Monday, January 7, 2008

When nothing else would do, I could turn to my friend Mary Jane Just go and read it: What My Cancer Taught Me About Marijuana by Diana Wagman 10:37:37 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

More on Tarika Wilson The Toledo Blade is continuing to do excellent work on covering the death of Tarika Wilson, who was shot twice by SWAT officers (see yesterday's post). Community leaders are calling for calm, but not demanding answers, and are indicating that they will not rest until proper investigations occur. And there's a very strong racial factor in the case. Lima police long have targeted African-Americans, such as holding youths face down on the ground and pointing guns at them and then claiming they had the wrong group, alleged Councilman Tommy Pitts, chairman of council's safety services committee. "This comes as no surprise to me," he said about the shooting. The investigation has been turned over to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, where some tough questions will have to be answered. Ms. Jennings said her daughter was shot upstairs while with the children, and she wants to know what in that bedroom threatened the police officer who shot Ms. Wilson and Sincere. Here's another little telling bit: Questions about the raid continued to swirl around Lima, with Councilman Glenn protesting the way police treated him as both a city official and landlord. As owner of the house Ms. Wilson rented without incident for a year, Mr. Glenn said he should have been notified that police suspected drug activity there and maybe he could've helped. Mayor David Berger said landlords are not notified about such investigations. Well, I think Glenn has a very important point -- the only one I've seen so far in this case that has raised the question specifically about finding alternative means rather than using SWAT teams on drug cases. Why aren't other options considered? Why does it always have to be about the big bust? That's the question that really needs to be addressed. (Aside from the obvious one, to us, about eliminating the drug war that causes all this violence and death.) Update: More from the Lima News. Also, (via Radley), here is Lima, Ohio's SWAT website. Watch out! 8:24:35 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Marc Emery and national sovereignty Colby Cosh has an good OpEd on the Marc Emery extradition trial that will begin on January 21 in Canada. ...where ideas of justice are expressed in such a different manner as they are on a point like this -- where the people of two countries so plainly disagree about what is right -- co-operation is tantamount to a surrender of values. The article also references Karen Selick's open letter to Canada's Minister of Justice. Lee apparently plans on covering the Marc Emery story in detail. 8:14:15 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []