Open Thread

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“bullet” Drug Warriors are the real threat to Americans

Our government has created a black market in which a common weed, cannabis, is worth more than its weight in gold. This artificially created, incredibly lucrative market is responsible for the violence and death associated with much of the drug dealing around the world. The problems associated with marijuana didn’t exist prior to the 1930s, when our government made the plant illegal. To solve this problem of its own fabrication, our government created an army of paramilitary drug warriors, armed them with military weapons and equipment, and unleashed them on us.
If drug czar Walters is looking for ‹armed, dangerous, violent criminal terrorists,Š he need look no further than the drug warriors that he and others of his ilk have created. It’s time to address the real terrorist threat, and demand that our government end this war against its own people.

“bullet” This has already made the rounds pretty quickly. It’s hard to get more outrageous.

Tampa’s Mark O’Hara was released from prison this week. He was serving a 25-year sentence for possession of 58 Vicodin tablets. Prosecutors acknowledge he wasn’t selling the drug. They acknowledge that he had a prescription for it. […]
This is simply stunning. The man was sentenced to 25 years for possessing 58 pills for which he had a legal prescription.
Prosecutors then arguedÖand the trial court agreedÖthat the jury was not allowed to consider the fact that O’Hara had a prescription because Florida statutes governing painkillers don’t allow for a “prescription defense,” […]
O’Hara is free after an appellate court rightly deemed the trial “absurd” and tossed out the verdict. Prosecutors are apparently still considering what to do next.

“bullet” This seems to indicate that the ASA data quality act lawsuit has run into a dead end. I need to read more, though to see if that’s true.
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“bullet” Ilya Somin at Volokh has an interesting post noting the gaping hole in Fred Thompson’s endorsement of reducing the federal government’s role in certain areas of law enforcement:

However, there is a major elephant in this federalism room that Thompson doesn’t mention. He is right to note the massive growth in the federal prison population over the last 20 years, but fails to point out that most of that growth is due to the War on Drugs.