Tuesday, February 10, 2009

New drug czar? What do we know about Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske? Update: Lots of good stuff in comments. The early consensus seems to be that he won't be a friend to drug policy reform, but he's less likely to be the kind of sadomoralist that we've had (he's certainly no John Walters). The Seattle experience is certainly a plus -- home of hempfest and Norm Stamper, and just a little bit down the road from Vancouver. I know a number of people from Seattle and it seems to have a good vibe -- maybe some of that rubbed off on him. The fact of the matter is that the Drug Czar can't be a reformer as currently constituted. He's required by law to lie, remember? But what I'm most interested in is what the new drug czar might not do. It would be nice if he didn't show up at state legislatures trying to prevent them from passing state laws regarding medical marijuana or decriminalization. It would be nice if he didn't go out of his way to lie to the press all the time about marijuana. It would be nice if he didn't travel around the country acting as an advance salesman for drug testing companies. These are things that a new drug czar could legitimately fail to do. And that would be a good thing. [Thanks, itsMeDave] Further Update: NORML's Daily Stash interviewed former Seattle Police Chief (and LEAP member) Norm Stamper today about Gil Kerlikowske as drug czar. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. 11:47:56 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Republicans in Illinois still can't buy a clue It's so sad to be in a state where the Democrats have to be both the party in charge and the opposition party at the same time (It was the Democrats who impeached our Democratic governor). Unfortunately, the rules make it very difficult for Libertarians to get on the ballot, and the state Republican party is startlingly pathetic (this is the brain-trust who ran carpet-bagger Alan Keyes against Barack Obama for the Senate after briefly considering Andrea Barthwell). Illinois Review is a joke and now we learn the brilliance of the Illinois Republican Liberty Caucus. They tried to attack Radley Balko today. Twice. The First time was because Radley found it odd that they would use the words "child porno" when discussing an attorney who had represented clients like Playboy. Their intelligent attack on Radley was something along the lines of "Oh, yeah? Well child pornography is illegal. So there." They they decided that they had him for lying on his bio -- he said that he wrote a bi-weekly column for Foxnews.com and they claimed he was lying because they could only find two columns under his name at forbes.com! The RLC took down that post once they realized the extent of their stupidity. Note: This really has nothing to do with drug policy, but you don't attack Radley for no reason and get away with it around here. Update: It gets even more deliciously absurd. In their first attack on Balko, they showed a picture of him, but they hotlinked to it from his site (a completely boneheaded move since they were stealing his bandwidth and he controls what's on his own site). So he simply switched the image for this one (scroll down), and now the RLC is accusing him of hacking their site! What morons! OK, I take it back -- the Republican Party in Illinois is clueless, but this circus from the Illinois RLC is beyond clueless, and it's unfair to the Illinois Republican Party for me to link the RLC to them. 6:53:02 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

The Phelps Bust Strategy I've been trying to figure out the whole nonsense of Sheriff Lott trying to go after Michael Phelps for "breaking the law." I'm no lawyer, and I don't know much about South Carolina laws. Going into today, here's what Sheriff Lott's case looked like to me: Picture of Michael putting his lips on a long plastic tube. Implies a lot, but proves nothing. Statement by Michael admitting that was him in the picture and apologizing for inappropriate behavior, but never actually mentioning pot. Implies a lot, but proves nothing. Based on that evidence, I assume that any competent attorney could get the case thrown out of court without even getting out of bed. (That is true, isn't it?) After today's revelations, however, it seems to me that Lott has a different idea: Go after every college student in the area who might have been at the party, catch them with some pot, and then throw the book at them unless they turn against Phelps. He probably figures he can scare them all into testifying that they were having an innocent monopoly party until Phelps showed up with his pound of dope and started filling bongs and selling it to people. (That's the way the drug war works, don't you know?) Now, instead of a meaningless picture and statement, they'd have a parade of snitch testimony. Pretty sick, but it starts looking like a possible prosecution (assuming that the DA would want to touch a case like that). Everyone would know that it was a put-up job. And getting a jury that didn't already have an opinion on the case? Tricky. Of course, they may assume that Michael would plead to avoid the negative publicity. But a guilty plea might hurt him as much with sponsors as the publicity, so it's hard to say which way it would go. Anyway you look at it, this is just plain stupid. Update: Norm Kent over at NORML does some of the same speculation that I do, except that he's smarter than me and knows more. Also, there is some question about how solid some of the information is on this case. The arrests and bong seizure reported by WIS-TV have not been confirmed by law enforcement. 4:19:36 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

8 arrested in Michael Phelps case Holy crap. Sheriff Lott is certifiable. Lott says the picture indicated a law was being broken in his jurisdiction. He said he couldn't ignore the violation just because Phelps is rich and famous. We've now learned that since investigators began trying to build a case, they've made eight arrests: seven for drug possession and one for distribution. These are arrests that resulted as the sheriff's department served search warrants. We've also learned that the department has located and confiscated that bong. [thanks, Tom] 10:39:02 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

A discussion about drug policy? In a newspaper? The Nashua Telegraph (NH) actually has a significant discussion going on in the paper about marijuana (and other drugs) -- they even have a resource page for all the articles in the Pot Debate. It attempts to cover all sides, from drug warrior law enforcement, to LEAP, to addicts, to readers, etc. The paper seems to recognize that people are ready to have a discussion. And want it. I think more media could benefit from this realization. Here are a few articles in the past couple of days, put together by staff writer Kathleen Palmer. Police blame drugs for many crimes A Brief History on the War on Drugs Marijuana as gateway drug - is it still one? Was it ever? Debate goes on at recovery talk Readers sound off online on marijuana There isn't a whole lot that's particularly new here. Still it's great that it's happening. I couldn't leave this series, though, without poking a little bit of fun at Lt. James Sartell of the Hollis Police Department (from the "Police blame drugs for many crimes" article): Sartell says marijuana can cause "cognitive distortion," leading to a justification of illegal or immoral activities, which in turn allows the user to commit crimes such as burglary or theft in order to feed subsequent drug buys. "That's one of the main 'gateway' aspects of pot," he said. People keep coming up with new ways to use the word "gateway" in conjunction with pot, but this one surprised even me. In my experience, the only illegal activity that the "cognitive distortion" of pot leads to is... smoking more pot. However, the cognitive distortion involved in being a drug warrior is definitely likely to lead to immoral activities (and often even some illegal ones), so maybe that's a gateway effect? Sartell has more to share. "You deal with little problems before they escalate into big ones. The kid that tortures animals grows up to be violent to people. The kid that smashes mailboxes escalates to more serious vandalism. It's the same with the War on Drugs." Apparently pot smoking is like torturing animals and smashing mailboxes. 9:36:30 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []