Drug WarRant

It was refreshing earlier this week to see a few of the Justices crack open their dusty Constitutions and discover some text sitting there between the 3rd and 5th Amendments. Almost surprising, unfortunately.

Jacob Sullum talks about one of the other huge 4th Amendment issues currently making its way into the courts: When Proactive Policing Becomes Harrassment

The Terry Supreme Court Decision that is the current law regarding encounters on the street allows stop and frisk if officers believed that a crime was about to take place and that the suspect was armed.

As the number of stop-and-frisk encounters initiated by the NYPD grew from about 100,000 in Michael Bloomberg’s first year as mayor to almost 700,000 in 2011, the share of stops yielding guns fell from 0.38 percent to 0.033 percent.

Pretty thin.

‘This Is Working’: Portugal, 12 Years after Decriminalizing Drugs in Speigel Online.

Another evaluation of the Portugal experiment in drug policy, now after 12 years, continues to show that it’s much better policy than the lock-them-up approach to drug policy that we have here.

Kevin S. won’t like this article – he’s always going on about how the Portugal experience is “overstated,” which is odd since the supposed goal of SAM (less incarceration more treatment) is exactly what’s going on in Portugal.

Where I agree with Kevin is that Portugal is not legalization. It is decriminalization.

Portugal is a good step, an important lesson, and a demonstration that the sky doesn’t fall when you remove criminal penalties, providing material support for the right move: regulated legalization.

Glenn Greenwald gets it right again: The gay marriage snowball and political change

It really is a bit shocking how quickly gay marriage transformed from being a fringe, politically toxic position just a few years ago to a virtual piety that must be affirmed in decent company. Whenever I write or speak about any of the issues on which I focus, I always emphasize that a posture of defeatism – which is a form of learned impotence: a belief that meaningful change is impossible – is misguided. This demonstrates why that is true: even the most ossified biases and entrenched institutional injustices can be subverted – if the necessary passion and will are summoned and the right strategies found. […]

That same type of rapid and previously unthinkable change is visible with other unjust laws: oppressive drug prohibition being the leading example. But one can easily find all sorts of examples from American history and the recent history of other countries which reflect the same truth: radical, positive, and relatively fast political change is always possible, no matter how formidable the obstacles seem.

Defeatism is more often than not a psychological instrument designed to relieve one of the responsibility to act (if change is impossible, then I have no reason and no obligation to work or take risks for it). That is bolstered by the effort of all ruling interests to instill a sense of powerlessness and hopelessness in those they suppress; systemic power abuses are, above all else, designed to persuade people of the futility of opposition, to adopt a defeatist mindset. But it is a mindset that finds little to no support in political history. The rapid and relentless dismantling of the anti-gay legal and societal framework in the US is yet more proof for that proposition.

Important, and close, ruling handed down today.

Court: Drug dog sniff is unconstitutional search

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police cannot bring drug-sniffing police dogs onto a suspect’s property to look for evidence without first getting a warrant for a search, a decision which may limit how investigators use dogs’ sensitive noses to search out drugs, explosives and other items hidden from human sight, sound and smell.

The high court split 5-4 on the decision to uphold the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling throwing out evidence seized in the search of Joelis Jardines’ Miami-area house. That search was based on an alert by Franky the drug dog from outside the closed front door.

Justice Antonin Scalia said a person has the Fourth Amendment right to be free from the government’s gaze inside their home and in the area surrounding it, which is called the curtilage.

“The police cannot, without a warrant based on probable cause, hang around on the lawn or in the side garden, trawling for evidence and perhaps peering into the windows of the home,” Justice Antonin Scalia said for the majority. “And the officers here had all four of their feet and all four of their companion’s, planted firmly on that curtilage — the front porch is the classic example of an area intimately associated with the life of the home.”

He was joined in his opinion by Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Interesting line-up of Justices on the two sides.

Maia Szalavitz does a nice interview with Mark Kleiman about his role in Washington legalization. Pot is Legal in Washington: Q&A with the Man Who Is Making Weed Legit

It’s a revealing interview that helps give an idea of what Mark’s role will be, yet also gives some insight into some of this thinking.

I think Maia has a better notion of the elasticity of price on drug use than Mark, though. It’s more complicated than his overall determination that it’s elastic. I believe there’s a combination of elastic and inelastic behaviors that can be separated along the lines of use and abuse respectively. And in that instance, higher prices is the wrong policy decision to make for both populations.

I’d be interested to know more about what studies have been done on price elasticity and illicit drugs, and whether they accounted for substitution and the differences between use and abuse populations.

In case you missed it (I know it’s been discussed in comments): Eric E. Sterling: Shafer Commission Report on Marijuana and Drugs, Issued 40 Years Ago Today, Was Ahead of its Time

It’s kind of mind-blowing that it’s been 40 years. And Eric has really great personal perspective on it.

It really is an outstanding, must-read article, just to see how amazingly the Commission nailed it and predicted what we would see in the following 40 years, also identifying the interests that would end up protecting the war on drugs.

Headline of the day: Tea Partier Shows Up Obama on Drug Policy at The Root – an African-American perspective publication.

Good article at Think Progress: Rand Paul Is Right On Marijuana, And That Should Scare Democrats Into Action

Rand Paul is fast becoming a real star for the Republican Party, right at a point where it has become painfully clear to their leadership that they have to reinvent the party or become irrelevant, appealing only to an ever-shrinking wacko base. Paul the younger provides the perfect opportunity — he’s seen as more mainstream in appeal than his father, and the notion of moving the party toward a combination of fiscal conservatism and social libertarianism is a direction that could yield votes.

Just last week, Rand talked about immigration reform in ways that would have been anathema to the GOP very recently, and had a remarkable number of those on the far right support him on it. He smartly changed the wording so it didn’t appear to be adopting the views of the left, and it seems to have worked toward galvanizing the Republicans to move toward immigration reform.

Now, he talks about criminal justice reform and drug policy reform, and he does it in a way that can appeal to swing voters, without completely alienating moderate republicans.

It’s interesting when I bring up Rand Paul to some of my progressive friends, they are so enraged by him, they can’t even calm down enough to talk about the issues (it’s like they put their hands over their ears and just repeatedly yell “Racist, Racist, Racist”). Ignoring what he is doing, and letting the GOP get caught up on immigration reform and get ahead of criminal justice reform would be a huge mistake for the Democrats.

He’s a very good communicator.

Editorial: Legal pot: worth a try – Copenhagen Post

In a country that regulates the sale of over-the-counter painkillers, you’d have thought that a reasonable way to decriminalise the sale of cannabis would have long since been rolled out, perfected and exported to other cities grappling with the same topic. […]

…mindlessly repeating the same mistakes of drug control is guaranteed to fail.

It’s time we take a different approach to cannabis. Like so many other things, you never know what will happen until you try.

Drug War Failing in Germany – Spiegel

Germany’s law-enforcement and legal apparatus devotes enormous resources to fighting illegal narcotics. But users are always a step ahead, and lawmakers seem uninterested in exploring alternatives to a broken system. […]

When Leipzig, the prosecutor in Berlin, is asked for his opinion, he says that he could imagine a system in Germany involving the controlled administration of soft drugs, such as cannabis, to adults. The problem is that there is no political pressure in Germany, nor does the federal government have a drug czar who wants things to change.

New Zealand

The ever excellent Hungarian Civil Liberties Union interviews an official from New Zealand about the new approach they’re instituting to dealing with the ever-shifting introduction of new chemical psychoactive products. This is going to be something to watch in the future to see just how it’s done. It’s a bit scary in that it takes the position that the default is that any new product is banned unless it is proven “safe” (with no stated definition yet as to what that means).

Why is the U.S. Funding International Drug Rehabs Known for Torture and Abuse? – Alternet

The United States is not just funding an abusive drug war at home; taxpayer funds are propping up violently oppressive “drug treatment” centers that act more like detainment camps abroad. At the U.S.-backed Somsanga Rehabilitation Center in Laos, detainees are subjected to shocking physical abuse, including beating to the point of unconsciousness for showing withdrawal symptoms or attempting to escape. Allegations of sexual assault are also rampant. […]

This June, the U.S. agreed to donate an additional $400,000 to the Somsanga center. US officials heeded no warnings issued by at least three separate reports (2003 UNICEF report, 2004 WHO report, and 2011 Human Rights Watch report), each of which warned against the center’s deplorable conditions and inhumane treatment of detainees. The UN report says past US funds have been used to build dormitories “to expand the capacity of the government to detain drug users, street children, and ethnic minorities,” as well as fences surrounding the center.