Friday, April 14, 2006

A message for tax day Your Tax Dollars on Drugs, by Rob Kampia of the Marijuana Policy Project. 11:03:14 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Reaching new lows in Massachussetts Anthony Papa has a good article at Alternet: Two years in jail for a joint? The war on drugs reached the pinnacle of cruelty when 18-year-old Mitchell Lawrence was sentenced to two years in jail for selling a teaspoonful of marijuana to an undercover police officer for $20. [...] Aguirre approached Mitchell and asked him if he had any weed. Mitchell pulled out a small bag of marijuana. The cop offered him $20. Mitchell hesitated; Aguirre insisted. Mitchell, who had seen Aguirre hanging out with other kids, motioned the cop to follow him up the street where he intended to smoke with him. Aguirre waved the $20 in his face. Mitchell, who was broke at the time, took the money, the first time he had ever accepted money in exchange for marijuana. In the months that followed, Aguirre approached Mitchell again for marijuana. This time, however, Mitchell refused. Weeks later, a crew of undercover cops stormed Mitchell's home and placed him under arrest. Mitchell was found guilty of distribution of marijuana, committing a drug violation within a drug-free school zone and possession. On March 22, 2006, Mitchell Lawrence was sentenced to two years in prison. This case is an indictment of the drug war, the entrapment methods used to make criminals out of those who are not, and the travesty of school zone laws. 10:45:31 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

189,065 Via DARE Generation Blog, comes a piece at Slate by Ryan Grim: A lie college students might want to tell. It's about the provision of the Higher Education Act that denies financial aid to those with drug convictions. A bad law (written and promoted by Mark Souder of Indiana) that also makes no sense. It serves no useful purpose whatsoever. It has nothing to do with whether the student is doing well in school-work -- financial aid already has provisions for keeping your grades up. And it has nothing to do with being a law-abiding citizen -- people aren't denied aid for rape, assault, burglary, traffic violations, tax fraud, or drunk driving. It's about additionally punishing drug users -- and not just any drug users, but those who really want to make something of their lives by going to college. Students for Sensible Drug Policy have been fighting this provision for years, and made significant progress recently with a change to reduce the negative impact, but they're still working on getting rid of it entirely. They also had to fight the Department of Education to get actual statistics, but they got them, and frankly, the statistics floored me. 189,065 students were denied financial aid because of drug convictions. I work at a university with 20,000 students and I see all the hope and promise of young people learning about themselves and their future. We're talking about taking the equivalent of 10 universities this size and dashing the hopes and promise of those students. Tragic. There were a couple of other interesting points in the Slate article. First, it appears that Souder's constituents reaped what he sowed... If this law betters the lives of young people--Souder calls it a way to reduce youth drug use by reducing demand--then no state has done better than Souder's own Indiana. As of August 2005, nearly 9,000 Indiana students--one in 200--have been denied aid since the law passed. That's the highest proportion of students affected in any state by a wide margin. (Of course, Souder just makes up the notion that the law reduces demand.) Second, it appears the law mostly penalizes people for telling the truth. There's another funny thing about the Department of Education's numbers: They don't show the number of college applicants punished for drug convictions. They show the number punished for owning up to drug convictions. On their financial-aid applications, students are asked to check a box if they've been convicted of selling or possessing drugs. But the department has no way to verify students' answers. Officials can cross-check the answers with federal arrest records, but they make up a very small percentage of all drug convictions. So far, about 190,000 students across the country (and abroad) have told the truth and been denied financial aid. It's impossible to know how many lied and headed off to college, federal aid in hand. 10:36:57 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Students vote to reduce penalties for pot Reported at the Washington Post The University of Maryland becomes the fifth school to pass a student referendum that says marijuana violations should be treated no more harshly than alcohol violations. This is part of the Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) movement. The idea is that for most students, both alcohol and marijuana are illegal, yet marijuana violations often end up with suspensions or being kicked out of housing, while alcohol violations do not. Their view is that alcohol is actually more dangerous than marijuana, so marijuana should not result in higher penalties. This is not about changing the law, but rather school policy, and such referendum is non-binding (no school has yet changed their policy). The U-MD referendum passed with roughly 2/3 voting in favor. The administration reaction? The university's vice president for student affairs said the administration takes any strong message from student elections very seriously. But she doesn't think the school will be able to treat drug and alcohol violations the same way. "You've got to look at these two issues differently," Linda Clement said, because marijuana can bring harder drugs, dealers and crime. "Our campus police believe very strongly that drug activity attracts people to the campus who are dangerous." The vote comes just as the school, which has enjoyed a growing national reputation for its academics in recent years, also is fighting off the bad publicity that postgame student riots have brought. Last week, drunken students celebrated the women's basketball national championship win by setting fires and shaking buses in College Park. Who are the dangerous ones again? Stupid reaction award goes to: Gwendolyn Dungy, executive director of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, laughed when she heard about the vote. She doesn't know of any college in the country that treats drug and alcohol violations the same -- mostly because of the law, she said, because, unlike smoking marijuana, drinking is legal after 21. Um, yes, but we're talking about the policy for those who are under 21, when both are illegal, and both have university policy penalties separate from criminal sanctions. It's nice to know that Gwendolyn can laugh about students getting suspended or being denied housing for harming nobody. 10:13:35 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

John Fugelsang on the Drug War John Fugelsang has an extensive (and quite witty) rant on the drug war over at Huffington Post. Here are a couple of excerpts: They always told us "Pot makes you violent. And Lazy." Which never scared any kids I knew. I always thought if the violent people were lazy, we'd have a lot less crime. Imagine the thug who threatens, "I'm gonna kill you, man. Right after this burrito." And this is why so many kids have a hard time taking the drug war seriously. We're always changing the reasons, but the message stays the same. We keep telling them "drugs are bad! Drugs are bad! Drugs are bad!" and that, my friends, is not the problem. The problem is not that drugs are bad. The problem is that drugs are great. [...] Back then, Chinese immigrants were the group everybody was allowed to hate, and people really didn't like the thought of good Christian folks going to smoke in the opium dens of "the heathen Chinese." . White people took opium too, but they usually ate it, or shot it up. You know, the wholesome way. So they passed a law taxing imported smokable opium. This is noteworthy, since besides the obvious racism, it was the first time the government used taxes not to raise money (as the founders intended), but to punish and control private behavior. Thus began a long tradition of drug laws that work about as well as British toothpaste. [...] And since it's April, it's worth mentioning that from the 1600s to the 1800s, cannabis hemp was used as a currency - legal tender. In fact for over 200 years you could pay your taxes in cannabis hemp. So next April 15th, try to send the IRS a few loose marijuana cigarettes. I'm sure they'll appreciate your knowledge of our history, and you can even file it as a "joint return." [...] In 1996 the voters of California approved a medical marijuana proposal. The Clinton White House promptly put the kibosh on it. George W. Bush is also opposed to medical marijuana. Now both of these presidents have been vague, at best, about their drug histories. But they've had no problem locking up others for the same behaviors. Which I take as a sign that neither of them truly believes in the drug war. Because if they really felt at their core that illegal drug use was evil, they'd confess their crimes and ask forgiveness. Remember - if they thought it was a sin, they'd turn themselves in. Imagine Johnnie Cochran saying it - it'll sound better. Go ahead and read the rest, and then tell me if you can spot the common, but significant logic flaw in Val's statement in the comments there. 12:11:38 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []