Thursday, October 27, 2005

Action Alert: Elimination of Barriers for Katrina Victims Act This is an alert that has been endorsed by just about every drug policy reform group Nearly three million people have been displaced from their homes because of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Many have lost everything. Yet federal laws prohibit these victims from receiving welfare, food stamps, public housing, student loans and other benefits if they have a drug law conviction. People who have lost everything should not be denied public assistance just because they were convicted of a drug offense sometime in their past. The [Drug Policy] Alliance held a press conference today with Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA), ranking member of the House Crime Subcommittee, and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), ranking member of the House Immigration Subcommittee, to announce the introduction of the "Elimination of Barriers for Katrina Victims Act," which would temporarily suspend federal laws that deny public assistance to hurricane victims who have drug offenses in their past. If the bill is enacted, thousands of destitute families that would otherwise be denied food stamps, public housing and other aid because of prior drug offenses would be able to obtain benefits to help put their lives back together. Introduced by Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA), the "Elimination of Barriers for Katrina Victims Act" is co-sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS). Since the bill was just introduced, it does not have a bill number yet. Send a Fax to Congress Interesting... Only one Republican co-sponsor and it's the libertarian. Normally a libertarian would not be a strong supporter of government run public assistance, but Paul is independent-minded and smart enough to realize that it's not just about welfare. It's also about the unfairness of singling out and punishing a group of people simply because they've had drug convictions in their past. I wonder how the rest of the Republican House will vote -- as compassionate conservatives, or sado-moralists? 5:37:59 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Marijuana night at Daily Kos Thanks to Ben Masel for this... It's often hard to get the Kos community to pay attention to the war on drugs, but they've got some interesting diary action up right now. The Gnostic talks about marijuana's anti-cancer properties and has a poll about legalization. Jared86 says that pot is harmful and a gateway drug and should be kept illegal. 1:07:06 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Exploiting the Drug War Via EFSDP, I heard about this link to LEAD. The main page notes that this is the site of both: Law Enforcement Against Drugs, and Local Educators Against Drugs (The name appears to be a take-off on Law Enforcment Against Prohibition and Educators For Sensible Drug Policy) Then it tells you to "click on the corresponding logo to visit that particular program's page." Sounds like a couple of non-profit organizations that have banded together, right? Or maybe some community groups made up of teachers and policement who created LEAD? This impression is emphasized when you enter the site with such statements as: "Through L.E.A.D., your school empowers parents by providing a simple way to detect a potential problem with anonymity before it becomes a police matter." And the website offers sponsorship opportunities: Attention: fraternal organizations, health care networks, corporations, parent/teacher associations and community coalitions. You can supply the initial "seed" money to start the L.E.A.D. Program in your community. After the start-up costs, the program is self-sustaining. So what is LEAD? A police group? A group of educators? Nope. Lead is a website owned and run by David Pritchard, president of Total Diagnostic Sales (TDS), a company based in Livonia, Michigan, that sells drug testing kits. So they get a community organization to sponsor by buying a couple hundred dollars worth of kits and starting up a program of selling them to parents, and they even give the groups media packets and posters to help them get a lot of publicity (of course, the publicity will have the name of the school or the police department on it, not TDS). Now I don't object to parents choosing on their own to purchase drug testing kits (I personally think it's stupid, and bad parenting, but I would not object to their choice to do so.) However, the notion of police and educator groups acting as shills for for-profit drug testing sales is irresponsible. 12:56:20 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []