We have a ton of problems here in the United States with out-of-control prosecutors who seem to be completely unaccountable (and immune to lawsuits when they abuse their position).
We’re not the only ones with that problem. Check out this story from Russia.
Zelenina heads a laboratory at the Penza Agricultural Institute, some 600 kilometres southeast of Moscow, one of the best-equipped chemical-analysis labs in Russia. She is a specialist in the biology of hemp and poppy, and is a sought-after expert in legal cases involving narcotics produced from these plants.
In September 2011, the defence attorneys of Sergey Shilov, a Russian businessman under investigation by the Russian Federal Drug Control Service (FDCS), asked her to provide an expert opinion on the amount of opiates that could possibly be extracted from 42 metric tonnes of food poppy seeds that Shilov had imported from Spain in 2010. . .
. . .On the basis of gas-chromatography and mass-spectrometry measurements of samples analysed in her lab, Zelenina calculated the overall morphine and codeine content in the poppy-seed consignment in question to be 0.00069% and 0.00049%, respectively. In such low concentrations, opiates can only be identified or extracted in well-equipped analytical chemistry labs, she wrote.
“This opinion apparently failed to satisfy the prosecutors,†says Irina Levontina, a linguist at the Russian Language Institute in Moscow, who is frequently heard as an expert in libel and drug lawsuits. “It has become quite common for Russian prosecutors to accuse independent experts if they don’t like their opinions. It can be downright dangerous for experts to appear in court.â€
Talk about a chilling effect on both science and criminal defense.
She’s been released pending trial, but faces serious charges. More here
Just as a reminder, Russia has an extremely backward zero-tolerance drug policy that outlaws heroin replacement programs and needle exchange — a policy that has resulted in a 10-fold increase in HIV cases in the past decade.
Oh, and the head of the UNODC is Russian representative Yuri Fedotov.
with several jury refusals to convict happening recently it is making demanding a jury trial over minor marijuana charges look more interesting all the time,,if we boycott plea bargaining it would grid lock the courts.
http://tinyurl.com/9hdayd6
Absurd doesn’t cover it.
crikey, Yayhoo sucks. I had it searched found and loaded on googleimages in about a minute on my model T dial-up modem. I closed Yayhoo’s version after about 5 minutes.
absurd
and if anyone cares to politely disagree w/ clay’s aforelinked absurdness at the Hugh B. Bain Middle School (RI):
Principal:
Mrs. Jenny Chan-Remka
Phone: 401-270-8010
E-mail: jchanremka@cpsed.net
Assistant Principal
Mrs. Cindy Grady
Phone: 401-270-8014
e-mail: cgrady@cpsed.net
and of course, the one providing aforelinked absurdness:
dmwilliams@cpsed.net
Erp…
10 Inspiring Quotes From Mashable’s Social Good Summit
1. Mira Sorvino
“More is spent in a single month [in the U.S.] fighting the war on drugs than all monies ever expended domestically or internationally fighting slavery from its inception. Per month, we spend more on the drug war than we ever have trying to free slaves.â€â€¨ — Mira Sorvino, actress and U.N. goodwill ambassador
The subject is #1 everywhere but in our congress.
http://mashable.com/2012/09/26/social-good-summit-quotes/
yeah… well… they may be bigger asshats, but WE have the Gulag. ha ha… 🙁
Michelle Alexander is bringing her book, the New Jim Crow, to the UofO next month. I’m gonna havta go to that.
OT: A very interesting Seattle Weekly profile of Alison Holcomb and the hubbub around I-502.
http://tinyurl.com/cesr3ls
I enjoyed that article and took the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation test while there,,interesting.
Thanks for the link. For all their gnashing of teeth, have Hiatt and Steinborn ever gotten an initiative on the ballot? I-502 is seriously flawed, but it advances the game. Good for Alison for building a coalition and doing the work to get this before the people.
Russia’s ass backwards drug laws, hard line traditionalist ‘punish the weak and sick’ mentality, and their heavy and complex economic and societal issues have combined to create one of the most horrific, cheapest, nastiest street drugs yet. Krokodil (highly impure desomorphine). Which is now slowly spreading it’s way across Europe. Oh, they also are blessed with one of (if not the) highest rates of HIV infection among needle users.
But I guess all that are measures of success for drug warriors.
The Drug War! Winning!
led “war on drugs” questioned at U.N.
Bastards. Feds are at it again in California. They are dead set on eliminating all dispensaries.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-medical-marijuana-20120926,0,2760642.story?track=rss
I just hope and pray that I-502 and the other initiatives pass. For my own part I would feel better if the feds had better things to do than hassle medical suppliers. 502 passes, and suddenly mmj is the least of their concerns.
Shit:
http://my.firedoglake.com/elisemattu/2012/09/26/santa-rosa-calif-gets-hit-by-gestapo-today-092612/
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120926/ARTICLES/120929653/1350?Title=Authorities-target-illegal-pot-grows-in-Santa-Rosa-sweep
For your benefit, the unbroken stream of obscenities will not be transcribed.
It is almost as if they want America to react to their ignorant violent actions with ignorant violent reactions.
And this: http://www.chicoer.com/breakingnews/ci_21642024/authorities-seize-marijuana-plants-butte-area-raid
It’s no arrests, DEA with local authorities.
Given that Butte voters rejected an ordinance banning outdoor grows, this looks a little like the losing side calling in Big Brother.
In theory, illicit drug laws are designed to work only in a perfect society.
In the perfect society there is no greed, no corrupt cops, no megalomaniacal prosecutors, no goofy politicians, no prison industrial complexes, no lying psychopaths, no tweaked authoritarians.
Yet as close as any society might get to theoretical perfection, prohibition rips it apart.
What else should we expect? When authoritarian countries such as Russia, Malaysia, Iran and China get their mitts on something like drug enforcement, as bad as any country’s government might be, adding prohibition to the mix makes it look like some joker spiked the botulinum toxin with anthrax spores.
Part of the problem with the mania of promise breaking is that many holdovers from the last administration are still active in the feds prosecutorial bureaucracy. The problem may be; Bambi cannot seem to get real reformers through congress. Just sayin’