Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Being a drug dealer sure is lucrative ... particularly if you're also wearing a badge. "The agents actually brought with them 146 pounds of marijuana in the trunk of an undercover vehicle," [...] In addition to posing as drug buyers, [undercover officers] pose as drug dealers and the marijuana will be useful bait to trap more traffickers down the road. The seized boat will be auctioned off and the sheriff's office and the other police agencies that took part in the bust can keep the money. They'll also split the cash the suspects paid for the marijuana. And they get to keep the cash that we paid them through taxes, too! And we get... ? Seriously, we get... ? [Thanks, Mike] 7:27:34 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Words, words... they're all we have to go on Chief Dennis Jones, describing murdered Rachel Hoffman: "She was completing a diversion program for possession of over 20 grams of marijuana and pending felony charges for possession with intent to sell MDA (or Ecstacy), maintaining a drug house, possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell, possession of drug paraphernalia." Sounds pretty hard core, doesn't it? Translation: Rachel was a college student who sold pot to her friends. She was first caught with less than an ounce of pot and later caught with 5 ounces of pot and six ecstasy pills. On the basis of that, they decided she should go to hard core dealers and attempt to purchase 1500 ecstasy pills, two ounces of cocaine, and a gun. 9:13:18 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Program Note WFLA-FM 100.7, Tallahassee, FL http://www.wflafm.com Wednesday, May 14th at 7:30 am EDT "The Morning Show" with Preston Scott and Eric Eggers Guest: Mike Jones of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Topic: The Rachael Hoffman murder 11:37:40 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Ut oh. Another scary marijuana story... If you smoke between two ounces and nine ounces of marijuana every week, it's possible that you might be at an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. But we don't actually have any, uh, actual evidence of it. Link 5:07:50 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Useless David Harsanyi has a good read in the Denver Post: The government's sorta-kinda-maybe logic It could be argued that the most useless job in Washington, D.C., is held by John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He's otherwise known as the country's Drug Czar. And when you consider the spectacular number of useless jobs in Washington, that's quite an accomplishment. No one is saying, of course, that it's easy being a figurehead of a cost-inefficient organization charged with implementing the biggest domestic policy disaster since Prohibition. Ouch. He goes on to attack the latest nonsense from Walters about teens, marijuana and mental health: "Adolescent marijuana use may be a factor that triggers psychosis, depression, and other mental illness," explains Walters, who admits "research about causality is still ongoing." Ongoing, doubtlessly, until Walters unearths the answer he's looking for. It's not often you see half-baked phrases like "Could Actually" in the title of a study. You'll also notice Walters also says it "may be a factor." Because, in other words, "it may not" be a factor at all. And then he really nails it: And in the end, it is also irrelevant. Children shouldn't use drugs, and even if drugs were legalized, no one is advocating children should be able to use them. Read the whole thing -- it's a really excellent OpEd. 8:23:49 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Monday, May 12, 2008

We're getting snubbed by... Ecuador Unless we own their government and have it heavily on payroll, we're not particularly popular in Latin American countries these days. Ecuador Opposes Outpost in American War on Drugs They don't like our war on drugs, either. As someone who works in the arts, I like President Correa's hiring decisions: In a shake-up of the armed forces in April, Mr. Correa picked Javier Ponce, a poet who advocates less military cooperation with United States, as defense minister. And Ponce makes the obvious point: "Should Ecuador have a base in Miami? Or New Jersey?" Mr. Ponce, 59, said. "The decision of the government is not to renew this accord." 10:21:28 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Oh, the lies they love to tell so well Glenn Greenwald is always on top of government abuse of power, and recently he's been all over the case of the military analysts for the major networks that were being prepped by the government to feed propaganda to us, their employers. Mona, over at the art of the possible, helps to put it in perspective from our point of view... But tax-payer subsidized psy-ops is nothing new; the DEA has been doing it for years, as for example by publishing a "debate manual" (originally titled How to Hold Your Own in a Drug Legalization Debate) to use during exchanges with those advocating drug-policy reform. (But the DEA counsels avoiding any debate at all, if possible.) We've been paying for the government to fund lies and propaganda defending its own tyrannical powers since well before Bush and 9/11. Yep. We're used to it. The important thing is not to get complacent about it. There's something horribly, treasonously wrong in a country of the people, by the people and for the people, where the government functions by lying to the people. 9:31:08 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Is it possible to evaluate the California Medical Marijuana Experiment? Eric Sterling does some interesting musing and wandering in Medical Marijuana in California -- Questions I am intellectually satisfied that marijuana has a wide range of medical values. [...] Therefore I believe marijuana should be available to patients who need it. So how do I understand what is happening in California? [...] There is a large experiment underway in California yet there probably is no consensus on what the experiment actually is about. Is it an experiment in medical marijuana? Or is it an experiment as Joel Stein says, in legalized marijuana for adults over 18. Certainly it will be hard to evaluate because the experiment is not being controlled or designed. There are important questions: What is the actual role of the physicians who are issuing the recommendations? Are they facilitating the proper treatment of serious medical conditions that have been resistant to conventional medical treatment? Are they serving to block improper juvenile use of marijuana? Does their "gatekeeper" role help mitigate the abuse of marijuana? It is time to ask the academic world to step forward to begin to seriously evaluate this experiment. I understand the questions, but disagree with the final conclusion. It must be disconcerting for those who spent so much time and effort developing and fighting for medical marijuana in California to be successful, and yet at the same time be unable to even identify their baby. As a pure scientific medical venture, California's medical marijuana movement was hopelessly doomed. The federal government's unjustified active opposition insured that the valuable "state laboratory" concept (as envisioned by Justice Brandeis) could not function. Therefore California's medical marijuana "system" is a political/social chimera, not a scientifically controlled experiment. Asking some in the academic world to put something that chaotic into a clinically analyzed box could be disastrous. Lacking rigidly defined controls, the science will be seen to be undefinable, therefore failed, when in fact it is the public policy that has failed the science. Imagine any other scientific experiment where the very ability to control the environment of the experiment was denied the experimenter -- where testing of new food crops, for example, had to be done à la Johnny Appleseed. It would be very hard to be sure of the purity of your results, and yet there would still be something to learn (and enjoy) from each apple tree, until the day that the world woke up and allowed controlled tree farms to develop the best apples. Medical marijuana in California is a cruelly grafted beast, yet is something to be treasured for whatever combination of things it has managed to be, until the government is willing to allow it to become something more controlled and measurable. 9:40:57 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Responding to the Drug Czar One of the best responses I've seen so far to the latest nonsense from Walters is Tim King of the Salem-News.com (Oregon): New Federal Report on Marijuana Use is Misleading, Groups Say Is this a reaction to the beginning of the end of marijuana prohibition? (SALEM, Ore.) - A new federal government report on the ill effects of marijuana on teens may be a last ditch effort to demonize the medical weed before it sees its own day of emancipation. As it stands, even the most hardcore marijuana legalization advocates do not support children using anything that causes intoxication. This new report uses scare tactics and seems to regard medical facts as a meaningless burden... The whole thing is a fun read. It would be nice to see more of his kind of thing show up in the major news outlets. 7:26:31 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Rachael Hoffman, drug war victim Allan St. Pierre at NORML Blog: Cannabis Does Not Kill. Unfortunately, Cannabis Prohibition Enforcement Can! Rachael is another kind of drug war victim. Facing drug charges, and afraid to go back to jail, she reluctantly agreed to act as a snitch for the cops and purchase drugs and a gun from two men. She was discovered murdered yesterday. The cops are making it sound like it was her fault. Update: Further musing... did anyone else notice that the two men are being charged with kidnapping, and yet Rachael is being accused by police of ignoring police concerns and going with them willingly? I'm wondering if there is a contradiction there. 10:29:39 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Friday, May 9, 2008

Open Thread (updated) Update: Nice video on CBS today reported by Raw Story Democratic candidates more willing to consider marijuana issue (thanks, Michael). Marijuana, depression, and suicide. I'm too tired to respond to the same old crap. Have at it. DrugSense Weekly 2:02:43 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Cory Maye - the video This is a pretty long video (by internet standards), but well worth watching if you have the time. We've been following the Cory Maye story here for quite some time, thanks to the intrepid work of Radley Balko. Well now Drew Carey's Reason.TV project has put together the ultimate video about Cory, his family, and his community. (click on the little screen symbol in the control bar of the video to watch it full screen - worth it if you can). Putting a face on the tragedies of the drug war -- one of the ways we can rouse people from the lethargy and stupor. 10:06:34 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Fighting Back John Conyers demands answers from DEA acting head Michele Leonhart 1. Is the use of civil asset forfeiture, which has typically been reserved for the worst drug traffickers and kingpins, an appropriate tactic to employ against individuals who suffer from severe or chronic illness and are authorized to use medical marijuana under California law? [...] 2. Given the increased level of trafficking and violence associated with the international drug cartels across Mexico, South America and elsewhere, do you think the DEA's limited resources are best utilized conducting enforcement raids on individuals and their caregivers who are conducting themselves legally under California law? 3. Have you considered that DEA activities against qualified individuals is negatively impacting the ability of state and local officials across California to collect tax revenue, which they are entitled to under California law? 4. ... Please explain what role, if any, emerging scientific data plays in your decision-making process to conduct enforcement raids on individuals authorized to use or provide medical cannabis under state law. [...] Finally, attached with this letter is a list of approximately 60 raids that the DEA conducted between June 2005 and November 2007. Please provide an accounting of the costs, dollars and resources, used to conduct law enforcement raids on the attached list of individuals. [...] California taxpayers to file lawsuit -- they want to stop the state from borrowing more money to build additional prisons. We already have 170,000 prisoners in California. We don't need more prison beds -- we need sentencing reform and better support in the community for recovering drug addicts, people with mental illness, and parolees. [Via Blog Reload] SSDP President Randy Hencken at San Diego State University talks to the press about Operation Sudden Fall. Before me are 77 chairs and 77 diplomas, each representing a young person who was recently a student here at SDSU, but who is no longer with us. 2 of them were recently lost to tragic, yet preventable drug overdoses. And 75 of them were arrested as part of yesterday's reactionary drug sting. 77 students are gone from campus, but we must ask ourselves, has drug abuse left the campus as a result? Are students any safer from dying of an entirely preventable drug overdose? Sadly, the answer to both questions is "No." Related: Stanton Peele says Go Ahead -- Write My Blog 12:01:09 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []