An act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.

Treatment Interrupted by Alan Bock, Sr.
Source: The Orange County Register 12 Aug 2007 (CA)

Orange County Agrees to Medical-Marijuana ID Cards Just As the DEA Cracks Down on Dispensaries in L.A.: Every Positive Step Seems to Be Met With a Step Backward

Eleven years after California voters, by passing Proposition 215, created exceptions to the marijuana prohibition laws for medical patients using marijuana, or cannabis, with the recommendation of a licensed physician, the issue of safe access to this medicine is still in turmoil.  Orange County just became the most recent county in California to comply with California law and begin the process of setting up a voluntary ID cards program for patients.  The Los Angeles City Council has declared a temporary moratorium on new medical cannabis dispensaries, but under the leadership of Dennis Zine, a former policeman, it has declared its clear intention to set up a regulatory and licensing regime for them. 

After endless hassles from the federal government, a UC San Francisco research team finally got the go-ahead from the federal government to conduct rigorous scientific studies on limited aspects of the medicinal efficacy of cannabis.  Its double-blind study against a smoked placebo showed that HIV patients experienced a significant reduction in the chronic foot pain associated with the disease; those who smoked cannabis got a 72 percent reduction in pain as opposed to 15 percent for those who smoked the placebo. 
Continued...mapinc/v07/n953/a11



Drug Treatment vs. Supply Side Measures
Drug Policy Alliance. 2002

Are interdiction and eradication efforts a success?

No. U.S. taxpayers have spent tens of billions of dollars on intense eradication and interdiction efforts, yet the prices of cocaine and heroin are the lowest they have been in 20 years and their street-level purity is at all time highs.
Continued...drugpolicy/2002/TRvSS



DrugPolicyAlliance
is the nation's leading organization working to end the war on drugs. We envision new drug policies based on science, compassion, health and human rights and a just society in which the fears, prejudices and punitive prohibitions of today are no more.

Economics

During alcohol prohibition (1920-33) the United States changed from a beer and wine society to a bourbon and gin society. The reason? Alcohol prohibition created incentives for bootleggers to smuggle the most potent form of liquor possible. Like modern day drug traffickers, risk-taking criminal organizations were compelled to traffic in products that provided the most bang for the buck. Why risk smuggling a keg of beer when a case of whiskey brings higher profits without incurring additional risk?
Continued...drugpolicy/prohibition

"Using new accounting procedures in 2003, the annual ONDCP Drug Strategy, for the first time ever, concealed billions of dollars spent on incarceration, military activities and other costs of the drug war by excluding these categories from the budget and including inflated expenditures on treatment services."
--Ethan Nadelmann, DPA Executive Director

Reducing Harm: Treatment & Beyond

How the drug war affects all aspects of our lives
Drug War Funding * Pain Underprescribing * Terrorism * Informants * Environmental Consequences * Economics * Mandatory Minimum Sentences * Voter Disenfranchisement * Public Health Crisis * Access to Treatment * Higher Education Act * Public Benefits * Forced Evictions * Alternatives to Prohibition

City Can Penalize Grow-Op Landlords by Nicole MacIntyre
Source: Hamilton Spectator 08 Aug 2007 (CN ON)

The city is upping its power to clean up -- or even tear down -- marijuana grow operations.

A new bylaw, approved by the planning and economic development committee yesterday, gives the city the right to clean up a grow-op at the expense of the property owner.  If warranted, a building damaged by a drug operation can be completely demolished.
Continued...mapinc/v07/n953/a07

Narco-Insurrection by Ralph Peters
Source: New York Post 09 Aug 2007 (NY)

IMAGINE if our country were so ravaged by drug cartels that the president sent the military into a third of the states to break the terror.

That's where Mexico is today.  We all pay the price.
Continued...mapinc/v07/n952/a03

How Do Cops Put A Value On The Busts by Gary Klien
Source: Marin Independent Journal 12 Aug 2007 (CA)

When San Rafael police raided an indoor pot farm last month, they seized 600 plants and estimated their street value at $800,000. 

Yet when the Marin County Major Crimes Task Force raided an indoor farm in Ignacio days earlier, they seized 224 marijuana plants and estimated the value at up to $1 million. 

One estimate pegs the street value of each pot plant at $1,333, the other at $4,464.  Why the big discrepancy?

"There's no exact science on this stuff," said San Rafael police Sgt.  Dan Fink.  "There's so many factors involved."
Continued...mapinc/v07/n954/a07

Homegrown by Gary Klien
Source: Marin Independent Journal 12 Aug 2007 (CA)

Seemingly Innocuous Residences House Pot Farms in Trend Taking Root in Marin

Until a few weeks ago, Frederic Saland owned a tidy rental property in Novato with three bedrooms, two baths and a neatly landscaped yard. 

Now he owns a charred shell with blown-out windows, a gutted interior and a roof full of holes. 

The house at 1208 Chase St.  was ruined last month after a fire was sparked by the utility meter - which investigators said was bypassed to steal electricity for a sprawling indoor marijuana farm operated by Saland's tenant.  Now the renter is gone, the house is uninhabitable and Saland is left to deal with the insurance adjusters and contractors. 

"I'm out months of aggravation, and very probably my insurance will go up in perpetuity.  I'll be paying more forever," said Saland, a Novato resident who owns several rental properties.  "And, of course, I'll be paranoid forever.  E The cost of what society sees as a boy-will-be-boys crime is not measurable.  When you're the victim of a crime, you carry that, and it will influence your thoughts and actions for the rest of your life."
Continued...mapinc/v07/n953/a10



Sunday reading
DWR: Sunday, August 12, 2007

Nice OpEd counterpoint in the Hartford Courant between LEAP's Jack Cole and Capt. Thomas Snyder of the Connecticut Statewide Narcotics Task Force. Of course, Jack wins hands down in my book, but let's take a look at a couple of Snyder's points:

In the past 30 years the following are the drugs that SNTF has removed from the streets of Connecticut:

Cocaine: 3,060.73 kilograms; heroin: 65.86 kilograms; marijuana: 35,373.51 kilograms; crack: 62.39 kilograms; pills: 323,100; other: 2.95 kilograms.

Yes, and shoplifting has taken more than $13 billion worth of product out of the stores each year, and yet I still don't seem to have any problems finding something to buy at WalMart. You know why? The companies who supply the product simply make more!

Then there's this point by Snyder:

Fact 3: Illegal drugs are illegal because they are harmful;

How long has he been in this country? Doesn't he know how laws are made here?

'Let me control a peoples currency and I care not who makes their laws...'
-- Meyer Nathaniel Rothchild in a speech to a gathering of world bankers February 12, 1912. The following year, the USA subscribed to the 'services' of the newly incorporated Federal Reserve, headed by Mr. Rothchild."

Vin Suprynowicz has a delightful style to his writing...

We try to eradicate the most lucrative crops in Latin America -- coca and marijuana -- and pretty much the only cash crops in Afghanistan -- poppies and hashish. We fail utterly. And then we wonder why these people a) hate us, b) go communist, and c) think we're clowns.

The opiates have legitimate medical uses. The plant is one of God's great gifts to man, and is in high demand everywhere. The only reason the trade is dominated by criminals is that we enforce a system in which no one but criminals are allowed to take part in the trade.

Don't eradicate the opium. Outbid the Taliban for it. Put them out of business. Buy it, stockpile it, corner the market, sell it on streetcorners in Baghdad to calm those people down, earn the U.S. taxpayer some return on all this loot you've been frittering away over there.

Idiots.

'Relax Your Muscles as Much as Possible' Also by Vin Suprynowicz



The Stanford Prison Experiment

A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment Conducted at Stanford University

Welcome to the Stanford Prison Experiment web site, which features an extensive slide show and information about this classic psychology experiment, including parallels with the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? These are some of the questions we posed in this dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University.



Snitch: How Informants Have Become a Key Part of Prosecutorial Strategy in the Drug War

Internet filtering law approved by Senate Committee
Press Enc. 08-03 2007

United States Senate Commerce Committee today passed a bill that would require the to review, within one year of enactment, technology that can help parents manage the vast volume of video and other content on television or the Internet, just a week after Senators made a bipartisan call to implement universal filtering on the Internet.

Free speech groups including the Center for Democracy and Technology expressed concerned that Child Safe Viewing Act of 2007 (S. 602) may represent a step toward expanding the FCC's censorship authority to include Internet content.
Continued...ressesc/856

Pat Rogers has a significant post on the failure of our international foreign policy as it relates to the drug war: U.S. national security 'creating chaos and instability'

Grits for Breakfast finds something unusual -- a prosecutor who demands that the police come up with enough legitimate evidence to prosecute before taking the case.



Pearl Jam Accuses AT&T Of Censorship
democracynow 8-10-2997

The rock band Pearl Jam has accused AT&T of censorship after the company removed comments the band made about President Bush during a recent concert that AT&T aired in an online webcast. During the concert, the band's singer Eddie Vedder said "George Bush, leave this world alone" and "George Bush, find yourself another home." For viewers watching the concert via AT&T, the remarks were edited out.

The group wrote on its website "AT&T's actions strike at the heart of the public's concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media." Media activists say AT&T's actions are a sign of why net neutrality is vital to keep the Internet open.

Tim Karr of the SavetheInternet campaign said "[AT&T] acts in bad faith toward the public interest and will do whatever it can to pad it's bottom line -- including sacrificing its users freedom to choose where they go, what they watch and whom they listen to online." AT&T said the editing was not intentional and was a mistake by an outside vendor.

... and now for something completely different ...
Rock And Roll Hall Moves To Adopt A Zero Tolerance Drug Policy

Taking Its Lead From Baseball, Rock And The Roll Hall of Fame Plans To Expunge The Careers Of Any Inductee Who Used Illegal Performance Enhancing Drugs.

Pat Boone And Anita Bryant Will Most Likely Be Only Members Of Hall Left

I love your posts, Dcd. Incredible research. Thanks!

Is it or isn't it? The pot pendulum swings again by Lynda Hurst
Source: Toronto Star Aug 25 2007 (CN ON)

UP IN SMOKE

From the Criminal Code of Canada

(4) Subject to subsection (5), every person who contravenes subsection (1) where the subject-matter of the offence is a substance included in Schedule II

(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years less a day; or

(b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction and liable

(i) for a first offence, to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or to both, and

(ii) for a subsequent offence, to a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or to both.
Continued...drugpolicycentral/5006

Just as Canadians are embracing pot as never before, the government plans a new war on drugs. The move is fitting, given this country's ambivalent relationship with weed over the decades.


Drug War Propaganda
A review and analysis of modern drug war propaganda. (2003, Cafepress. 324 pages)

Wonder Drug Cover-Up
Yes, it's true: pot fights cancer. more

As Bad For Your Lungs As Smoking 20 Normal Cigarettes?
Why does the US Government make cannabis researchers use only Government-issued marijuana?

Egregious drug-war propaganda
observer's propaganda picks

See drug-warrior propaganda somewhere?
Submit text or a url, and bot will analyze prohibition propaganda for you!

Prohibition-era cartoons
Anti-prohibition political cartoons from Prohibition I.



Marijuana Advocates Defend Law By Raymond Rendleman
CN Source: Portland Observer August 25, 2007 Oregon

If medical-marijuana activists were fazed by the latest political onslaughts, they did their best to hide their feelings.

Business proceeded as usual at this month's cardholders' meeting with no overwheming sense of dread in losing the right voters gave them in 1998 to use doctor-prescribed cannabis for a certain set of medical conditions.
Continued...cannabisnews/23282

93-year-old free on bond after being charged with cocaine trafficking

Asset Confiscation and Asset Forfeiture



Notable
DWR: Friday, August 24, 2007

Ethan Nadelmann makes a splash. His cover article: Think Again: Drugs in Foreign Policy is garnering a lot of attention, including this story on FOX news that actually wonders whether legalizing drugs might be better than prohibition (watch the video).



Obama joins the other Democratic candidates in promising to end federal medical marijuana raids.

Not only is drug warrior Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) leaving, he's leaving before the election, allowing a Democratic governor to control the special election timing. He must be wanting to spend time with his family really bad (or is something else about to bite him in the ass?) Curious.

Steve Tucker has had to start again from scratch. He's free now, a decade after he was put away for the crime of selling light bulbs. The drug war strikes in cruel and surreal ways.

Mo Rocca wants to know if he should get baked. The mere fact that he asks the question means that he still doesn't get it. It's not about somebody else telling you what you should do.

I'm one who gets extremely upset with government waste, and find the excessive use of no-bid contracts in government to generally be a violation of trust. That said, this oddly doesn't bother me much. Since I consider all drug war spending to be a corrupt waste, I find myself apathetic about whether a no-bid contractor stuck it to the ONDCP.

Update: Drug worrier Joseph Califano gets trashed in Financial Times' Economists forum

...It is depressing that this combination of hysteria, misrepresentation, intellectual confusion and mindless moralism continues to foist upon our countries a policy with such catastrophic consequences.



Drug War Chronicle - Issue #499 - 8/24/07

* Feature: Pot Peace in Seattle as Another Hempfest Celebrates Cannabis Nation

* Drug War Prisoners: 86-Year-Old Alva Mae Groves Dies Behind Bars

* Drug War Prisoners: Pain Patient Richard Paey to Get Shot at Early Clemency

* Drug War Prisoners: Rockefeller Law Victim Turned Activist Veronica Flournoy Dead at 39

* Appeal: Massive Increases to Our Web Site Traffic Have Increased Our Costs...

* Weekly: Blogging @ the Speakeasy

* Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

* Marijuana: Humboldt County Supervisors Say Legalize It

* Weekly: This Week in History

* Feedback: Do You Read Drug War Chronicle?
* Webmasters: Help the Movement by Running DRCNet Syndication Feeds on Your Web Site!
* Resource: DRCNet Web Site Offers Wide Array of RSS Feeds for Your Reader
* Resource: Reformer's Calendar Accessible Through DRCNet Web Site

"TerrorStorm is something that should be seen by everyone, no matter what their stance/affiliation/political bent. "
- Rich Rosell, Digitally Obsessed DVD UK



In Memory of Civilian Casualties of the Drug War

While this gallery discusses known cases of law enforcement's murder of civilians, several of whom fought back in self defense, many more such incidents have occurred that have not been documented. The names and incidents of many such casualties of the Drug War will never be known.
Continued...hr95.org

More on The Lost War
DWR: Thursday, August 23, 2007

Misha Glenny's outstanding article in the Washington Post: The Lost War has continued to get some attention (although I'd love to see it picked up by more than just the Daily Herald (Utah)).

The web has picked up on it pretty well, including some interesting comments from Ilya Somin (Volokh), Pete McCormack, and Dr. Tom O'Connell.

And, of course, the Washington Post felt obligated to seek out someone to rebut the piece, so they dredged up former ONDCP spokesman Robert S. Weiner for The War is Not Lost

With a comprehensive anti-drug strategy in place, involving foreign policy, enforcement, education, treatment and prevention, overall drug use in the United States has declined by roughly half in the past 25 years [...]

Former DEAth Merchant's Delusions

Do we want to go back?
Notice several sleights of hand, here.

First -- Misha Glenny's piece was specifically about prohibition. Weiner wants the drug war to get credit for education and treatment. Nobody opposes those. In fact, reformers believe that education and treatment are part of the necessary replacements for enforcement.

But Weiner has no way of claiming any positive results of the drug war by just talking about enforcement, because none exist. And nowhere does he justify the concept of "comprehensive."

Second -- Statistics. Drug use statistics wander all over the place (partly due to the difficulty of getting reliable information from a survey about committing illegal acts). If you look at the government data, you'll see that it all depends on what years you pick, what populations, what drugs, etc.

Third -- Drug "use." It is ridiculous to asset that some arbitrary reduction in drug "use" is a benchmark for drug war victory, particularly if you're trying to promote the idea that the drug war is supposedly providing some benefit to society. Reduction of "use" is meaningless, because it ignores the real problems.

Let's say you have two drug users -- Joe and Larry. Joe likes to do a couple lines of cocaine once a month or so for fun (or maybe smoke a joint). Larry is a pretty hard core heroin addict and spends much of his time working to get more. Strict enforcement might actually affect Joe. His drug use isn't that big a deal to him, so the risk of jail may just cause him to switch to tequila. Presto! A 50% reduction in drug use by Weiner's standards.

(Of course, no way is Larry going to be deterred from drug abuse by prohibition. He'll keep at it until some criminal laces his heroin with fentanyl and his friends are too afraid of the cops to take him to the emergency room.)

Net value to society from a 50% reduction in use: negative.

Fourth -- Completely left out of the Weiner's equation, of course, are the costs of the drug war -- prohibitionists never talk about them. And that was Glenny's primary point, totally ignored in rebuttal.

But Weiner has to find some way to put a positive spin on a total disaster.

If any other problem -- hunger, poverty, illiteracy -- were reduced by half, we'd call it major progress.

Now there's an idea -- maybe we should lock up a couple of million poor people. Make students pee in a cup while conjugating verbs to reduce illiteracy. Smash down the doors of hungry people, kill their dogs, set off flash bombs, throw them to the floor and force nutritious food down their throats.

I guess we could win all these wars if we try hard enough.

Note: Also see Pat Rogers' rebuttal.



Quebec police admit they went undercover at Montebello protest
Last Updated: August 23, 2007 CBC News

Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that three of their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protest at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.

A YouTube video shows Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, ordering three masked men back from a line of riot police.
Continued...infowars

"Police-issued boots identified fake protesters. In the video, protest organizers in suits order the men to put the rock down, call them police instigators and try unsuccessfully to unmask them. The only thing I didn't know was whether the men were Quebec police, RCMP or hired security officers. [Our union] believes that the security force at Montebello were ordered to infiltrate our peaceful assembly and provoke incidents"
--Dave Coles,
president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union