Wednesday, June 16, 2004

More on Morgenthau and Montel, plus John Walters gets reamed As a follow-up to yesterday's post, comes this article by Ellis Henican in Newsday. Robert Morgenthau had called this meeting to announce that he was throwing his considerable political weight behind a bill to make marijuana legal for medical uses in New York State. Cancer patients, glaucoma sufferers and people with other dreaded diseases, he said, should not have to break the law to get the relief they so desperately need. This could soon change, thanks to a bill from Manhattan Assemb. Richard Gottfried. It would make the pain-killing properties of marijuana available with a doctor's prescription, the same way sick people can now get codeine, morphine and a whole medicine chest of potent narcotics. Montel Williams, the daytime TV host who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999, sat beside Morgenthau yesterday. He spoke about the excruciating pain he suffers in the lower half of his body and the blessed relief he's gotten from medical marijuana. And then Ellis puts in the real gem: It is hard even to paraphrase the arguments against this. Only a dim-witted ideologue like federal drug czar John Walters will utter such drivel out loud. Something about "sending a bad message" or marijuana being a "gateway drug." Get outta here! How could any civilized person tell a cancer patient on chemotherapy, "No, we won't ease your pain!" I dare anyone to look into Montel Williams' eyes and say, "Suck it up, pal!" Worth repeating: "Only a dim-witted ideologue like federal drug czar John Walters will utter such drivel out loud." I love it. I'm going to keep repeating that all day! Tip of the hat to The Drug Czar's new blog. Update: Brutal Hugs is also happy to have Morgenthau involved, but is less confident of his political clout. 7:27:38 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Feds lose cocaine case - 16 go free This one's a doozy. From today's St. Petersburg Times: TAMPA - The federal government took a hit Tuesday in its ongoing efforts against overseas drug smuggling. After a six-week trial involving 16 people from Lithuania and Ukraine accused of smuggling drugs, jurors deliberated for three days and came back with not one guilty verdict. They acquitted 15 of the defendants and couldn't agree on whether the remaining defendant was guilty. All 16 were charged with possession of cocaine on a vessel subject to U.S. jurisdiction and could have spent 25 years to life in prison if convicted... The verdict comes nearly a year after the men - crew members of the 500-foot freighter M/V Yalta - were arrested in connection with an apparent attempt to smuggle nearly 4 tons of cocaine. So they seized a ship with 4 tons of cocaine, but couldn't get a single conviction? Embarrassing. There was a 17th crew member who pleaded guilty in September and agreed to testify for the Feds ... and they still couldn't get a conviction. My favorite quote from the article: "This verdict is a major black eye to the government in their ongoing Panama Express operation," said Steve Crawford, one of the court-appointed defense attorneys. "The philosophy of 'Let's arrest everybody and see if the evidence is there' lends itself to these kinds of verdicts." That's the philosophy, all right. 6:39:38 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []