Monday, July 17, 2006

Drug Czar's blog written by illiterate? I wasn't even going to dignify this Guy W. Farmer piece of crap with a post. Besides, thehim and others have already ripped it to shreds. But then comes the drug czar's "blog" Pushing Back, with this bizarre post... Nevada Newspaper Clarifies Stance on Legalization, Rejects Myth that Marijuana is "Harmless" From the Nevada Appeal comes this well-argued editorial against marijuana legalization. [...] ... followed by an excerpt from Guy W. Farmer's provably incorrect OpEd (not an editorial). Anybody who has been following the situation in Nevada would realize that the Drug Czar's "blog" got an incredibly large number of things wrong in just two lines. So... who actually writes Pushing Back? 10:09:37 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America Radley Balko's long-awaited white paper has been released today. You can read it for free as a downloadable 1.6 MB pdf at the CATO Institute, or purchase "the slick bound copy" at the bookstore for just $10. (the CATO bookstore seems to be having some problems right now -- hopefully that will be fixed shortly. I want copies to give to people.) This is an extremely well-researched paper, with way too many documented sad examples of overkill, and some well-though-out conclusions about police raids. This will be a very important document in the fight to restore law enforcement to its proper functions. Radley also has developed an interactive map showing where the documented raids and deaths have occurred in the United States. 10:13:12 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Drugs and Fire, an analogy This is just from a little mental goofing-off, but I got to thinking about using fire as an analogy for drug use and the drug war. Like fire, drug use can be very beneficial or it can be harmful, depending on how it's used, but with a little common sense, it can be quite safe. In this particular analogy, the establishment has decided that only fire in corporate-sold furnaces is acceptable, and all other use of fire must be extinguished. Prohibitionists (again, in this analogy) decide that the way to accomplish this is to destroy the fire utterly... by throwing dynamite at it. On occasion, the resulting explosion will temporarily suppress the fire from the lack of oxygen, but more often, it spreads the fire further in an unchecked manner -- plus it causes enormous collateral damage. Most reformers say that fire is our friend, as long as it's controlled. They like cooking with fire, and even just sitting around and watching a candle or a bonfire (although it's become much more dangerous to do so now that some crazed prohibitionist might show up and throw dynamite at it). There are also some people who think fire is bad, but are smart enough to realize that throwing dynamite at it is stupid and ineffective. So they lobby for fire safety instruction and encourage people not to have fires, or if they do, to just have those little tea-light candles. Prohibitionists say that even that is unacceptable. Conversations with prohibitionists tend to go like this: Prohibitionist: How can you sit there and actually promote the use of fire? Don't you know about the little girl that was burned to death in a house fire? Reformer: Uh, ... you threw dynamite at that fire. Prohibitionist: She was burned to death. Fire caused that, not the dynamite. Reformer: Uh, no. They were having a cook-out on the grill. You threw dynamite on the charcoal and the explosion spread the fire to the house... Prohibitionist: See? It was fire. How dare you promote the death of little girls, you pyromaniac! Meanwhile, the dynamite manufacturers and the dynamite throwers union lobby for increased use of dynamite fire-fighting, and new laws that would allow them to blow up sticks and other items that could be used in making a fire. Prohibitionists: Saving children by throwing dynamite at fires. Hey, it makes about as much sense as the drug war. 9:19:22 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []