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Drug WarRant
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Saturday, January 15, 2005 |
The Right of Association
State Representative Ruth Jones McClendon (D-San Antonio) has introduced a measure that would allow the City of San Antonio to exclude people arrested for drug offenses from entering certain parts of the city except to go directly to their homes and places of employment.
My first reaction was that this was an offensive law that should be rejected out of hand, and that it seemed likely to be unconstitutional -- it's possible that Ruth McClendon missed the part in the First Amendment that states:
Congress shall make no law... abridging... the right of the people peaceably to assemble...
along with Supreme Court law that has subsequently established a right of association.
But the proposed law also troubled me in that it sounded strangely familiar. So I did a little looking and, sure enough, they tried the same thing in Cincinnati a few years back:
Drug War Chronicle, 6/13/03
The US Supreme Court rejected for the second time Monday a Cincinnati law that created a "drug exclusion zone" banning anyone convicted of certain drug offenses from the city's poor, black Over the Rhine neighborhood. The court rejected without comment an appeal by the city asking it to overturn a US appeals court ruling that found the ordinance an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment right to freedom of association and movement. The Supreme Court had earlier rejected the city's appeal of an Ohio Supreme Court ruling throwing out the law on similar state constitutional grounds.
That's right. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected it twice. And listen to what the Ohio Supreme Court had to say:
In his majority opinion, Chief Justice Moyer was sharply critical of the ordinance, noting that "a person subject to the exclusion ordinance may not enter a drug-exclusion zone to speak with counsel, visit family, attend church, receive emergency medical care, go to the grocery store or just stand on a street corner and look at a blue sky."
But wait, I wondered... Are the laws really the same? Maybe the San Antonio provision is significantly different so as to survive constitutional scrutiny. Well, let's compare:
Cincinnati, Ohio
Under the ordinance, police could order residents arrested on certain drug charges out of the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood for up to 90 days based solely on the fact of their arrest. Those actually convicted of drug offences could be banished from the neighborhood for a year.
San Antonio, Texas
The law would ban people who had been arrested for a drug offense -- even if they were not convicted -- for 90 days. People who had actually been convicted would be excluded from the community for one year.
Yep. Same law. Unconstitutional before. Unconstitutional now.
5:01:16 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Friday, January 14, 2005 |
I offer my assistance to President Bush
So it appears that President Bush is prepared to eliminate entire budget lines to reduce the deficit:
He plans to fulfill his pledge to halve the record $413 billion federal budget deficit by submitting a 2006 budget next month that includes nothing for some programs. He wouldn't name them.
"We will present a budget that wisely spends the people's money, that cuts the deficit in half, that will enable me to get up in front of the people and say those programs that aren't working won't be getting extra money, and some of the programs won't be getting any money at all," he said.
I can give you a big jump start on that deficit reduction:
Total Federal drug program: $12.6 billion (via ONDCP)
Just zero that baby out. After all, the GAO has consistently given the DEA and ONDCP failing grades for accomplishing anything, and I think we can survive without the $145 million spent on the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign or the $23 million for drug testing. We can get along without busting sick people who take medical marijuana (let the states handle it). And we don't need to investigate people who make glass pipes.
We could probably find a couple of other pockets of money that could be saved in this effort. Federal prison costs could be reduced without the clogging from those pesky non-violent drug criminals, and think what we could save in eradication chemicals in Columbia and Afghanistan.
Just trying to do my part to help the President. Think he'll listen?
5:32:33 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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So just what does no longer mandatory mean?
TalkLeft notes that the first post-Booker decision is out already, and it doesn't sound good. Judge Paul Cassell took the Supreme Court's decision that sentencing guidelines are no longer mandatory to mean that they should be followed in every case except rare exceptional cases.
 TalkLeft also has the 9th Circuit decision to eliminate the need for the "knock" part of "Knock and Announce" Warrants.
5:17:56 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Coleman guilty of Perjury
Tom Coleman (of the Tulia drug cases) has been found guilty of perjury -- something that rarely happens, and even though the particulars of his conviction seem less than earth-shattering, it's still a victory for the victims that he accused.
The full story at Grits for Breakfast.
5:12:17 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Thursday, January 13, 2005 |
Don't hide your marijuana in the engine
Link
Mexico City -- Smoke billowing from the engine compartment led police to discover a large stash of marijuana hidden aboard a luxury bus, the federal Public Security Department said Thursday.
Police had seen the bus stopped along the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway early Thursday and noticed that smoke was pouring out of the engine area, the agency said in a news release.
They went to offer help, but found no driver or passengers.
When they turned to putting out the flames, the officers discovered packages of burning marijuana that had been hidden in part of the engine compartment.
You can bet the Mexican government is going to be proud to point out their seizure of that 660 pounds of pot. Ours would.
10:39:34 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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U.S. Backward in Economic Development
Via NORML, a new Congressional Research Service Report (pdf) notes that the U.S. is the only developed nation that fails to cultivate industrial hemp as an economic crop.
In all, more than 30
countries in Europe, Asia, and North America grow hemp, although most banned
production for certain periods of time in the past. The United States is the only
developed nation in which industrial hemp is not an established crop. Great Britain
lifted its ban in 1993 and Germany followed suit in 1996. In order to help reestablish
a hemp industry, the European Union instituted a subsidy program in the 1990s for
hemp fiber production. ...
The countries exporting hemp products to the United States vary considerably
from year to year. Over the last five years, the most consistent exporters of raw and
processed hemp fiber to the United States have been China, the Philippines, Poland,
Romania, Canada, and India. The leading exporters of hemp oil have been the
Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the Republic of South Africa, and
Italy. However, according to industry reports, Canadian growers are expanding
production of varieties for health food and bodycare uses. Consequently, Canada
could be poised to become a major source of U.S. hemp seed and oil imports. ...
Strictly speaking, the CSA does not make Cannabis illegal; rather, it places the
strictest controls on its production, making it illegal to grow the crop without a DEA
permit. DEA officials confirm issuing a permit for an experimental plot in Hawaii
in the 1990s (now expired), and they confirm that DEA still has not ruled on an
application submitted in 1999 by a North Dakota researcher. Hemp industry
officials assert that the security measures the DEA requires are substantial and costly,
and deter both public and private interests from initiating research projects requiring
growing plots.
Why should we allow our farmers to compete in the world market?
NORML Executive
Director Allen St. Pierre said. "This report should help to galvanize
support among US farmers, industrialists, and environmentalists for the
legalization and regulation of hemp as an agricultural commodity."
6:26:27 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Complex relationships with drugs and war
Strange contradictions...
I reported Tuesday about a videotape showing Sunni Muslims executing a drug dealer.
Now we have a report in the LA Times that US officials are claiming that Sunni Muslim insurgents are not only smuggling drugs to finance the insurgency, but using drugs to allow them to keep fighting after they've been mortally wounded.
Top military officials consider the discoveries to be evidence not just of drug use among insurgents, but also of smuggling operations that they say the Sunni Muslim rebels in Fallouja may have been using to finance the insurgency.
"They are just as likely to be indications of drug smuggling as insurgents being doped up to provide stamina or have the courage to fight and die," a senior military official in Baghdad said. ...
"One guy described it as like watching the 'Night of the Living Dead,' " corpsman Peter Melady said. "People who should have been dead were still alive."
Of course, this may all be true. Sometimes it's just a matter of whether the drug activity is OK'd by your leaders.
The U.S. Military has its own contradictory and complex relationship with drugs (and has historically as well).
You've got situations like the Iowa National Guard story, where guardsmen who tested positive for drugs were sent to Iraq anyway, and then kicked out when they returned. And you've got the military's need for speed in order to keep pilots on edge. And don't forget Afghanistan, where the drug war is conflicting with the war on terrorism.
Anybody know if there's been a good scholarly work done on this complicated military/drug relationship? Seems like there's some fascinating material there.
9:18:04 AM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Wednesday, January 12, 2005 |
More to read...
John at truehigh.com has finished the next part of his rebuttal to the Drug Czar's version of Marijuana Facts and Myths.
Baylen has the info on a Democratic State Representative who wants to shred the constitution a little bit more by denying drug offenders who have served their time the right to associate or travel in certain areas.
Grits for Breakfast continues coverage of the Tom Coleman trial.
I've long talked about the lack of credible evidence for major concerns regarding marijuana and driving. While I don't recommend driving stoned, all research indicates that it's much less dangerous than alcohol, fatigue or even distractions such as cell phones. Dana Larsen at Cannabis Culture has put together a new compilation of the existing data in: Stoned Drivers are Safe Drivers. [Thanks, Scott]
10:44:43 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Secret Drug Arrests
Strange report from the Nogales International (AZ):
When an unmarked white panel van occupied by heavily armed officers dressed in camouflage enter a house just off a state highway, passersby might wonder what is happing. More so when they are escorted by a local law enforcement special operations team. ...
But when you find out it was an operation coordinated by the Drug Enforcement Administration ( DEA ), getting answers is complicated if not impossible.
According to the Nogales Police Department, two federal search warrants were served by the DEA on Monday, Dec. 20 at 10:30 a.m. The activity also was reported to the Nogales International by motorists, including the driver of the newspaper's delivery van, nearby neighbors and others.
Still, several attempts to gain information from Tony Ryan a special agent in charge in Tucson, and Ramona Sanchez, the public information officer in Phoenix were stymied because, they said, under rules established by Department of Justice does they are not allowed to talk about cases still under investigation. ...
And after a reporter for the Nogales International made calls bi-weekly for four weeks to Ryan and Sanchez still no further information would be released.
One might be assured that such efficient coordination exists between federal and local law enforcement, but finding out what crimes they are fighting and who the criminals are is a different story. [emphasis added]
If it's the DEA working with local law enforcement, it has to be a drug bust, I would think. So why the secrecy? Usually the DEA likes to brag about seizures. Almost makes you wonder if it was a bit of a mistake and they don't want it publicized? To not release the names or charges of those arrested? What kind of country are we living in?
9:36:01 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Supreme Court finally rules on Booker and Fan Fan
This was an important case regarding U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Essentially, the Guidelines were found unconstitutional, but the court didn't eliminate them entirely. They simply excised the unconstitutional parts and made the guidelines not mandatory. The decision is a mixed bag, but generally good news for reducing runaway sentencing. It remains to be seen how Congress will respond.
For much more comprehensive description of the Court's ruling, see TalkLeft here, here, and here.
6:28:13 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Tuesday, January 11, 2005 |
Colorado Supreme Court still thinks there's a 4th Amendment
In a 6-1 ruling:
Blocks of marijuana found in the "back room" of a Colorado Springs liquor store can't be used as evidence against the store manager because he could reasonably expect privacy from searches of the back area under the U.S. Constitution, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday. ...
"Galvadon was the night manager and the sole person in control of the store," Martinez wrote. "He used the back room to conduct the business of the store and maintained the right to exclude public access to the back room. ... For these reasons, we find that Galvadon maintained a reasonable expectation of privacy in the back room."
It's nice to see the courts still give a nod to the 4th now and then.
6:51:30 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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More Reactions to Propagandagate
Matt Welch at Reason has a great article on the propaganda issue: Bamboozlers On the Loose.
Of course, this is all just peanuts compared to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which since 1998 has spent $1 billion trying (and failing) to convince us that smoking the odd joint might kill you, or at least cause terrorism. When the TV networks squawked about the lost ad time, the ONDCP foreshadowed the Armstrong Williams payola scheme by suggesting some anti-drug story lines instead. It was a win-win, really.
There are two profoundly undemocratic through-lines in the state's repeated purchase of propaganda. The first is the foul notion that we are a nation of people who literally can't handle the truth, and so must be influenced in ways we don't even realize by a government that knows our best interests better than we do. ...
The second is an alarmingly cavalier approach to pissing away taxpayer money. ...
Also, the editorial in today's Valley Morning Star (Harlingen, TX): Feds cross the line with fake news.
When comedian Norm McDonald was on "Saturday Night Live," he was the anchorman on the show's Weekend Update skit. He would read headlines from that week's news and change portions of the stories to make them funny. At the end of the segment, he would sign off with the words, "And that's the fake news." It was funny as part of a comedy skit, but it has no place in the real world of journalism. More importantly, it has no place in government. ...
One of the foundations of a free society is an independent press, completely free of government influence. Although some news outlets are often accused of supporting one faction or another of government, they are independent from those factions and don't get their marching orders from any political party.
The press' role in a free society is to keep citizens informed about what government is doing and to hold officials accountable to the Constitution they've sworn to uphold.
That's not possible if the media are spoon-fed supposed news stories that support government agendas. The feds should stay out of the news business and the media should be more careful about their sources.
4:39:10 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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British Documentary Advocates Legalization of Cocaine
Via TalkLeft.
Cocaine, a new documentary by award-winning director Angus Macqueen, will air on British Television next week over several days. Full article.
Celebrated documentary-maker Angus Macqueen spent 18 months on the cocaine trail across Latin America from the dirt-poor valleys of Peru to the shanty towns of Rio. Here he recalls the journey that revolutionised his views and explains why he believes 'the dandruff of the Andes' should be sold in Boots ...
This journey has left me thinking the politically unthinkable. With an election looming, the Blair government has made the war on drugs a populist law-and-order priority, once again conflating the taking of drugs with the crime and violence that surrounds them. But it is the war itself that is the problem. The politicians rightly warn that demand will go up if it is legalised. Not good but not the nightmare they summon up. Neither cocaine or heroin is a cancer. In quantities it destroys your nose and is bad for your brain, but it very rarely kills - unlike that other addictive plant we can use legally: tobacco. Nor is it a direct cause of violence, like alcohol.
Let's be honest. People try drugs, whether in the form of alcohol or pills, because they are fun. Tens of thousands of UK citizens regularly consume cocaine; hundreds of thousands more use other illegal drugs, completely discrediting the law. In his book Cocaine, Dominic Streatfield quotes the monetarist Milton Friedman: 'I do not think you can eradicate demand. The lesson we have failed to learn is that prohibition never works. It makes things worse not better.'
Streatfield quotes the extraordinary statistics involved in fighting cocaine and drugs. Here are a couple: over the past 15 years, the US has spent £150 billion trying to stop its people getting hold of drugs. In Britain and the US almost 20 per cent of the prison population is inside for drugs offences. So what is left? We can muddle on or we can legalise cocaine - and indeed all drugs.
This won't solve the social ills of poverty or inequality here or in Latin America but it would remove vast sums of money from the criminal world. We should allow the farmers to grow coca and sell it for decent prices direct to government-controlled factories which can produce a high-quality product. And then it should be sold over the counter from registered chemists such as Boots to anyone over 18 at a reasonable, taxed price that does not encourage a black market. At least then we will know it is pure. Then we must attack demand by using some of the millions saved to invest in education drives that are honest. Look how effective a generation of anti-smoking education has been in bringing the public behind stringent restrictions on smoking in public, but not an outright ban. ...
The whole article is worth reading.
9:38:36 AM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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If we just make the penalties harsher, maybe we'll win this war on drugs...
Link
IRAQI militant group Army of Ansar al-Sunna said it killed what it called a drug dealer in the northern city of Mosul and posted a video of the shooting on its website today.
The video showed a man standing in front of a banner bearing the group's name and holding packets of pills in his hands.
"My name is Hussein Ali Hussein, also known as Hussein Haya, and I sell narcotics," the man said before he was blindfolded and shot in the back of the head.
The Sunni Muslim group, which has claimed several attacks and kidnappings in Iraq, has said that the country should be governed by Islamic sharia law and blasted planned national elections this month as an "infidel" practice.
9:26:58 AM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Monday, January 10, 2005 |
Jon Stewart takes on the Drug Czar
Nice little segment on The Daily Show tonight -- Jon led it off with the illegal media pieces by the Drug Czar and segued into the Dept. of Education payola scandal. And had a little fun with it as always.
Stewart:
ONDCP - That's the Office of National Drug Control Policy, voted least fun Christmas party 12 years running.
10:22:16 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Who do you trust?
Interesting column in the New York Daily News by Denis Hamill
In 1969, as a hippie kid at Woodstock, I sat in the mud with a score of Brooklyn pilgrims from Prospect Park's Hippie Hill listening to festival organizers shouting over the loudspeakers to the 400,000 zonked-out druggies, "Beware of the brown acid, man! If you've dropped the bad brown acid, report immediately to the medical tent, man!" ...
Judging by recent events, you get more truth from drug culture than pharmaceutical companies and the Food and Drug Administration.
On three separate holiday-related occasions, I was sitting around gabbing with friends in Brooklyn and Queens and one of the first topics to arise was the reluctant revelations by the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies that they are literally killing us by the tens of thousands with these deadly prescription drugs they are hawking with less conscience than streetcorner dope pushers.
8:40:05 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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More on that Carnival Cruise bust...
Scott comes through for me (as always) with the full details of the Jam Cruise 3 drug bust (including, bizarrely, photos of all those arrested and video of the news coverage).
"Jam Cruise 3" Lands Twelve in Jail Before Ship Ever Leaves The Dock
The scenario was the same, over and over. As more than 1,200 passengers passed through the Jaxport terminal, they stopped for a photo, then proceeded on to Customs for a pre-boarding inspection.
Over a span of six hours, a dozen of those passengers were 'outed' by a proficient U.S. Customs and Border Protection drug dog named Megan.
So these were all people in the U.S., boarding a boat in Jacksonville, Florida and going through U.S. customs.
Now I'm trying to understand this. Isn't it the job of Customs to prevent things from coming in to the United States? Yes, I know that the cruise goes outside our national waters, so Customs gets involved, but shouldn't that be when the boat returns?
Is this at all an appropriate use of Customs personnel? We don't have the resources to check more than a small percent of the cargo containers coming in to the country (any of which could contain terrorist weapons). But we can have Customs personnel checking for cruise passengers with some pot hidden in their crotch?
That's criminal use of our homeland security forces.
6:58:55 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Houston OpEd lays out the truth about marijuana
In yesterday's Houston Chronicle, defense attorney Brian Samuelson has written an outstanding piece: Lawyer's Plea on Pot Penalty.
Basically, he's calling for decriminalization and gives quite a number of excellent practical reasons for it. He also, though, lays on the line the truths that are seldom told in public.
Here's a taste:
In fact, the overwhelming evidence available today strongly indicates that marijuana use is not nearly as harmful as once believed, and actually has therapeutic and medicinal values. Unlike nicotine and alcohol, marijuana is not physically addictive. There is no convincing scientific evidence that marijuana kills brain cells, impairs long-term memory or causes mental or physical illness.
The only "harmful" effects from the use of marijuana that have been proven are that an individual under the influence of marijuana will realize a loss of short-term memory, difficulty learning and recalling new information, and a temporary impairment of psychomotor function.
Yes, marijuana temporarily dulls the senses. But, unlike alcohol, a person who intends to operate a motor vehicle after smoking marijuana can immediately eliminate the loss of perception, and its other temporary effects on the brain, by eating a small meal.
As a criminal defense attorney, I can assure you that arrests for driving under the influence of marijuana are extremely rare.
Every serious scholar and government commission that has examined the relationship between marijuana use and crime have reached the same conclusion: Marijuana use does not lead to crime. Almost all human and animal studies indicate that marijuana decreases rather than increases physical aggression.
Not bad. I hope a lot of people read it.
12:15:35 AM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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