Scores of pub-goers in Bicester were tested for traces of illegal drugs during a police operation aimed at tackling violent street crime.
Police used the force's new drugs itemiser - which scans people for traces of banned substances - at the Litten Tree pub.
It was the first time the new technology, which detects traces of drugs from heroin to cannabis, had been used in the town.
An operation aimed at tackling violent street crime is attempting to identify people who may have come in contact with marijuana. As they enter a pub. I think my head may explode.
The pub managers barred anyone refusing to co-operate with the test from entering.
Det Sgt Steve Duffy, of Banbury CID, said two people tested positive and were searched but not found to be in possession of drugs.
The pair were then banned from entering the pub, but not arrested.
Mr Duffy said: "It went very well. We gained the full co-operation of the management and the customers.
"Everyone was very supportive and compliant."
I don't know where Bicester is, but clearly its residents
Via To the People...
We've had discussions here about the various problems and potential solutions in Afghanistan -- about how eradication efforts just send the local population into the arms of the Taliban, and how the idea of chemical fumigation is anathema to the local population.
Well, FOX news' own Colonel David Hunt has another idea:
These fields are miles and miles long and wide. We should bomb them, blow them up, set up an artillery and motor training range and blow the opium off the planet.
Brilliant. That'll help get them on our side.
And then in the resulting bomb cratered farm lands, the natives will grow flowers to throw at our feet.
So yesterday, I asked if we can make a TV ad. And, of course, talked about YouTube viral marketing. Well, it only took one day and we've got our first YouTube ad courtesy of Alex
Between work and rehearsals every evening, I haven't had as much time to devote to Drug WarRant this week as I'd like.
But on a personal note, I'm having a blast as musical director and keyboard player for what will be a fantastic production of "The Who's Tommy" by Pete Townshend. We're doing it as a cross between a rock concert and a musical, with the band on stage and featured on a raised platform that sometimes moves downstage to the audience and with trusses of rock concert lighting. The band I'm leading is fabulous -- two guitars, bass, drums, two keyboards, and french horn -- a bunch of incredibly hard-working and talented young people, who really get the music.
If you're in the area (Bloomington-Normal, Illinois), check it out. October 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13 at 7:30 p.m.; October 7 & 14 at 2:00 p.m. Tickets available at TicketMaster.
Bill Maher asks Dodd for a good reason why marijuana should be illegal
Dodd steps up, and while stopping short of legalization, calls for allowing states rights for medical marijuana, decriminalizing recreational marijuana, and fixing crack/powder disparities.
There's been some good discussion in comments about the power of television ads and the possibility of running some for drug policy reform. I've always liked the idea (even though I have no money to actually run any), so...
Why don't we come up with some ideas, so we're ready (in case I win the lottery)?
What kind of TV ad would you create?
The idea, of course, is not without some potential problems. After all, if the United Church of Christ can have this ad rejected by the networks for being too controversial and if networks who regularly sell sex are unwilling to run this ad, then I imagine there would be some serious resistance to ads promoting drug policy reform.
However, there is also another outlet -- one that requires a very small budget and over which the networks have no control. Youtube.
The viral marketing of youtube can be extremely powerful and reach a lot of people. I know a few students who have produced some excellent videos for that medium, and I'd be willing to bet that there are ranks of talented SSDP'ers that have the skills needed.
Whenever Maia Szalavitz has a new article about the drug war, I have come to expect brilliance, and today's is no exception: Increasing Agony, Not Fighting Addiction
Think about it: we have the ability to ease the pain of the dying, even when we can't treat their illnesses or injuries, for pennies a day. But we don't do so -- in fact, we directly prohibit them from getting these medicines -- because we are afraid that either we will addict the dying or that addicts will somehow get access to this medicine somewhere along the supply line.
What kind of insanity is this? If you are dying, what does it matter if you are physically dependent on a drug? What does it matter, even, if you develop a compulsive desire for more of it? And why should people who live with painful conditions that will not kill them suffer, either, for that matter? We are so misguided in our thinking about addiction that we prefer people to live and die in unspeakable agony rather than risk them having a bit of extra euphoria!
I've been a big fan of LEAP's Jack Cole, so this feature on him in the Guardian Unlimited was a delightful read: Badge of honour by Alexandra Topping
Cole's voice drops: "The undercover cop would stand watching the guys file past so they would know you had evidence against them, and wouldn't bother pleading not guilty." But when the good Samaritan walked by, he looked Cole in the eye and said: "Man, I was just trying to be your friend." Cole's voice falters. "I realised then that we were sending the wrong people to jail, and it had to stop. How many of those young folks would have gone on to have a perfectly productive life had I not intervened?
The third piece of reading was in the Politico, and I hadn't noticed the byline before reading it. I was really impressed with the piece and had to know... Of course, it was Radley Balko: Federalism should extend to marijuana raids
It's difficult to understand how the same party that (correctly, in my view) argues that the federal government has no business telling the states how they should regulate their businesses, set their speed limits, keep their air and water free of pollution or regulate the sale of firearms within their borders can at the same time feel that the federal government can and should tell states that they aren't allowed to let sick people obtain relief wherever they might find it.
O'Donnell, now 44, was a dynamo in a wheelchair, lobbying at the State House for marijuana to be made legal for the chronically ill in Rhode Island. Her son Tom Angell had brainstormed the idea with a friend in his dorm room at the University of Rhode Island. Angell, who was president of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy at the time, had heard a speaker hosted by the group whose wife used marijuana to relieve her pain. He thought about his mother.
Tom -- don't you know that kids in dorm rooms are supposed to be smoking pot -- not plotting to overthrow the government and help sick people?
Another interesting moment in the article is this DEA comment:
Anthony Pettigrew, agent for the New England field office of the DEA, said that while marijuana possession is against federal law, "the DEA never targets the sick and dying." The agency is more interested in organized drug traffickers, Pettigrew said. "I've been here for 22 years," he said, and "realistically, I've never seen anyone go to federal jail for possessing a joint."
If DEA won't arrest patients and state police can't arrest patients, then medical marijuana laws work very well. [...]
It doesn't matter whether DEA's policy of not arresting patients is motivated by compassion, political sensibilities, funding constraints, or some combination thereof. The fact of the matter is that state laws are effective at protecting medical marijuana users from prosecution, which is their intended purpose.
And that's true, with one caveat. The trick is, of course, that possessing one joint doesn't solve the supply problem, and the point at which the amount you're needing to grow or buy or have grown for you reaches the level of drug trafficking may be (and is) defined differently by patients, state laws, and the DEA -- problem that could be easily solved by simply allowing marijuana to be regulated.
Diego Montoya, a reputed major Colombian drug trafficker and mass murderer was captured yesterday.
If what he is accused of is true, then I join the drug czar in celebrating his arrest.
However, unlike the drug czar, I understand that it is United States drug policy that created the conditions for a Diego Montoya to emerge and that the same drug policy will create a vacuum after his capture that will encourage the development of future Diego Montoyas.
And, as Alex says, why are we giving Diego Montoya the power to be the FDA of recreational drugs?
I've always been pretty big Doonesbury fan, and have recently found myself pulling out some of the old books of strips from the early years. And I also happened upon a Knight Lecture talk given by Garry Trudeau at Stanford University in March, 2000 titled "What a Long, Strange Strip It's Been" -- now available for free on iTunes. Quite delightful.
Here's a little piece of it...
Given the sea change in attitudes, it seems even to me, quite incredible that I could have depicted a culture so tolerant of recreational drugs, but in fact that was our reality. That tolerance, which is now largely forgotten, is what has made the past so haunting and difficult for baby boom politicians when confronted with queries about past behaviors.
As you know, most public figures have used the budding scientist defense -- the claim that they were engaged in experimentation. Thus when President Clinton finally came clean, it was only to admit that he too had been bitten by the research bug, but had been plagued by flawed methodology.
Many other public figures have used this approach, from Al Gore, to Newt Gingrich to Mustang Sally - Susan Molinari, but all of them have adhered to the confessional guidelines laid down during the Ginsburg Supreme Court hearings.
Judge Douglas Ginsburg, you may recall, conducted his experiments while he was law school professor, at which exalted station one is expected to have already concluded one's benchwork and re-joined one's better senses. Having forfeited the youthful indiscretion defense, Ginsburg was toast.
In contrast, Justice Clarence Thomas, another confessed lab rat, wrapped up his experiments by senior year, so he now occupies the chair that would have been occupied by Justice Souter had Judge Ginsburg completed his experiments in a more timely fashion. The irony, of course, being that Justice Souter, who didn't conduct any experiments at all, is the only one of the three who probably could have benefitted from them. [...]
How refreshing it would be to hear a baby boom Congressman step up and say "Hey, I don't remember my Freshman year. Get over it."
The fact is an estimated 80 million of our countrymen have used Cannabis to date. At one time such unlikely sources as Jimmy Carter, and Dan Quail, and Richard Nixon's Marijuana Commission all favored decriminalizing the stuff, but since the early 80's nearly 5 million people have been arrested for marijuana-related offenses.
One of the weirder outcomes of the drug war is that much of America has to behave like the criminals they technically are. They have to lie. A lot. Job applications, medical forms, insurance forms, recruitment papers, all of them are opportunities to deny "youthful indiscretion."
So. Would I ever admit to using pot? Of course not. I never experimented with marijuana. Nor did I every drive a motorcycle, or have an alcoholic beverage until my 21st birthday, or have a sexual experience of any kind until well into my third year of marriage.
Like millions of others in the world's poorest countries, she is destined to die in pain. She cannot get the drug she needs -- one that is cheap, effective, perfectly legal for medical uses under treaties signed by virtually every country, made in large quantities, and has been around since Hippocrates praised its source, the opium poppy. She cannot get morphine.
That is not merely because of her poverty, or that of Sierra Leone. Narcotics incite fear: doctors fear addicting patients, and law enforcement officials fear drug crime. Often, the government elite who can afford medicine for themselves are indifferent to the sufferings of the poor.
The World Health Organization estimates that 4.8 million people a year with moderate to severe cancer pain receive no appropriate treatment. Nor do another 1.4 million with late-stage AIDS. For other causes of lingering pain -- burns, car accidents, gunshots, diabetic nerve damage, sickle-cell disease and so on -- it issues no estimates but believes that millions go untreated.
Pain is dangerously under-treated in the United States, and yet...
In 2004, consumption of morphine per person in the United States was about 17,000 times that in Sierra Leone.
What kind of sick, sadistic drug policy would spend billions of dollars and countless lives to eradicate useful drugs, while doing nothing to help those in pain?
(AP) BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia's vice president said Sunday that a U.S.-backed program to fumigate coca fields is failing to stem cocaine trafficking and called for anti-drug efforts to shift away from the practice.
Narcotics officers and recovering addicts alike agree that drug-related crimes like murders, thefts, rapes and domestic violence will plague local communities until an end comes to the war on drugs.
Whenever Maia Szalavitz has a new article about the drug war, I have come to expect brilliance, and today's is no exception: 
