Saturday, December 9, 2006

Must See TV Tonight at 7 pm ET/PT on Global Television: Damage Done: The Drug War Odyssey Article: IMAGINE A CANADA where marijuana is legal and a prescription gets you a hit of heroin or cocaine. That's the proposal of Senator Larry Campbell, the former cop and mayor of Vancouver whose life inspired the Da Vinci's Inquest TV series. Such controversial and contrarian views are at the heart of the provocative Damage Done: The Drug War Odyssey, airing Saturday at 7 p.m. on Global as part of the Global Currents series of documentaries. [...] "It's the hypocrisy of it that really appals me. I just can't quite figure out how we can call ourselves an enlightened society and still turn a blind eye to something that seems to be doing so much damage yet it would be so simply cured if only we would come to terms with our own feelings about substances." Damage Done depicts many people who have wrestled with their stance on forbidden substances, most notably members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. The group claims about 5,000 members and anyone can join, but LEAP was founded by police veterans who gradually concluded that the traditional war on drugs was illogical. [...] "They have the strength of their own convictions. At one point in time they were just ordinary cops. They were just enforcing the law the way it was written. Something happened to change their minds. I think that in the process of that epiphany, if you will, they had to become stronger. It made them heroes, in my opinion," said Littlefield. "And that makes them very filmic, so I kind of exploited that. The guy's riding his horse across the country to protest the drug war. What's more filmic than that. And the horse only has one eye. I mean, come on." [...] Tenacity also paid off in securing an interview with former New York City cop Frank Serpico. His one-man crusade against dirty cops was made into a classic '70s movie starring Al Pacino. "He's not a member of LEAP officially, although he totally supports them. He's just not a joiner, really, as you might think," said Littlefield. "I'm talking to him about potentially making another documentary about the roots of police corruption." [...] "Global is airing a 45-minute version this weekend. There's also a 54-minute version which includes a couple of other American characters and that is what we refer to as the NFB version. It's hopefully going to be distributed all over the world and through the NFB's resources in North America and hopefully you'll even be able to buy your own copy one day." 11:39:27 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Open Thread Nice feature about LEAP member Jerry Cameron, and a positive response to the legalization call, in Tonyaa Weathersbee piece in the Jacksonville Times Union: Decriminalizing Marijuana Washington Post Editorial: Commute This Sentence A Clemency Case Not Even President Bush Can Ignore -- or Can He? THE SUPREME Court this week declined to review the case of Weldon Angelos, leaving in place his obscene sentence of 55 years in prison for small-time marijuana and gun charges. The high court's move is no surprise; the justices have tended to uphold draconian sentences against constitutional challenge. But it confronts President Bush with a question he will have to address: Is there any sentence so unfair that he would exert himself to correct it? So far, Mr. Bush hasn't found one. [...] Update: Source corrected. 8:58:19 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Speaking Truth to Power In the current issue of Drug Sense, Bryan Brickner has a feature article: Speak Truth to Power, where he talks about his experience in the debate that I moderated last month. Great moments, like the ending of the drug war, will perhaps be inaudible to us. In other words, we often do not sense the meaning of moments as they happen. That being the case, when speaking truth to power, one should watch for when "the spell" begins to break. The spell? The spell is the spell of power. It begins to break when the appearance of the reasons for believing become unbelievable. In the case of the drug war, the reasons for fighting it no longer produce fear. Without the fear of the illegal drug user -- in oneself and in others -- power has only one remaining effect, that of force. [...] There's also an interesting juxtaposition in the section of the Drug Sense newsletter dealing with schools, and the levels of powers abused in the name of the drug war. On one hand you have the schools attempting to control what students say (Bong Hits 4 Jesus, the Carson High newspaper article on marijuana legalization and, from some weeks ago, the students who wore a marijuana leaf to support the medical marijuana bill in S.D.), while from a different abuse of power you have the student caught goofing around and pretending to snort Smarties candies who was told by the Principal that he'd have to go undercover and be a narc to avoid suspension. 8:48:21 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []