Thursday, February 21, 2008

Open Thread Vin Suprynowicz ridicules New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's drug tax proposal, and concludes: Ending the de facto tax exemption for this multi billion-dollar commerce may indeed make some budgetary sense -- with the added side benefits of removing it from the control of the criminal class and thus lowering prices, while restoring some vendor accountability for weight and purity. The best way to do that, of course, would be to simply re-legalize the commerce. (Surely no one will contend, today, that prohibition has ended it.) By the way, I'm doing pretty well with my new drug tax stamp collection. So far, I have stamps from Utah, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Louisisana, Alabama, South Carolina, and Kentucky. The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is slammed by the International Harm Reduction Association for being overly secretive. [When I was at the conference in New Orleans, it was interesting to hear international reformers -- whenever the INCB was mentioned, there was a palpable level of disgust.] Drug War Chronicle is out early this week... 8:52:14 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Looking for an Attorney General When considering a new President (mmm, that sounds good after seven years), there's more to ponder than just what the candidates claim as their positions on issues. Often, just as important is who they will choose for certain top jobs. We tend to think about things like Drug Czar and DEA head, but another position could be more critical -- Attorney General. It is the Attorney General (within the policy structure of the administration) who will determine whether the feds are prosecuting medical marijuana patients, or going after small-time crack offenders, or using federal prosecution as a means of bypassing state laws regarding asset forfeiture so that police can keep a portion of their looting. And, of course, it is the AG who will have a major hand in whether the government will respect the rights of the individual. After a string of disastrous Attorneys General, I'm hoping for... sanity. Oh, and maybe, I don't know, just a little bit of respect for the Constitution... Too much to hope for? Over at The Reality-Based Community, Jonathan Zasloff and Jonathan Kulick have been considering likely candidates: John McCain: Rudy Giuliani Barack Obama: John Edwards I'm not thrilled with either option (although the first hit me with a kind of flesh-crawling repugnancy). If forced to choose, however, it's a no-brainer: Giulini has made a career out of stepping on the individual, while Edwards has made a career out of going after the corporation. From the perspective of hoping to lessen the excesses of federal drug war prosecution, Edwards is clearly the better hope of the two. And during this campaign, Edwards did take a step toward a little more drug war realism. Still, I'd like to think there were better options. Any thoughts? 8:37:13 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []