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Drug WarRant
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Saturday, July 30, 2005 |
The drug czar has blood on his hands
Link
"The drug czar has blood on his hands for blocking the humane and medical use of cannabis for sick, disabled and dying people," Kubby said.
"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red"
-- Macbeth
[Update: Link fixed.]
5:05:09 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Note to press - just say NO to 'Meth Babies'
Jacob Sullum properly points out the hysteria behind the latest unfounded crack baby: the meth baby. He quotes from an open letter from physicians and drug treatment specialists:
Despite the lack of a medical or scientific basis for the use of such terms as "ice" and "meth" babies, these pejorative and stigmatizing labels are increasingly being used in the popular media, in a wide variety of contexts across the country. Even when articles themselves acknowledge that the effects of prenatal exposure to methamphetamine are still unknown, headlines across the country are using alarmist and unjustified labels such as "meth babies."...
Although research on the medical and developmental effects of prenatal methamphetamine exposure is still in its early stages, our experience with almost 20 years of research on the chemically related drug, cocaine, has not identified a recognizable condition, syndrome or disorder that should be termed "crack baby" nor found the degree of harm reported in the media and then used to justify numerous punitive legislative proposals.
The term "meth addicted baby" is no [more] defensible. Addiction is a technical term that refers to compulsive behavior that continues in spite of adverse consequences. By definition, babies cannot be "addicted" to methamphetamines or anything else.
3:40:10 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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U.S. takes over Canadian police, arrests and extradites Mark Emery
I'm out of town and missed the news until today, but as the many contributors who wrote me said... this needs to be posted:
Link
EMERY EMPIRE RAIDED AT REQUEST OF UNITED STATES
Cannabis activist and two others arrested
By Jennifer Garner
Canadian police acting under orders from US officials raided the headquarters of the British Columbia Marijuana Party (BCMP) in Vancouver today (Friday, July 22).
The search warrants were authorized at the highest levels of the provincial government in concert with a cross-border US-Canada law enforcement pact authorized by the a US-authored Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters treaty (MLAT) between the US and Canada.
The US has issued extradition orders for Marc Emery, who was arrested while traveling in Halifax to a hemp festival, as well as two others who work with Emery on television productions and other endeavours.
American officials accuse Emery of "a conspiracy to produce marijuana and distribute marijuana seeds, and money laundering."
The DEA and other agencies are claiming that by selling seeds to pot-growing Americans, Emery is engaged in a criminal enterprise with the growers.
"Their activities resulted in the growing of tens of thousands of marijuana plants in America," claims US federal attorney Jeff Sullivan. "[Emery] was involved, allegedly, in an illegal distribution of marijuana in [the United States.] He is a drug dealer."
Vancouver police armed with a search warrant raided the legendary store in the heart of Vancouver's "Vansterdam" district.
Chris Bennett, manager of Pot-TV who was onsite when the BCMP center was raided today, said he is particularly angry that Canadian police were acting as enforcers of American drug laws.
"They're taking him down to face charges in the United States of America, where sentences are much harsher that one would face in Canada," said Bennett.
More at:
Thanks to Tim and others.
3:12:55 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Friday, July 29, 2005 |
Why go through the door?
This is nothing new -- something I've railed about for some time as it relates to drug task forces here in the states, but this article from Canada just kind of drove me a little nuts.
It was a drug raid that came close to going tragically wrong.
As armed narcotics officers got set to barge through the door of a suspect's home in Spryfield, other officers peering through a window were horrified to see a man inside levelling a rifle at the door. [...]
"We go through a door and sometimes those inside are wired or stoned." [...]
"Almost inevitably, when we go through a door, we know there is going to be weapons of some sort inside," Staff Sgt. McTiernan said. [...]
"A lot of these guys are not always sure who is coming through the door.
"If they know it's the police, it's not normally an issue because they know we are not there to harm them."
But it can be a different story "if they think it's someone else coming in to rip them off." [...]
"A lot of times when we go through doors, we don't always know what is in there and we find loaded firearms," he said [...]
"They know their door could come down and they could be arrested at any time. [...]
Isn't anyone going to ask: "Why the hell are you going through the door?"
10:29:27 AM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Know your rights and responsibilities: Jury Nullification
Make sure you read Radley Balko's latest at Fox: Justice Often Served by Jury Nullification
The doctrine of jury nullification (search) rests on two truths about the American criminal justice system: (1) Jurors can never be punished for the verdict they return, and (2) Defendants cannot be retried once a jury has found them not guilty, regardless of the jury's reasoning. So the juries in both the Rosenthal and Paey cases could have returned a "not guilty" verdict, even though Paey and Rosenthal were undoubtedly guilty of the charges against them.
This may sound radical, perhaps even subversive, but jury nullification serves as an important safeguard against unjust laws, as well as against the unfair application of well-intended laws. It's also steeped in American and British legal tradition.
As the legislature continues to act in ways that are far outside the wishes of those they represent (particularly in terms of the drug war), and the courts seem willing to defer to the legislature, and the executive is eager to go after doctors, sick people and pot smokers, then it may fall upon the individual to correct the government perpetrated injustices, by refusing to convict based on bad law.
9:45:26 AM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Good ruling in Michigan
Via NORML's ezine comes this ruling: (I'm quoting extensively, because it's pretty important)
Traverse City, MI: The presence of cannabis' primary metabolite, THC-COOH, is insufficient evidence of impairment to warrant a conviction under the state's Zero Tolerance per se drugged driving law, according to a recent ruling by the Michigan Court of Appeals. The decision upholds a trial court ruling that found the "prosecution must prove that the presence of a controlled substance in a defendant's body is proximate cause of an accident resulting in death or serious injury" in order for the defendant to be guilty of violating the state's two-year-old drugged driving statute.
Michigan is one of ten states that have enacted so-called Zero Tolerance drugged driving laws. Under Michigan's law, it is a criminal offense for an individual to operate a motor vehicle with any detectable level of a Schedule I substance present in his or her bodily fluids. (In six states - Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, and Utah - individuals may be criminally prosecuted if they operate a vehicle with any level of a Schedule I drug or drug metabolite in their system. Three additional states - Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Virginia - have enacted per se drugged driving standards, prohibiting individuals from operating a motor vehicle if they have levels of Schedule I drugs present in their body above a specific threshold.)
In the case before the court, the defendant tested positive for the presence of the THC metabolite THC-COOH (a non-psychoactive compound produced during the body's biological process of converting THC into a water soluble form), but maintained that she was unimpaired at the time of her accident. The prosecution argued that it was not required under Michigan's Zero Tolerance drugged driving law to establish that the defendant's impairment caused the accident, only that she had an illegal substance present in her body. The appellate court upheld the trail court's ruling, affirming that marijuana's metabolite is neither psychoactive nor classified as an illegal substance, and that the prosecution had failed to prove a causal relationship between the presence of a controlled substance in the defendant's body and the accident.
Michigan's Supreme Court had previously held that the legislature did not "intend to impose strict liability on an individual" involved in a driving-related accident, the appellate court determined. Rather, the legislature's intent is to criminally punish only individuals whose impaired driving causes another person's injury.
"The defendant's purposeful operation of [a] vehicle while under the influence must have been a substantial cause of the victim's death," the court of appeals determined. It further found that the "legislature did not intend to include [the cannabis metabolite] as a Schedule I controlled substance because it has no pharmacological effect on the human body ... and its levels in the blood correlates poorly, if at all, to an individual's level of THC-related impairment."
As a result, the appellate court ruled, "Imposing a penalty on a driver when the ... accident would have occurred regardless of that intoxication would ... fail to serve the purpose of the statute."
An excellent ruling. These zero tolerance laws are ridiculous, becuase they proclaim to be about safety, yet the levels being tested have absolutely nothing to do with impairment.
It would be the equivalent of saying that if anyone had ever seen you take a drink in the past, then you're now guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol.
Let's hope that this kind of sanity continues in other court cases. Legislatures and law enforcement must be held to a standard of actually proving impairment (or a reasonable expectation of actual impairment) if they're going to enact/enforce substance-related driving laws.
1:15:40 AM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Thursday, July 28, 2005 |
Bush's War on Pot
Great article in the Rolling Stone by Robert Dreyfuss
America's long-running war on drugs has, literally, gone to pot.
More than two decades after it was launched in response to the spread of crack cocaine -- and in the midst of a brand-new wave of methamphetamine use sweeping the country -- the government crackdown has shifted from hard drugs to marijuana. Pot now accounts for nearly half of drug arrests nationwide -- up from barely a quarter of all busts a decade ago. Spurred by a Supreme Court decision in June affirming the right of federal agents to crack down on medical marijuana, the Drug Enforcement Administration has launched a series of high-profile raids against pot clinics in California, and police in New York, Memphis and Philadelphia have been waging major offensives against pot smokers that are racking up thousands of arrests.
By almost any measure, however, the war has been as monumental a failure as the invasion of Iraq.
Harsh. Nice. (Although I'd say that the drug war is worse failure.)
"For Walters, it's all marijuana, all the time," says Graham Boyd, director of the Drug Law Reform Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "He is reinforcing the atmosphere that marijuana is the drug we should care about, and that the government will do everything it can, including locking everyone up, if that's what it comes to."
Good one, Graham. And true.
The whole article is worth a read.
7:10:39 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Wednesday, July 27, 2005 |
Souder vs. the White House
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Seeing Drug War Religious Extremists Mark Souder and John Mica rake the Drug Czar's office over the coals for not being tough enough in the war on drugs is simultaneously hilarious and sad.
The Representatives made it clear that Meth is the new Heroin (or the new Crack, or the new pot that's so powerful that it's the new crack, or something) and that the administration had better do something about it. This, of course, is a problem for the administration since marijuana is their only path toward their numbers goals (there just aren't enough meth users that can be easily coerced into quitting in order to help the Czar's percentages.)
Rep. Tom Osborne, R-Neb., formerly head football coach at the University of Nebraska, said meth poses a greater threat to U.S. society than foreign terrorists.
"Meth is the biggest threat to the United States, maybe even including al-Qaida," Osborne said.
Whoa! That's different! Meth isn't the new Heroin. It's the new suicide bomber. Which makes it part of the war on terror!
But wait -- the war on terror is now over! It's been renamed the "Global Struggle Against Extremism."
And since Souder is an extremist ... (OK, this is getting confusing) ... then the war against meth has become a struggle against Souder, right?
Right?????
10:54:55 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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A new appointment to the Drug Czar's office
President Bush has sent a new nomination to the Senate for confirmation as Deputy Director for Demand Reduction, ONDCP to replace Andrea Barthwell. (Note: the word "vice" also means "to replace" -- just seems odd to use it there.)
The nominee is Bertha K. Madras, a researcher with Harvard Medical School. Her expertise appears to be in neurobiology, and she focuses on dopamine, finding drugs to cure cocaine addiction, the neurobiology of ADHD, Parkinson's and others (including primate work), along with specialized forms of brain imaging. She's done some cameos for the Drug Czar in the past, and she's been involved in some educational outreach programs related to addiction. She's also received the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Public Service award, presented by Nora Volkow, director of NIDA.
I don't know too much about her, but despite her strong ties to prohibitionist shills, her scientific credentials seem legit. What I don't understand is why she'd give up her research work to go parrot the czar's propaganda.
And does she know that working for the Drug Czar seems to corrupt people? When Andrea Barthwell went to work for Walters, she talked about wanting to make a difference in terms of shifting drug policy more toward treatment instead of prohibition. And colleagues of hers (whom I know) thought highly of her back then. They say she changed. Clearly not for the better.
Do you really want this job, Bertha?
9:01:25 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Drug WarRant is 2
That's right -- two years ago today, I started blogging. I thought at the time that I'd post once a week or so (since this is post #1062 I think you can see that my estimate was a bit off).
I just went back and looked at my first post. It was a report on the debate over the Hinchey Amendment to stop using federal funds to go after medical marijuana patients. I've now covered that failed attempt in 2003, 2004, and 2005. A bit depressing, but, on the other hand, there have been tons of incredible new accomplishments over the past two years in our fight to bring sanity back to drug policy.
Thanks to Adam, Avedon, Baylen, Ben, Daniel, Daksya, desertcat, disgustedvet, David, Ethan, ezrydn, filchyboy, gemsbok, Herb, Jacob, jackl, Jeff, Jeralyn, Jim, John, kaptinemo, Klay, Kris, Krissy, Kwix, Libby, lorax, Loretta, M. Simon, Matt, Mark, nephalim, norbizness, nhop, Radley, Randy, Richard, SayUncle, Scott, Sister Geoff, sixtyfps, Steve, Tad, Taylor, Terry, thehim, Tom, Walter, Yan and lots of others whom I'm sure I've left off this list. The encouragement and discussions have made continuing this blog a joy.
Lots more to do.
7:06:21 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Tuesday, July 26, 2005 |
I want to see pictures of this...
Link
IROQUOIS FALLS, Ont. -- Police in northern Ontario have charged a Toronto man after they found marijuana fields stretching "three football fields in length" in what is considered to be one of Canada's largest pot busts.
Investigators found more than 21,000 marijuana plants behind a home nestled in the woods of Iroquois Falls, east of Timmins.
7:30:33 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Colombian drug lords turned down Bin Laden's money
Interesting story in the New York Post today.
Osama bin Laden tried to buy a massive amount of cocaine, spike it with poison and sell it in the United States, hoping to kill thousands of Americans one year after the 9/11 attacks, The Post has learned.
The evil plot failed when the Colombian drug lords bin Laden approached decided it would be bad for their business...
The story interestingly highlights some important differences between terrorists and drug traffickers. Drug traffickers are running a business (albeit an often horribly violent, murderous one) that is profit/bottom-line oriented. Political actions are only used as a tool to increase profits. Terrorists, on the other hand, use money as a tool to further their "political" activity. Despite the attempts to link the two, there are strong reasons why they often do not mix well, and this is one such case.
Sure, there are likely instances of terrorists profiting from drug trade (and the Post article goes on to dredge up some ancient Asa Hutchinson claims in that area), but those are primarily a result of the profitability caused by prohibition.
9:12:10 AM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Always good to know your rights
Flex Your Rights.org has put together a handy Citizen's Guide to Refusing New York Subway Searches. If you're going to be riding the subway, check it out.
It is always important to know, celebrate, and defend your rights as an individual. Seems to me that's part of being an American.
Radley Balko notes that Jeff Jarvis is fine with the searches.
And what precisely is the privacy problem? If the cops catch you carrying something illegal, well, you shouldn't be carrying anything illegal. If they catch you carrying the latest Playboy -- or, more embarrassing, Radar -- then don't worry; they've seen worse.
Sure thing, Jeff. You won't mind then if we go through your nightstand and closets? Or do a body cavity search on you? After all, if you haven't done anything illegal, why should you worry? Yep. Sounds like a great way to beat those who hate our freedom.
12:02:44 AM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Monday, July 25, 2005 |
HEA reform
This is old news now (happened while I was out of town), but just in case you missed it, here's from the press release by SSDP:
WASHINGTON, DC - A U.S. House committee voted today to scale back the
provision of the Higher Education Act that denies federal financial aid
to students with drug convictions. The change will allow students with
past convictions to receive aid, but students convicted while in college
will still be stripped of their aid eligibility. While the partial
reform to the HEA Drug Provision could help some of the more than
160,500 students affected by the law, many will still be left behind
without aid. The Drug Provision was originally enacted in 1998.
An amendment to scrap the provision entirely, sponsored by Reps. Danny
Davis (D-IL), Rob Andrews (D-NJ), and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), failed by
a committee vote of 29-18.
"After seven years of political rhetoric and empty promises, Congress is
finally acting to help some students affected by this terrible policy,"
said Scarlett Swerdlow, executive director of Students for Sensible Drug
Policy (SSDP). "But this partial reform is like slapping a band-aid on
a gaping wound. Tens of thousands of students will continue to be
yanked out of school every year. Students around the country are
outraged and will continue to work against this misguided policy as long
as it remains on the books."
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Event though this is a disappointment, congrats are due to Students for Sensible Drug
Policy (SSDP) who have worked so hard to bring this to national awareness.
9:49:18 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Barthwell watch
Just like to keep tabs on Andrea Barthwell (this one isn't even drug war-related). Here's an instance where she's quoted in the media telling the truth.
In this article about teens and driving, they turn to Andrea as an expert in her role as co-chair of End Needless Death. I've always wondered what she does in that role, and this article did nothing to further explain it.
Now I don't know who's more to blame here, Andrea, or the local ABC station, but did you really need an expert to give you this quote?
"There's nothing more painful that a parent's pain at the loss of a childe or seeing that their future has been cut out because of a severe disability following a crash," said Dr. Andrea Barthwell, co-chair, End Needless Deaths
[I'll assume the typos were from ABC.].
Good thing they turned to the co-chair of End Needless Deaths. Otherwise I would never have guessed that it's painful when a parent loses their children.
9:40:25 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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Mark A.R. Kleiman, drug policy expert with a blind spot you could drive a truck through
Mark Kleiman is one of the oddballs in the world of drug policy reform. He's well-educated, has done extensive research in the field and is often able to articulate major failings in the drug war. However, whenever it comes to alternatives to our current drug policy disasters, his brain appears to shut down completely, often causing bizarre statements that he cannot and will not support or defend.
It's the blind spot.
He intellectually knows that the drug war doesn't work, but for a variety of reasons (apparently including personal animosity toward certain historical drug policy reformers, and some kind of family-based moral block that interferes with intellectual discussion of legalization options), he continues to push a belief that in some unspecified way, we can "make prohibition work."
Some examples:
1. Last year, Mark wrote a report on drug dealing, drug control, and terrorism. Lots of good information, but check out this wild set of assumptions in his post:
... Therefore, if terrorism were the only thing we cared about, we probably ought to legalize cocaine.
However, since it isn't -- since we also care about the damage long-term, heavy cocaine users do to themselves, and since the number of long-term, heavy cocaine users would likely soar under legalization on the alcohol model -- the question becomes whether the gains in terrorism control, added to the gains in reduced domestic crime, law enforcement costs, and incarceration levels, are enough to counterbalance the losses on the addiction side.
My judgment is that a world with legal cocaine would probably be, on balance, somewhat worse than a world without it.
He had absolutely no support for the soaring increase in abuse and even then did not address how that could possibly counter all the negatives of the drug war. I blow lots of holes in his post here.
2. Mark often attacks drug policy reformers as not caring about sick people when it comes to medical marijuana, and backs it up with... absolutely nothing. He'll detail at length all the problems in the government's approval processes and then rail at reformers for not going through the government's approval processes. Somehow, he believes that trying another way is selfish, and that providing medical marijuana through referendum is damaging to sick people (for no apparent reason), and if reformers really cared about sick people, they'd make them suffer and die while waiting for the government to approve it. When challenged on such outrageous and false statements, he doesn't even allow his response to be printed.
3. Now we have Kleiman's recent (and extremely bizarre) response to John Tierney's excellent piece about the DEA's war on pain doctors.
Mark had already made known his approval of the administration's plan to go after medical drug diversion over a year ago. I had expressed my concernes at that time that such an effort could "increase the pressure on doctors to be more conservative with pain medication -- at the expense of patients' health and lives" (boy, did I understate it!)
Clearly Mark was wrong, but is unwilling to actually look at the facts, so he resorts to irrelevant and strange statements (like the fact that Tierney's lack of mentioning Limbaugh made him sound like Limbaugh's defense attorney?!)
When Tierney notes, with specific data, that the OxyContin fears of huge numbers of people are mostly hype, and, get this, Mark counters by calling it "statistical mumbo-jumbo" and shows his trump card: anecdotal evidence of individual cases of people damaged by drugs, some of which may be OxyContin.
Kleiman keeps banging the drum of 'making prohibition work' by stating how important it is to stop drug diversion. Again, the blind spot makes it impossible for him to discuss how much additional pain legitimate patients should suffer in order to achieve some unknown benefit from diversion reduction. The blind spot also fails to note the clear connection between diversion enforcement and things like meth labs.
As Radley Balko notes (see his entire post - it's excellent), Kleiman also accuses Tierney of calling DEA agents cowards, something that might be a concern if Tierney had actually done it. What Tierney did was criticize policy. So in this case, Mark owes Tierney an apology.
It's not the first time I've legitimately noted that Mark Kleiman owes someone an apology. I don't expect to see it -- Mark's blind spot won't let it happen.
It won't be the last, either.
6:57:33 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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My show opened
Well, I'm back from opening weekend of my show: The Living Canvas at Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. Great opening and I'm exhausted, but feel quite pleased with the show (please come see it if you're in the city).
I'll be heading back up to Chicago every weekend to run the show, but in-between I'll try to catch up with the drug war here. Thanks to everyone who sent encouraging notes and who continue to send great tips.
I won't be able to get to it all, but I'll get what I can.
5:52:08 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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