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Drug WarRant
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Saturday, June 24, 2006 |
Another newspaper deserts
Eric Baerren, News Editor of the Mt. Pleasant, Michigan Morning Sun has a strong and detailed response to the recent Michigan Supreme Court decision allowing the discovery of chemical byproducts in the blood to qualify as "impaired" driving.
Baarren takes apart the entire drug war and what it's led to -- more than I can quote here and worth reading in its entirety.
His ending...
Do they really think this was such a smart idea, that this kind of thing won't lead to arbitrary enforcement of laws and the conviction of people who weren't actually guilty in the first place? If so, and this is really how we're fighting our war on drugs, I have a question:
What's the penalty for desertion?
11:34:16 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Secret, possibly illegal government spy program used to identify drug transactions
It's simply the latest in the series of stories that reveal the administration's mistaken belief that the 911 terrorists crashed into and destroyed the Constitution instead of the World Trade Center. This one has to do with secret investigations of international (and including domestic) financial transactions.
As reported in the Washington Post:
U.S. counterterrorism officials obtained the financial records from an international banking cooperative called the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications. SWIFT, as it is known, is owned and controlled by nearly 8,000 commercial banks in more than 20 countries that use its services.
SWIFT is headquartered in Brussels, but much of its operations are based in the United States, where knowledge of the government's secret access to its data was not widespread. Of officials at three large U.S. banks who agreed to speak about the program, only one said his institution had knowledge of it before yesterday.
Government officials have gone on the offensive since the program was revealed, saying that the safeguards were strict and that it was "responsible." That's all very nice, but in this country, we have this system of government that uses multiple branches checking up on each other, just to be on the safe side. Even that tends to be rather anemic in its protections, but to expect us to "just trust" one branch? That's outright stupidity.
Interestingly, while the program was to catch terrorists, that's not all they found...
When information appeared that indicated a non-terrorist crime, such as money laundering or drug trafficking, [Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey] said the source of the information was "sanitized" before it was passed to other law enforcement agencies.
That's right... "it was passed to other law enforcement agencies."
This goes against the notion that the program was specifically limited to terrorism. If they found other crimes, they didn't say "Oh, that's outside the parameters -- we'll have to forget about it." No, they passed it on without revealing that the information had come from a secret, probably illegal spy program.
And don't think that this is necessarily limited to going after the big fish. When you're conducting a program that involves scouring databases, there's all sorts of searches you can do. (For instance, what if they did a search of financial transactions between the U.S. and Canada of an amount close to what a package of marijuana seeds from Marc Emery might cost?) Paranoid? Maybe. But that's what happens when a branch of the government says "Trust me."
The thing is, the government already has a huge resource of tools for going after financial transactions. Judges will give them a warrant to search any financial information based on the flimsiest of suspicions. But even that is too much of a restriction for this administration. They're not interested in the hard (and effective) work of investigation. They're casting a wide net and trolling.
That's not only illegal and un-American, but ... it's unsportsmanlike.
2:44:52 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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More on Len Bias
Today's Washington Post has a good article by Eric E. Sterling and Julie Stewart: Undo This Legacy of Len Bias's Death.
One result was the innocuous-sounding Narcotics Penalties and Enforcement Act, which became the first element of the enormous Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, hurried to the floor a little over two months after Bias's death. But the effect of the penalties and enforcement legislation was to put back into federal law the kind of clumsy mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses that had been done away with 16 years before. And there they remain, 20 years and several hundred thousand defendants later.
For those who missed it, here's my article on Len Bias.
1:22:09 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Friday, June 23, 2006 |
I am a rabble-rouser!
... and proud of it.
It's an honor to be mentioned this way in this essay by Phillip S. Smith in the Drug War Chronicle"
On the eve of American independence, the colonies were awash with wild-eyed radicals taking pen to hand to denounce the latest iniquities of the British crown. Tom Paine is perhaps the best known of those colonial rabble-rousers; his pamphlet "Common Sense" was a clarion call to rebellion against the injustices of colonial rule. But he was by no means alone; Paine, in fact, was representative of a hands-on, egalitarian impulse that appeared early in American society, an impulse that cried out "I have something to say and every right to be heard!"
More than two centuries later, that impulse is alive and well -- at least when it comes to the war on drugs. There is something about the issue that excites people to have their say. Other public policy issues seem to attract less outrage and fewer grassroots efforts to articulate a critique. Where, for example, are the hordes of self-published authors jumping into print with autodidactic tomes on the politics of waste water management or the epidemiology of mumps?
Perhaps it is because the drug war and drug prohibition feels so fundamentally wrong to so many American idealists. You know them: The people who actually believe all that stuff they told us when we were kids. The people who believe America is about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The people who believe America is -- or should be -- a shining beacon of freedom. The people whose attitudes toward government in general and drug prohibition in particular could be summed up by the famous coiled snake flag of the Revolutionary War: "Don't tread on me."
These days, would-be pamphleteers have other options. They can take to the Internet and blog away, as do folks like Peter Guither at Drug War Rant, Radley Balko at The Agitator, or Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast. (The latter two sites are broader than drug policy). Or they can become part of the new breed of movement journalists, like rebel radioman Dean Becker of the Drug Truth Network, Richard Cowan of Marijuana News, Preston Peet of Drug War.com, or yours truly with Drug War Chronicle.
You might want to also check out the book reviews at the essay.
5:10:24 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Thursday, June 22, 2006 |
Nevada paper comes out for legalization
The rural Lahontan Valley News came out in favor of Nevada's marijuana legalization initiative
It's time to pass this multi-pronged approach to marijuana regulation and end years of speculation and fruitless debates.
What the initiative offers is a chance for voters to change a decades-long war on marijuana that has failed to curb its prevalence among Nevadans of all ages. Long compared to the country's failed prohibition of alcohol in the 1930s, current marijuana laws foster an illegal market. Nevadans who use marijuana legally for medicinal purposes are forced to grow their own or obtain it through illicit sources.
Detractors of the initiative argue that marijuana is a gateway drug that leads to use of more dangerous substances. But the same could be said of caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, gambling, sex or any other activity that stimulates the brain's pleasure zones.
Some of the above mentioned activities are legal and regulated in Nevada. In fact, the state's most powerful industry caters to those same visceral pleasures.
In a state where prostitution is legal in certain counties, bars are not required to close and children can legally possess and use tobacco, objections to marijuana legalization on a moral basis seem hypocritical. Education and parental involvement affect a person's decisions more profoundly than state policy.
Good stuff. And it caught the attention of the AP, which has been running a story about the editorial.
Kudos to Regulate Marijuana.org for their efforts so far.
[Thanks, Bill]
8:03:19 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Soares, a reform fighter who won't back down when criticized
Interesting article by Nathan Riley in the Gay City News about upstate New York District Attorney David Soares, who has made quite a bit of news lately.
The important point in this article is noting that here is a drug policy reform politician who stuck to his guns, despite the usual sound-bite attacks, and seems to have succeeded. It's a lesson for other politicians who believe in drug policy reform, Democrat or Republican -- there's no need to run from the fight.
7:02:03 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Bias' unintended legacy
I was beginning to despair as to whether any of the non-blog media would cover the real story about the aftermath of Len Bias' death, but a couple have come through.
Kevin Litten of the University of Maryland's Diamondback had contacted me about Len Bias, and I was able to steer him toward some alternate directions than what all the sports writers were doing. He managed to touch on the harsh mandatory minimums and got some good information from Eric Sterling, but neglected the racial implications.
The Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page did better. In Bias' unintended legacy: Basketball star's overdose hijacked by war on crack cocaine. Page repeats some of Dan Baum's description of the hysteria at the time, and comments both on the fact that the new laws especially targeted crack (despite Bias using powder) and how the result was racially disparate.
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Note: The drug czar's office didn't particularly distinguish itself with its (hopefully unintended) headline: Len Bias: A Stunning Death Remembered
7:35:35 AM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Wednesday, June 21, 2006 |
Interview with an author
I've started reading a novel with a refreshingly different perspective.
I've gotten used to, but still bothered by, the whole notion that the drug war is very popular subject material for fiction (books, movies, etc.). The typical approach is the evil drugs theme, with the good guys going after the drug dealers, and eventually prevailing because they didn't bother themselves with things like citizen rights. At the end, the bad guys are dead and the community is saved forever from the scourge of drugs. Hooray!
Hey, it's fiction, so I don't worry about it too much. But the complete lack of reality, of understanding how the drug war works, of the importance of the Constitution, sometimes gets a little tiring to me.
So I'm really looking forward to this one. "Condemned" by John Nicholas Iannuzzi -- a novel by a trial lawyer and adjunct professor of law who explicitly calls for the legalization of drugs.
I'll write more when I've had time to read it (don't hold me to a time limit -- I've got a number of projects in the works), but I wanted to share with you this interview with the author that came in the press kit from the publisher. Definitely got me interested in his book!
The Legalization of Drugs: An Interview with John Nicholas Iannuzzi
Q. Do you really think that legalizing drugs will eliminate drug trafficking?
A. Absolutely. You have to realize that there are two very distinct and very separate drug problems in our world. The first, and most pernicious, is drug trafficking. The other is drug addiction. It is the first, trafficking, that causes all the violence, corruption, smuggling, and vast sums of money being made by criminals. This is even more relevant now, being that Al Queda and terrorists in Afghanistan are involved in trafficking. Once legalized, where drugs can be controlled, as is alcohol, in state controlled stores, the vast profits will be eliminated. Without profits, the trafficking will stop overnight. No drug traffickers will bother to smuggle drugs if there shall be no profit. Once the trafficking is stopped, addiction will become a medical problem, treated as alcoholics are today.
Q. Are you in favor of all drugs being legalized?
A. Absolutely, all drugs, across the board. Otherwise, whatever drugs aren't legalized, shall encourage continued drug trafficking.
Q. Don't you think that that will lead to more, not less drug abuse.
A. First of all, we don't know how large our present drug addiction problem is because it has been criminalized; much of it is behind closed doors and underground. Once legal, addicts will come "out of the closet" and can be treated. If they don't care to be treated, if they don't care to get help, they can drug themselves privately at home, like a closet drinker. But at least trafficking shall have been eliminated and the addicts' substance abuse problems shall not endanger the whole of society as they do today.
Q. Where does the name of your novel, Condemned, come from?
A. From a quote from Santayana: "Those who fail to remember the past, are condemned to repeat it." We are in the midst of repeating what Franklin Roosevelt called the Stupendous Blunder of Prohibition. Laws that were intended to regulate and eliminate an allegedly evil substance, actually created an industry -- illegal alcohol -- which, in turn, brought forward Al Capone, the Valentine's Day massacre, illegality, and corruption in the same forms we now have as a result of prohibiting drugs.
Q. Do you really think the government can regulate drugs? How do you see this being done?
A. Absolutely. In the same manner the state governments regulate alcohol.
Q. You mean, you think the states will go into the drug business?
A. No, but they can license stores and outlets on a very strict basis, in the same fashion that they regulate alcohol.
Q. What about pilots in planes? Are you going to allow them to take drugs and then fly?
A. First of all, notice, you have already accepted the fact that legalization will eliminate trafficking, and are now asking questions about addiction. In connection with those questions, you can answer all of them yourself by thinking of how alcohol is sold or controlled. Do we allow pilots to drink and fly? No. Nor drivers of cars. Nor youngsters under the age of 21. However alcohol is regulated, that's the way drugs will be regulated.
Q. You keep talking about alcohol. Don't we have a lot of alcoholics?
A. Yes. But we don't have any rumrunners, or violence, or people worrying that the derelict on the corner is going to mug them to buy a pint of wine. Alcoholics exist. And they can be treated, not as criminals, but as a patients. People won't have to worry about being mugged or having their homes burglarized so that junkies can buy an expensi ve fix.
Q. So then your concept of eliminating drugs hasn't accomplished anything?
A. On the contrary. It isn't the addicts that cause the violence, corruption, the money laundering, the couriers, and the smuggling. That comes from the traffickers. They'd be eliminated.
Q. Are there any other benefits from legalization of drugs?
A. Absolutely. At the moment, our government, and governments around the world are spending untold billions to interdict and stop drug trafficking. That is a needless expense. Moreover, the profits from the drug business currently go to criminals and terrorists. If legalized, drugs will be a legitimate business, just like brewing beer or selling alcohol, run by large corporations who will be paying taxes, employing people, who, in turn, pay more taxes. In addition, half our jails will be empty. Corrections officers will not be necessary, or police personnel in undercover capacities, nor judges or lawyers dealing with drug cases. Today, half of our criminal justice system is involved with regulating drug traffickers. That will all be eliminated, and the tax dollars saved shall be used to better serve the community.
10:29:27 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Tuesday, June 20, 2006 |
Some must-read drug policy reform posts
I want to point out two absolutely amazing posts by friends of Drug WarRant. These are situations where they are taking on ignorance or emotional blockage of facts. In both cases, they faced an impossible challenge of cracking open a welded shut mind, but the quality of their debate is worth reading, and learning from, for its own sake.
 First, check out thehim (him of the wonderful drug war roundups at Kos) at Blog Reload, as he debates one of the Vigil for Lost Promise mothers in a series of emails.
What patience! What clear rational thought (his)!
Now we go over to Political Crossfire Forums, where someone at the forum was trying the old prohibitionist trick of faking the numbers to attempt to link drugs and violence. Brian Bennett came through with an outstandingly researched point by point rebuttal.
Check them out.
7:43:53 PM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Monday, June 19, 2006 |
Today, June 19, is the 20 year anniversary of the death of Len Bias, and there are hundreds of stories in the newspapers remembering him. They are stories of lost promise, of what might have been, of basketball and of individuals who have been influenced by the Len Bias legend.
But few even touch on the real story -- the fact that Len Bias's death triggered a (possibly unintentional) near-genocidal attack on the African American population in the United States. Or at the very least, the systematic disenfranchisement of African American males.
Surprised? Skeptical? Read on and see what you think.
7:13:55 AM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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Help us create a 2006 Drug Policy Voting Guide
Here's a great opportunity for everyone who reads this to get involved and make a contribution (without spending any money).
 Back in 2004, I worked on a voting guide based on drug policy issues and managed to complete guides for 19 states, but I ran out of time to collect the information for the rest. Yet even those 19 state guides seemed to reach a lot of people, based on the email I got (and the large number of google-related visits).
This year, I've put together a voting guide framework using a wiki (a website structure that allows any registered user to make changes and add information, similar to Wikipedia).
The easy address to get there is http://voting.drugwarrant.com
How it works
Register for a free account (you don't have to use your real name, but you do have to use an actual email address of some kind in order to complete your registration -- to prevent spammers). Then, when you're logged in, simply go to the state page you want to change, click on "edit," type your information, click on "save." That's all there is to it!
There are special ways of coding things in a wiki that are different from other web applications (for things like bold or italic, etc.), and that information is available there as well. But if you don't like dealing with that kind of thing, don't worry about it. Just type. Someone else will come along and "pretty it up."
Afraid of messing things up? Don't be. Each page keeps past versions, so even if you mistakenly delete the whole thing, we can fix it.
What to enter?
Eventually, we'd love to have as much drug-policy-related information as possible on every race for Governor, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House, along with relevant state-wide initiatives. Depending on the interest within a state, we could continue on to State Senate and State House races -- that's really up to those adding information.
In some cases, you may be particularly interested in a single race (maybe because you're working on it) -- and that may be all that you enter. Or you may want to take on a state and start working on getting information entered. Or take a state that somone else started and expand on it.
There are lots of good sources of information that you can use. Vote-Smart.org provides detailed information on the candidates in each race, starting with who's running (just getting that info entered is a huge help). Over the next few months, they will also be encouraging candidates to fill out position surveys on a variety of topics. The Senate and House candidate survey includes the following statements and asks if the candidate supports the statement:
- Reduce prison sentences for those who commit non-violent crimes.
- Support mandatory jail sentences for selling illegal drugs.
- Expand federally sponsored drug education and drug treatment programs.
- Decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana.
- Allow doctors to recommend marijuana to their patients for medicinal purposes.
- Increase border security to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.
- Eliminate federal funding for programs associated with the "war on drugs."
- Increase financial support to Colombia to combat "the war on drugs."
Those surveys should be helpful once they're available.
Additionally, at the voting guide, we have some other sources of information, such as the Drug Policy Alliance 2005 Voter Guide (which lists how House members voted on specific bills or amendments). And of course, if you're ambitious, you can use old-fashioned sleuthing -- everything from reading their web-sites to calling their office -- to get more information.
Finally, if even typing the information in the wiki is confusing, or you'd rather not register, feel free to email information to: voting@drugwarrant.net
We've got a little over 4 months to put together some useful information for voters. After all, when it comes to the drug war, we already know that the voters are ahead of the politicians. Let's give them the information they need to put the politicians on notice.
6:44:52 AM | drug policy | Links | permalink |
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