Yesterday:
Head of US border agencies revises lethal force policy
The federal agency in charge of U.S. border security on Friday issued a revised handbook on when its agents may use lethal force, adopting changes aimed at reducing dozens of killings that have generated a handful of lawsuits and cast agents as quick to pull their triggers.
Yesterday afternoon:
Border Patrol shoots and kills suspect in Green Valley
According to CBP, agents tried to stop a suspicious car on I-19, near Green Valley. The driver refused to stop, and instead sped away. Eventually, the suspect got out of the vehicle, and tried to run away.
An agent shot and killed the suspect during a chase. CBP told us at this point they don’t know if the suspect was armed.
After the shooting, agents found bundles of marijuana in the suspect’s car.
How difficult is it to determine if a dead suspect is armed?
Well, Gil – hope you’re enjoying your new job. Here’s a tip. When you’re going to release a report saying that your people aren’t going to use lethal force as indiscriminately, you might want to send out a memo to your folks asking them not to kill any unarmed suspects for a few days.
The Tuscon News Now comments section seems to be populated by hang-em-high law enforcement types. I imagine we could probably drown them out, no?
Aye. I suggest a couch raid, although I personally have no desire to use my Facebook account.
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We can’t keep any Raid under the couch because the wiggle dude will huff it to get high. If you think that he smells bad now…well you ain’t smelled nothing yet.
not to be too off topic but i wanted to share this with everybody. around the time of my birthday, march 24, the trial in Canada began regarding Heroin maintenance. Just to give a quick overview of the situation/story, this is the situation as I have understood it.
As we all know, the most effective treatment in treating heroin users (i hate the term addict) is heroin assisted treatment, HAT. This is something Pete himself I am very proud to say has discussed, as you will surely recall especially during the saga that happened with Phillip Seymour (“Don’t Call me Dustin!”) Hoffman died.
And he is right, Pete is. Statistically, I have seen the success rate put at 88-92 % which is in contrast to the so called “first line treatment” of methadone which I have seen peek out at 64%. What “success rate” means generally from what I’ve read is that the patient is no longer engaging in illegal activity, is no longer testing positive on drug tests for illicit drugs and is basically functioning again in life, restoring broken relationships, working, contributing to his/her community etc.
Basically this Heroin maintenance deal was for a long time available in Britain and even in the USA during the early 1900’s. I’ve read and been told that during the 2 years heroin maintenance/morphine maintenance was going on in the USA, it was, for the most part, very successful however its end came around 1920 as a result of the NYC morphine maintenance clinic being an abysmal corrupt horror place and this was used as an example to take down the lot of the programs.
Anyway in recent times especially since Switzerland lead the way in 1994, it has been very slowly making its way in Europe with one country after another reporting great success. I can say personally I’ve done the lot of the so called treatments available in the USA, methadone, buprenorphine, rehab after rehab, detox after detox, group after group, therapist after therapist etc.
Kind of along the lines of heroin maintenance, a pain doctor wrote a book called the “Opiate Cure” and essentially he provided opiates to his patients at the working amounts (all too often doctors are scared to provide a measley 5 mg Vicodin, meanwhile heroin maintenance patients can be up to 500 +mgs of heroin before the right amount is hit. In the “Opiate Cure” the doctor discusses arguing with a pharmacist over one of his patients who was getting OVER 1,000 mgs of Oxycontin a day.)
And so the first ever place to do this in North America was Canada.
Before the SALOME trials there were the NAOMI trials. Heroin maintenance. It was being conducted in Vancouver and Montreal.
The deal was, people who could prove they failed at methadone treatment at least twice, are above a certain age, and are pretty much hardcore heroin users were allowed into the trials.
AND being a Canadian citizen wasn’t enough, no American citizens were allowed, you had to not only be a Canadian citizen but ALSO a resident of the immediate area where the trials were being conducted.
The deal was, some of the patients would get methadone, the others heroin and a small number would be secretly given dillaudid (hydromorphone).
This was to be the deal for 2 years. At the end, there was a vague exit strategy.
NOT SURPRISINGLY, it worked.
At the end, however, the doctors tried to get something called “compassionate care” approved, which would allow the heroin patients to continue to get the medication via a government exemption. This was successful everywhere else heroin maintenance was used. The first rejection EVER for this continued use happened at the end of NAOMI, the Canadian patients were the first to be rejected.
So the patients had to either go back to the streets, out of program care or be transferred to methadone.
Well as you can imagine this was a nightmare.
So some time passes and they tried to get another trial started but it didnt work out. So, they found out during the NAOMI trials that patients given the Dillaudid could not tell they were getting dillaudid they thought it was heroin.
Using that information they petitioned to get the SALOME trial started. The SALOME trial would INCLUDE heroin BUT the thing is, they were going to use dillaudid as well.
Let me pause there to explain something.
Dillaudid is an older pain killer, a cousin to Oxy, Roxi, Percs etc.
It IS different though. They have new formulas for alot of the pain killers now, Oxy etc but you used to be able to inject them. Dillaudid you could inject as well and SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE the dillaudid rush is VERY similar to heroin infact some prefer it THOUGH it DOESNT LAST AS LONG. However, the rush is great.
In theory, Dillaudid even in the USA, is not scheduled as Schedule I, it is NOT technically TOTALLY illegal. In Canada its a similar situation. The idea for the Canadians was, since heroin is illegal and thus why the people responding to heroin werent allowed to get it, we CAN give them dillaudid INSTEAD because its NOT totally illegal like heroin is.
Now that is actually brilliant but I want to point out very quickly that this brilliant common sense idea CAN NOT be done in America because UNLIKE the rest of the world, we in America specifically have a law that was established at the out set of opiate prohibition that states that a doctor CAN NOT prescribe OPIATES to “ADDICTS” to treat “OPIATE ADDICTION” or “OPIATE WITHDRAWAL.”
Medications like methadone and buprenorphine have a LEGAL pass around that law but its because of that law that we dont have a psuedo heroin maintenance in America that would look like a doctor giving oxy, dillaudid, morphine etc. to heroin addicts. IT WOULD WORK ALMOST AS WELL AS HEROIN MAINTENANCE i *think* but in AMERICA we cant do it because of that law.
Anyway, in Canada they can.
So the new trial starts, it’s called SALOME.
Once again there is some confusion about how it’ll all end. And the focus wasn’t totally on dillaudid, as was said, in fact, there was quite a bit of heroin being used as well.
This lead to a problem at the beginning because there ended up being a shortage of the prescription heroin.
Anyway, nearing the end of the trials the doctors tried again to get clearance to make this an ongoing thing (heroin maintenance)
the trials were ONCE AGAIN SUCCESSFUL.
THIS TIME they were approved, and the doctors began making plans to make heroin maintenance available throughout Canada as a permanent long term treatment.
Very quickly the health minister, Rena Ambrose stepped in and said NO.
The health minister immediately put into play laws that prevented this from happening. She said that there had been a loop hole allowing heroin to be given to heroin addicts etc. and that she was closing this loophole.
So the patients were going to only get 3 months worth of heroin maintenance after the trials concluded and then back to the street or methadone.
Well lawyers etc. got involved and a showdown was scheduled for Canadian supreme court on my birthday March 24.
The showdown went down and then nothing was to be heard.
I was able to contact the reporter covering the case in Vancouver, a woman named Andrea Woo. Very nice lady. She got back to me very quickly. I mean, I was searching for updates every day and nothing was happening so I reached out and she said there was nothing new and that as soon as there was, she would be ontop of it.
Well finally something happened.
After months of deliberating, the *JUDGE RULED IN FAVOR OF THE PATIENTS!* He said Heroin maintenance PROVED to be real treatment and EFFECTIVE treatment. He gave an injunction allowing the doctors to provide heroin to patients.
IT IS A VICTORY!
but I fear, of course, that this is just the beginning, we’ve not won the war but we’ve won the first battle. Im sure Rena Ambrose (whom many have criticized. Even Andrea Woo had asked her to provide some sources for her anti heroin claims and Ambrose provided nothing LITERALLY.)
Anyway, this makes no difference to my life, i live in America, I have no way to becoming a Canadian citizen or vancouver resident (i am, despite everything, still a gorgeous looking young man, incase any single women from Vancouver want to get married. You can find me on facebook under the name Remmy Skye incase your interested, wink wink) BUT i hope one day to get somewhere where this treatment is available. Nonetheless I am very happy for the people in Canada and I will say that if we in America one day get to cross this bridge then no doubt these court cases and situations ARE important.
So yes, victory, for now.
thanks
cj
Nasal spray for heroin antidote under development
http://usat.ly/1mEi38f
Strange way to word the headline.
if the government is in the business of protecting you from yourself, it stands to reason that the gov’t. agent might have to shoot you in the back to protect the good part of you from the bad part of you.
OT
Here’s the votes on Rohrabacher’s bill. The 17 right wing and/or religious Democrats who voted no were of interest to me. I suppose there is little chance of Wasserman-Schultz losing the next election, but a substantial drop in her majority would be telling. She has a large number of seniors in her constituency who, at this very moment, may be taking their medication.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2014/roll258.xml
If only the ones who voted aye do significantly better in November and the ones who voted no or didn’t vote do much worse than they did last election, the political noses will sniff the winds and ‘evolve’ significantly. That’s all it takes. It takes minutes for the smell of a corpse to attract the carrion eaters. Politicians are no less sensitive to changes in the political winds. Coincidence? I think not.
Debbie Wasserman Schulz is going to have some serious explaining to do. She is the U.S. Representative for Florida’s 23rd congressional district which includes parts of Broward and Dade counties. Floridians vote on medical cannabis this November. Polls show 88% support for medical cannabis in Florida. Debbie will need to explain why she supports the federal government negating what 88% of Floridians want. Should be interesting to say the least.
Sounds like Gil got put in charge of the Alamo.
OT Sad news. #Psychedelic legend Sasha #Shulgin now on hospice.
Ann updates us on his declining health. shulginresearch.org
Morris Crowley â€@morris_crowley
Thank You Sasha,
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1949
“I, as a responsible adult human being, will never concede the power to anyone to regulate my choice of what I put into my body, or where I go with my mind. From the skin inwards is my jurisdiction, is it not? I choose what may or may not cross that border. Here I am the Customs Agent. I am the Coast guard. I am the sole legal and spiritual government of this territory, and only the laws I choose to enact within myself are applicable”
Alexander Shulgin,
PhD, Chemist and author,
at the DPF Conference, November 1996
Thank You Ann,
“Several generations of high school students have grown up ignoring and disbelieving everything they’ve heard from government and police about drugs, including information that was factual and valid, because they discovered for themselves that most of what has been taught to them was simply not true.”
Ann Shulgin,
PhD, Therapist and Author,
at the DPF Conference, November 1996
Erowid Center â€@Erowid 5m
Sasha #Shulgin died at about 5pm this afternoon. Gate gate para gate parasamgate bodhi svaha! All hail the goer. Our love goes with you.
So they saw a “suspicious” car and didn’t immediately open fire? Sounds like the revised policy may actually be having an impact.
JOURNALISTIC DIARRHEA ALERT!
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/after-5-months-of-sales-colorado-sees-the-downside-of-a-legal-high.html?hp&_r=0
hmmm…
The NYT article appeared in my local newspaper today. I read it and shook my head as I always do. Then I had my wife read it and she commented on how poorly it was written. Then I read the article online from NYT. Guess what? The article in my local paper is not the entire article, it has been edited for space. Yet there is no mention that this is the case. The editing also seems to be biased toward the “worst” parts of the original. Case in point: The death of Kristin Kirk in my paper stops at “her husband consumed marijuana edibles then shot and killed her”. In the NYT article the same is mentioned but later on there is also mention that the murderous husband may have also taken prescription pain medication (bad on the NYT author but worse in my local paper).
Tomorrow morning I’m calling the senior editor in charge of feature articles for my local paper. Among other things, I’m going to ask why the original article was truncated without mention that it was. Then I’ll ask why certain specifics were included while others were left out. And who made those decisions. Will it do any good? I doubt it. But I can’t wait to engage in the conversation.
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Pete, you need to remember that those people use a totally different dictionary. It’s a shame that Google Translate doesn’t have a Prohibitionish to English function, but this one is easy. It translates to “we really thought that the suspect was armed.”
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The New York Times is shilling for Kev-Kev this morning. Believe it or not, the comments column is open. NYT does close comments using some unknown criteria so I doubt it will be open tomorrows, perhaps not even later today.
After 5 Months of Sales, Colorado Sees the Downside of a Legal High
Something that I certainly didn’t anticipate was how so many outsiders wouldn’t be able to realize that A-64 has been in effect for almost 18 months. If people don’t even know that Colorado’s law has been in effect since 12/6/2012, why would anyone listen to their lame arguments?
OT, those clever folks over at Marijuana Majority.
You know how they take a quote from someone who’s for legalizing marijuana and say, for example, “Morgan Freeman is part of the marijuana majority. Are you?”
Their latest;
“U.S. House of Representatives is part of the marijuana majority. Are you?”
That just cracked me up. And I suspect Kevin Sabet is gnashing his teeth AND has a knot in his shorts over this. Even better.
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I stand in total awe of the voters of Florida, as well as the utter stupidity of the prohibitionist parasites and their sycophants. It appears that Francis’ Law has been appealed to the Supreme Court of Reality, and the ruling is that not only is it true, it’s even more true than anyone could have imagined. We’ve now been given notice that it applies to anything at all that escapes the barren landscape of the prohibitionist mind. It even includes their assertions that they’re working to keep cannabis illegal. No, that’s not only wrong, it’s the complete opposite of the truth.
So what has me blathering about surrealistic navel contemplation of prohibitionist “reasoning”? The latest poll in Florida says there’s friggin’ 88% support in the land of the Fay and her ankle biter lapdog Kev-Kev. This one is from the “Oh my god! There are prohibitionists lurking!!” category:
The prohibitionists’ pocket watches aren’t even right twice a day, and they’re married to a proven loser of a tactical platform. With enemies like that we just don’t need any friends.
Mark my words, up until Florida voters head to the polls this November, the political freakshow is going to get increasingly interesting in the Sunshine State. We’re talking about the state where the Semblers, Calvina Fay AND Kevin Sabet all reside (at least much of the time). To add to that shit list we have Rick Scott (seeking re-election as governor) and Pam Bondi (states attorney), both of whom oppose any amendment to allow medical marijuana. Then you look at the poll numbers you reference. The lowest approval comes from Republicans at 80%(!!!).
It’s going to be ugly and beautiful all in one fell swoop.
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You don’t need to tell me. I’ve already got my opera glasses, some lawn chairs and a standing order for a truck load of Cracker Jack. It’s only June and it’s already the most interesting campaign for a proposed medicinal cannabis patient protection law that I’ve ever watched. I suppose California 1996 was much more interesting but I was off chasing the almighty that year. But the campaign is young and A.G. Bondi is most certainly a candidate for getting suckered into a public debate with a cartoon character or some other equivalent fictional being.
I’m ready for the show…send in the clowns!
The only thing that’s sad about that article is that the author (William Costolo) wants to continue being a member of the “lurking” prohibidiots. He spent 3/4 of the article talking about the organizations representing the 12% (Which includes the undecided…). They don’t have a chance in hell to turn this around come November. And lurking? That’s not exactly an endearing term sir.
Freakin 88%?
We’ve got flashing lights, crossing guards with stop signs, gates, and sirens, and we still have imbeciles who are trying to cross the tracks when the 300MPH freight train is coming through.
Woah! Hey Pete/Couchmates, I think we might’ve found wiggles Dad = cheering on the border patrol for shooting “Dopers”,(when pressed) he corrected that to “Drug Traffickers”.
But this guy = one “D. Ward” sounding like a NIMBY’er, [yet claiming to live in Idaho in a followup comment]he was spewing bile at someone who dared to question the situation/circumstances surrounding shooting.
(The offensive question(s) posed by the 3rd party = “So we have the death penalty for pot? Did they shoot in the back? Over pot? Yet another case of excessive force. Over pot.”)
Ward’s rebuke, To the commenter in question = “You sound like one of them parasites that is disappointed the Agent wasn’t killed. What happened, you didn’t get your fix?”.
This Clown-Shoe’er Ward = has a Camp in his ‘virtual corner’ cheering on the fact that a suspected drug smuggler was killed (Further comments claim the dead guy had “Bales of Pot” in a trailer = they don’t seem to make any real distinction in their general rhetoric)…
Another commenter “Rick Jason”, [Deputy Shrf./Crisis Mgmt Team/Sec.Ofcr. at Dept.of Juv.Corr./Az /Wichita Falls Co. Shrf’s.Dept./]
Shared an equally disturbing remark IMHO =
“There’s some real sick bastards in that Electric-Fence/Alligator-Moat/Kill’em-All demographic group -some who live in the local AZ area & a number of equally vile “people” – whom I can only describe as their “Cheerleaders/Death-to-Dopers-Squad”… {Like = “D. Ward”}
To be fair, I also found/saw a number of very decent people, that want to avoid the armed conflict over weed (or whatever) it may be that’s got the border-trolls pissed off = Racism/Bigotry, the “they’re-takin-our-jobs!” Crowd, and -of course- all the Adrenaline-Junkies/Uber-Wunder-Patriots… Some among the last type, who seem all too happy to kill people that fail to meet their ideological standards for how to live, or “dare” to seek prosperity here in the U.S. – like a sizable chunk of “most” peoples’ ancestors did… *sigh*
Ona Positive Note: I was particularly impressed by one woman in the article… (and in other articles/vids covering that news.)
I wish there were a lot more like her, that don’t just feel that way = But, they choose to risk of whatever blow-back that might befall them from the Crazies.
Not to be apologetic or anything, but isn’t this what grammarians call historical present – much loved as it is by reporters? The wording is clumsy, but it’s not a direct quote, so could be an editorial oversight. They should have used a simple past instead. Also, it looks like that paragraph has been edited out since you quoted it.
Maybe -possibly- I’m reading-in sarcasm (and other stuff) into this, But having read Pete’s rants around here for several years.
In My Far From Humble Opinion = Pete was posing that question in a very non-literal sense, as bit of rhetorical “snark”.
That’s because the question spotlights the CBP’s quote above as being intentionally absurd, and it suggests that someone may have shot the suspect during the chase – while not knowing, NOR caring if he was armed – when they shot him.
And that the CBP was possibly still working on getting together and establishing their official story – before relaying the ‘timeline of events’ during the incident to the reporters.
Furthermore, judging by the language/tone of the people commenting on the incident… in a variety of reports.
It would suggest that to many, the ‘proper response’ to this question, would be another question (made in the form of a vary tasteless joke). Something like – “that depends, who got to the body first?” OR “are we talking about before or after ‘you’ got here?” (‘you’ being the reporter), OR “that depends, were there any witnesses?”
The way I see this, It depends entirely on whether or not you believe that ‘cops’ or ‘agents’ would even think twice about planting a weapon on a “dead suspect” = IF he was truly unarmed when they shot him?
There’s a potentially a huge financial risk in this, with some serious vested-interests (pun coincidental) at stake here… Who thinks the CBP would be above planting a weapon on a recently dead “suspected drug trafficker” who (if unarmed) could’ve been described (in many news reports/articles) as a “SUSPECTED drug trafficker” that jumped out of a vehicle and ATTEMPTED to flee on foot, UNTIL he was shot dead – from behind = while running away from the border agents.
That’s one “small difference” that could put many of their jobs & some huge financial interests into serious jeopardy.
But then you’ve got people like the one bitch that pointed out “how did they have his mugshot of he wasn’t a dealer? he was arrested before…” (for something = I can’t precisely recall what atm.)
Still, knowing that this bitch in particular, thinks a prior arrest = resulting in police having a mugshot & *maybe a conviction* was somehow more than enough to determine guilt and justify his death! As well as, the death of anyone else attempting to do the same in the future – is horrible.
Seeing that there was a whole mess of these self-righteous Prohib-Idiots, who all seemed to believe its PERFECTLY fine for cops and border agents to shoot any similar “druggie” or “doper” on-sight, essentially an instant death-penalty is disturbing.
The idea that these folks, are totally fine with openly espousing this = and publicly no-less, is truly sickening.
the latest from Calvina:
the typos are all their doing
Trigger happy bunch of people marauding as law keepers. It’s a shame.