Stuff to read

“bullet” King County Bar Association (Seattle) Calls for Legal, Regulated Drug Markets

In a resolution adopted Wednesday, the King County Bar Association (Seattle) has declared war on prohibition. The KCBA called for “a new framework of state-level regulatory control over psychoactive substances, intended to render the illegal markets for such substances unprofitable, to restrict access to psychoactive substances by young persons and to provide prompt health care and essential services to persons suffering from chemical dependency and addiction, will better serve the objectives of reducing crime, improving public order, enhancing public health, protecting children and wisely using scarce public resources, than current drug policies.”

“bullet” Radley Balko: Drug War Shrinking Bill of Rights. Great piece by Radley as always (and one of my huge pet topics), but Alaskablawg has an interesting point. Personally, I think they’re both right. There is a two-tiered system, and the drug war has been eroding rights across the board. (For example, I loved how Ashcroft, et al, said he needed tools to fight terrorism that were already available to fight the drug war — then when he got them, they got used to increase the ammo in the drug war.)
“bullet” Also at Fox News, Marijuana Lobby Grows in Sophistication. It’s an interesting piece from the standpoint of talking about some of the reform efforts, but it’s badly flawed. The article treats marijuana reform as almost entirely a “marijuana rights” movement, without considering the anti-prohibition, anti-drug war aspects.
“bullet” Some others have already discussed this lame-brained scheme to drug test all elected officials in the state of New Mexico. While it’s fun to think of it in terms of putting the shoe on the other foot, drug testing is still a bad idea. This bill is unlikely to go anywhere, because forcing elected officials to pass a drug test has been declared unconstitutional, and I doubt that their “out” of allowing an official to refuse with a published letter will save it. I’m hoping the day will come when we can drive most of the drug testing companies out of business. I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to stick to my resolve of never agreeing to drug testing for work. I don’t know if I could keep up my principles if I needed to work at Wal-Mart to eat, but I like to believe that I would.
Update: Ben reminds me in comments that the case declaring drug testing unconstitutional was for “candidates” for office, not elected officials.