Monday, December 17, 2007

Odds and Ends Tom Angell has been looking over the big appropriations bill in Congress. Here's what he's found so far (of course, this could still change). Drug Czar's "anti-drug" ad budget is being slashed down to $60 million next year (down from $99 mil this year and considerably less than the President's 2008 request of $130 mil). DC is now allowed to spend its own money on needle exchange (but is still barred from spending federal funds on the practice). DC is still barred from implementing the medical marijuana initiative passed by voters in 1998. ONDCP and other federal agencies are banned from producing video news releases ("prepackaged news stories") unless they are clearly labeled as being prepared or funded by that agency (ONDCP got into a lot of trouble a few years ago for putting out "covert propaganda" (GAO's term) in this form). Random student drug testing is funded at $10.8 million. Thanks, Tom! Dutch Police Insist on Smoking Marijuana Off-Duty via Scott Morgan. Mark Kleiman talks about drugs on bloggingheads.tv Send the Right Message has Presidential Candidates report cards. An enjoyable read and a blast from history: Bill and Hillary's Hippie Daze It was, after all, 1971. It was, after all, Berkeley California. If the Clintons, during their first prolonged cohabitation, were at all "normal" for the time their evenings at home would have consisted of rolling a fat doobie, probably three or four; whipping up some chicken curry smoking a fat doobie; getting some dim candles going along with a stick of incense putting on a tried and true series of records; and hopping into bed and, as we said then, "balling" until they passed out. War on Drugs has unlikely foe As a friend of presidents and hobnobber with governors, David Fleming makes an unlikely insurgent against the War on Drugs. He's been dubbed by a local business weekly as "The Valley's Most Powerful Person," chairs the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and doles out dollars to charity by the millions. He works for one of the world's largest law firms. He can preach for hours about business tax, government reform and transportation. With his immaculate white shirts, slicked-back hair and easy familiarity with powerful people, Fleming embodies The Man. [...] The Man, a registered Republican and consummate insider, thinks the drug war is "stupid." 9:39:15 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Word of the Day: Fungible noun: 1. Something that is exchangeable or substitutable. In an interesting article in yesterday's Chicago Tribune about the fear-mongering over the retroactivity regarding the slight reduction in crack cocaine sentencing, this caught my attention: [Federal judge Ruben] Castillo, who helped build large-scale drug prosecutions in the Chicago U.S. attorney's office in the 1980s, says the commission's vote is recognition that the current strategy in the war on drugs is flawed. Twenty years ago, Castillo said, "we were going after the right defendants." Now, he complains that his docket overflows with low-level street dealers. "These people are very fungible," he said. "They're replaced the very next day by someone else with no criminal background. ... We're not making a dent." Fungibility - another reason the drug war doesn't work. 8:48:23 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []