Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Plan Mexico draws suspicion Apparently, the secrecy in the development of Plan Mexico is threatening to give it a bumpy ride... "There is worry about what it means to our sovereignty," said Juan-Francisco Rivera, chairman of the Public Security Committee in Mexico lower house of Congress. "We need to first understand what this project is about." [...] "Congress was not consulted as the plan was developed," said Rep. Eliot L. Engel, D-N.Y., the chairman of a House Foreign Relations subcommittee holding hearings Thursday on the plan. "This is not a good way to kick off such an important effort." Mexican lawmakers also fumed. "The Mexican Congress isn't participating in this," said Cuauhtemoc Sandoval of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, a ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee in Mexico's lower house. "The plan worries us." [...] The leftist La Jornada of Mexico City declared in an editorial Tuesday that there exists precedents of the U.S. tendency to use such bilateral cooperation as a cover for espionage and diplomatic blackmail. Hmmm.... Not that I think there's a chance that it'll be stopped, but perhaps there will at least be some hard questioning first. The taxpayers deserve a little conversation before they get screwed. Interesting side note. More and more, other countries are getting suspicious of drug war "support" from the United States. Ecuador wants military base in Miami Correa has refused to renew Washington's lease on the Manta air base, set to expire in 2009. U.S. officials say it is vital for counter-narcotics surveillance operations on Pacific drug-running routes. "We'll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami -- an Ecuadorean base," Correa said in an interview during a trip to Italy. "If there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil, surely they'll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States." [...] Correa, a popular leftist economist, had promised to cut off his arm before extending the lease that ends in 2009 and has called U.S. President George W. Bush a "dimwit". Reminiscent of Venezuela kicking out the DEA... "The day that the DEA allows us to open up a floor in the DEA's building [in the U.S.], where only Venezuelans are allowed to enter, we will allow them to open a floor where only North-Americans are allowed to enter into Conacuid, in the meantime no," added Chacon. 10:54:29 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Open Thread Missoula to enforce lowest priority measure: Nearly a year after voters made the Garden City a little greener by asking county law enforcement to ignore adult marijuana offenses, Missoula's top prosecutor has adopted an official policy to uphold the referendum. "In the interest of compliance with the 2006 voter initiative on marijuana . we are asking law enforcement officers to stop arresting individuals or writing and submitting tickets ( with mandatory appearance dates ) where the offense committed is solely possession of marijuana in misdemeanor amounts or possession of drug paraphernalia intended for use of marijuana," according to a draft of the policy by Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg, an outspoken opponent of the measure. Van Valkenburg's policy also instructs deputy prosecutors to charge misdemeanor marijuana cases on a lowest-priority basis when marijuana is the sole offense Nice to see a prosecutor who is willing to follow the law. A report on a government operation to demonstrate to High School students that American have no rights. On the morning of Friday, October 12, 2007, Steinert High School in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, was flooded by police with five drug-sniffing dogs accompanied by a prosecutor and school officials. The whole student body was arrested by being detained in various classrooms and forced to wait while the search of their lockers verified that each student was innocent of drug possession. Every locker got searched. And every student was under technical arrest until cleared of drug possession, approaching unlawful imprisonment. The school sent us a letter home with our son saying it was a "...pre-planned search of student lockers using trained narcotics detections dogs." It continued, "As per our ongoing protocol of ensuring a safe and orderly drug-free environment...this search was a component of our program to deter illegal activity." There was no reasonable suspicion of any drug activity. It seems that this search was itself an illegal activity because it was a warrantless dragnet, pure and simple. Guess how much drugs they found? I wonder how they teach the Political Science in that school? Maybe like abstinence-only sex and drug education, they teach from a heavily redacted Constitution. At another High School, a student who understands rights has written a short play based on a famous Supreme Court case. "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," written and directed by junior James Dennin, is a dialogue between a student and a principal over the freedom of speech, inspired by the Supreme Court case Frederick v. Morse. [...] "The ruling raised the question of, to what extent do students have rights," said Dennin. Alex at Drug Law Blog expresses one of my pet peeves What he's saying is A drug has the potential to harm people. Therefore, the use of the drug should be against the law. This is pretty much the standard analysis of most folks in law enforcement, not only around salvia but around all recreational drug use. But how do we get from 1 to 2? Yes, it's a variation on the Underpants Gnome syndrome. And it's extremely pervasive in this country on both the right and the left. Nice piece by LEAP's Jerry Cameron: Praise for Restoring a Life 10:50:05 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Local note I will be leading a round-table discussion on current events in the drug war at the regular weekly meeting of the Illinois State University chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 8 pm in Schroeder Hall, room 114. 8:04:56 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Bush says 'support the troops; send money to Mexico' Fun with money... The State Department is requesting $550 million to combat drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America [...] "We must provide our troops with the help and support they need to get the job done," Bush said. "Parts of this war are complicated, but one part is not, and that is America should do what it takes to support our troops and protect our people." Confused? It's just business as usual in Washington. Bush has put the Mexico drug war money in with the massive request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You see, as soon as it's part of the "support the troops" money, it's free! Nobody questions it. Nobody asks how we can afford it. Nobody holds hearings*. To do so is to face the "you don't support the troops" inquisition. So anything thrown into this pot of money -- like funding mercenaries in Mexico -- is... free. (Of course, we still have to pay for it.) *(This would normally be the case with a war spending bill. But in fact, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs actually is holding a hearing: U.S. Security Assistance to Mexico on Thursday.) 12:23:05 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []