Open Thread

“bullet” None of us is safe from police raids by Vera Leone

That’s what makes the Berwyn Heights case so potentially important: It is opening a window into the realities lived every day by innocent victims and survivors of the ineffective and destructive “war on drugs.” Let’s remember this case, keep this window open, and use it to address the misguided (at best), unjust and indisputably failed drug war policies that are destroying the fabric of our society.

“bullet” Killing of Mayor’s 2 Dogs Justified, Prince George’s Finds

The Prince George’s County Sheriff’s Office has concluded in an internal review that its deputies were justified when they shot and killed two dogs belonging to the mayor of Berwyn Heights during a July drug raid, Sheriff Michael Jackson said yesterday.

“bullet” Is it time to legalise drugs? BBC4 Radio’s Today show discusses drug legalization, with LEAP’s Jack Cole and, from the other side, Ian Oliver. The show’s host clearly appears to be on Jack’s side.
“bullet” Despite U.S. Aid, Coca Cultivation on Rise in Andes

“If you look back at the days of Escobar, the names have changed but there’s as much cocaine or more cocaine coming out of the Andes as a whole as in the peak anti-Medellin war on drugs,” said John Walsh of the Washington Office on Latin America, a policy group critical of U.S. anti-drug policies in the region. “We’re talking almost 20 years later.”
So far this decade, the United States has invested nearly $8 billion in the drug war, funding manual eradication efforts in Bolivia and neighboring Peru and an aerial herbicide-spraying program in Colombia that has covered more than 2.5 million acres since 2000.

“bullet” All their dreams go up in smoke Police in the southwest suburbs of Chicago have their annual pot bonfire.

“bullet” “drcnet”