Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Celebrating Failure Day 2007 Yes, it's that time of year again. One more reminder. Tomorrow is National D.A.R.E. Day, 2007 As proclaimed by President George W. Bush. One nice note in this proclamation.... The President said: I ... call upon all Americans ... to support all those who work to help our children avoid drug use and violence. Since the best way to help children avoid drug use and violence is to legalize and regulate drugs, the President is saying that Americans should support... drug policy reformers. So while the drug warriors celebrate their failure tomorrow, take a moment to celebrate your own support for the future of reform. Dare to make a change. Dare to make a difference. Dare to imagine a drug-war-free America. 9:15:34 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Pushing back with statistics Every so often, the Drug Czar's "blog" like to justify its existence by bragging about how many "hits" it's received. My previous critiques here and here) apparently touched a nerve, because this time they included page view numbers. They claim that in March they received a record 139,000 page views. Now that's a significant number. Drug WarRant gets a very respectable 15,000 page views per week, so that would mean that Pushing Back gets more than twice as much. Now, far be it from me to accuse the drug czar of lying about this, but it does make me wonder just who is reading his blog? Generally, if there's a site getting a lot of visitors, there's a strong network of links to it driving business, so I checked link:pushingback.com at google. In my informal analysis of the links that came up (and not expanding to similar pages), I counted seven links from drug policy reform sites, one from a non-drug policy site that was demonstrating how absurd the ONDCP is, six links from some kind of mention relating to an ONDCP press release in a news-related site, one link from a drug prevention site, and 16 links from sites owned by the White House. Of course, when it comes to blog links, it's almost entirely from our side. So all I can figure from this is that the ONDCP is thanking us for sending so many people to laugh at them. Either that, or a lot of government employees are clicking on links over and over. Of course, I don't mind if people read pushingback.com. I link to them on a regular basis. The truth isn't afraid of people seeing all sides. The more knowledgeable people are, the more they support drug policy reform. 8:54:06 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Serve and Protect? At the Rocky Mountain News: Legal Pot Activists Angry at Police At LEAP: Heartless Feds, Apparently Heartless City Cops, Too ...two years ago Denver voters approved a city ordinance that allows possession of less than one ounce of marijuana for personal use by persons 21 years of age or older. The measure was approved by 54% of the voters. Last fall, 55% of Denver voters approved a similar measure for state law, but state-wide the measure failed. Since then, Denver Police Department's arrest rate for marijuana of people 21 or older has increased - nearly 25%! DPD is going around the city ordinance and citing people with the state statute. This is disturbing on a number of levels. More and more we're seeing police forces acting as though the wishes and laws of their local communities can be ignored at will. And this is an attitude that has been actively cultivated by the federal government, through drug task forces, asset forfeiture kickbacks and more. There are serious long-term implications. Decentralized police functions are essential to a free society. Police must feel that they are members of, and accountable to, their local communities. A nationalized police force has less connection to the community and so the community's welfare becomes less important than the goals set by the police. The weakening abuse of the original intent of the Commerce Clause has extended the reach of the federal "police" to the point of micro-policing (this seizure by the feds of less than an ounce from a legal medical marijuana patient in Montana is just one example). And at the same time they have used tons of incentives to convince local police entities to transfer local authority to state or federal... influence. Do these look like neighbors to whom you'd turn for help? (from a local task force poster in my community) 1:51:33 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []