Sunday, April 2, 2006

Jury believes family, not cops. After deliberating more than 20 hours over the course of three days, jurors found that the deputies illegally detained and searched Arnetta McCloud, her then-15-year-old daughter, Cynthia, and a cousin, Marcus Frazier, in a midnight traffic stop and drug investigation that stretched for more than four hours in July, 2001. The mother claimed that she was strip searched and that even her daughter was forced to pull down her pants for a female deputy. Apparently there were six deputies involved in pulling the family over, detaining them, searching the car and their persons for drugs without finding any and then taking them to the home of relatives they were visiting and searching that residence. The deputies' defense? 1. On searching the relatives' house: Deputies said they did so only at the invitation of the McCloud parents. The family claims they were forced back to the home against their will... The family invited them? After being strip searched? Right. 2. On making the 15-year-old drop her pants for a female deputy: Former Leon County Sheriff's Deputy Evelyn Anderson testified that she did not strip-search Arnetta or Cynthia McCloud, but she said she was surprised when the girl volunteered to lower her pants. With her mother present, a 15-year-old girl volunteers to drop her pants. Right. I'm surprised it took the jury 20 hours. Must have been to decide on the roughly $2 million in damages. [Hat tip to John Horse over at TalkLeft] 11:18:22 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

What's up with Ohio? Via TalkLeft and NORML The Ohio House and Senate passed a per se "drugged driving" bill, that is expected to be signed by the Governor. A "per se" law is one that is "in and of itself" -- in other words, by testing positive, the person is assumed to be intoxicated by definition, regardless of any actual effect or impairment (or lack thereof). With marijuana, of course, since the metabolites stay in your system well beyond any effects, this is simply a way to go after marijuana smokers -- it has absolutely nothing to do with safety on the roads. Cincinnati passes regressive pot law. The City Council on Wednesday passed an ordinance re-criminalizing marijuana possession with up to 30 days in jail and a $250 fine (as opposed to just a fine). According to Stop the Drug War: The measure was pushed by Law & Public Safety Committee Chair Cecil Thomas, who argued that elevating marijuana possession to a misdemeanor would make it easier for police to arrest and search more people. But only certain people -- Thomas said he did not expect police to target medical users or college students. "That's not who they'll be going after," he said. "I'm not concerned about that because crime is occurring in our troubled neighborhoods." And, of course, we know what that's code for. Then with my previous story, Ohio, on the take... So again, I ask -- What's up with Ohio? 11:19:31 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

A Motivated Post The stereotype of heavy pot smokers lacking motivation is fairly universal (think just about any movie with a stoner character). And yet, how true is it? Fred Gardner at Counterpunch reports that a graduate study has been completed on that very subject, and while the article points out some of the limitations of the study, still it's very interesting to discover that the conclusion was: "Participants who used cannabis seven days a week demonstrated no difference from non-cannabis users on indices of motivation. These findings refute hypothesized associations between heavy cannabis use and low motivation" Interesting. Sure, we can all probably come up with the unmotivated stoner example, but if we thought about it, we could just as easily come up with the unmotivated non-smoker. And the reverse is also true -- One of my top former students, who graduated with honors with a double major and several leadership positions in university organizations, later confided to me that he had smoked pot pretty much every day during his four years in college. Not something I'd recommend, and for some people it would be disastrous, but it does help show that marijuana by itself is not anti-motivational. 10:40:46 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []