Drug WarRant

I’ve mentioned the asset forfeiture case of the Motel Caswell before, but here is some good additional coverage.

The issue is that the Motel Caswell, which Russ Caswell and his family have owned free and clear for two generations, is located in an area where there is some crime. A number of drug busts have taken place at the Motel, although this is an insignificant number compared to the number of stays overall. The police agree that Russ and his family are not involved in drug activity in any way and that Russ has tried to work with police, reporting drug activity to the police and evicting troublemakers. Yet the police and the Department of Justice are trying to seize the property, worth one million dollars.

Civil Forfeiture Abuse Case to be Argued Today before Federal Court in Boston from the Institute of Justice, includes a video about the Motel and the forfeiture abuse.

Congress already passed a law that forbids the DOJ from taking the Motel Caswell. The DOJ is ignoring it. at Forfeiture Reform. Good discussion by Scott Alexander Meiner about the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 which addressed exactly this kind of forfeiture abuse.

New voice in drug-war debate: businessmen who are feeling the pinch

But it’s the private sector’s understanding of the hemispheric supply chain and demand, he says, that posits business leaders to lend their voice to the debate, says Zamora.

“[I]t is hard to talk about certain issues related to drug-trafficking [for politicians]. But for the business class, we have visions that are more pragmatic,” Zamora says. This might include focusing on freeing up resources through the decriminalization of drugs, and diverting profits away from traffickers. That could allow the taxation of businesses involved in the drug trade, followed by the investment of that money into military and police in order to crack down on criminals.

Carolina Castellanos, director of Guatemalan- American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM Guatemala) says leaders of the private sector in Guatemala have been communicating by email this week to discuss the merits of President Pérez’s proposal as well.

Obama’s War on Pot by Tim Dickinson in Rolling Stone.

Back when he was running for president in 2008, Barack Obama insisted that medical marijuana was an issue best left to state and local governments. “I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue,” he vowed, promising an end to the Bush administration’s high-profile raids on providers of medical pot, which is legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

But over the past year, the Obama administration has quietly unleashed a multi­agency crackdown on medical cannabis that goes far beyond anything undertaken by George W. Bush.

Drug war in Afghanistan a lost cause in Adelaide Now.

Despite the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars in a conflict that has so far cost the lives of almost 3000 Coalition troops, including 32 Australians, production of the drug by Afghan farmers rose between 2001 and 2011 from just 185 tonnes to 5800 tonnes.

It increased by 61 per cent last year alone. The United Nations yesterday warned that the situation was out of control.

Kevin Sabet has another OpEd as part of the New York Times Room for Debate: How to Treat the Epidemic

Second, our governments must lead a more coordinated and vigorous attack on this problem.

Our governments’ coordinated and vigorous attack is what got us into this mess.

Finally, industry has a part to play in this too. The formulation of drugs that cannot be abused (yes, “abuse-deterrent” drugs are possible)

Whoa. That sound creepily like adding methyl alcohol to alcohol in prohibition to poison people who used it recreationally, or like adding acetaminophen to pain pills to destroy people’s livers. Yeah, let’s save people by killing them.

It’s not like the others in the Room for Debate group are much better (see links on the left of Sabet’s article). Linda Simoni-Wastila advocates a national monitoring program even without any evidence of effectiveness. Andrew Kolodny thinks patients in pain should be given less pain medication and just suffer through it. Jonathan Caulkins says absolutely nothing in four paragraphs.

I know that there are a lot of people out there who want to treat prescription drug abuse as a completely separate issue from illicit drug abuse – after all, prescription drugs (within certain tightly controlled parameters only) are legal. But it’s all interrelated. The war on drugs has affected all drug abuse, because the entire pharmacology has been put out of whack. There will always be some people who will look to drugs as a way of dealing with life. What we need to be doing is coming up with better and safer options for those people (combined with education and treatment, of course) rather than trying to ratchet up enforcement in a zero-tolerance system.

The failed system we have of constantly increasing enforcement has only driven people to more dangerous activity rather than reducing harm, while also indiscriminately sweeping in all the responsible drug users who don’t need assistance. A responsible system of regulated legalization of drugs, with different regulations for different drug harms, would leave the responsible users alone, reduce the harm to all, and free up the system to focus on helping abusers before they die.

Not a single one of the debaters in the New York Times Room for Debate is willing to address a system that will really change things for the better.

Editorial in the Bangkok Post:

Quick executions no solution to drug problem

When the voice of reason is that you should take some time before executing convicted drug offenders rather then executing them immediately, then the entire conversation itself exists in some bizarro world outside civilized society.

Congratulations to Florida for resisting the lure of privatizing its prisons yesterday.

Today, the Florida Senate averted disaster by voting down a proposal to create the largest private prison system in America. The plan would have turned over nearly 30 Florida correctional facilities to private, for-profit companies, which have would run the prisons under contract with the state. […]

The defeat of the privatization bill is a victory for Florida. As Julie Ebenstein, Policy & Advocacy Counsel at the ACLU of Florida, explained shortly after the bill’s defeat: “Florida’s prison system needs reform, but private prisons aren’t reform – they deform the process by linking corporate profit to incarceration. The bottom line is that private prisons make money by keeping people in prison when we should be looking for ways to keep them out in the first place.”

The privatization of prisons is one of the more perverse developments to our criminal justice system in recent years. It makes no long term logical fiscal sense to taxpayers and it’s a disaster in terms of public policy, as it actually creates a fiscal incentive to private companies to lobby for more people to be locked up.

This disturbing article by Chris Kirkham makes it clear: Private Prison Corporation Offers Cash In Exchange For State Prisons

As state governments wrestle with massive budget shortfalls, a Wall Street giant is offering a solution: cash in exchange for state property. Prisons, to be exact.

Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest operator of for-profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons as a remedy for “challenging corrections budgets.” In exchange, the company is asking for a 20-year management contract, plus an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Huffington Post.

Did you catch that part? “a 20-year management contract, plus an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full”

Now if that isn’t a perverse incentive. The state actually entering into an agreement that guarantees a certain prison population. And if prison population falls? Why, I guess they’ll just have to convict more people, sentence them for more years, or pass more criminal laws.

This puts the private prison industry and the states into a joint interest in maintaining prison populations. And that means certain things must be avoided, as Corrections Corporation has made clear…

“The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws,” the company’s most recent annual filing noted. “For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.”

Drug legalization is bad for the business of incarceration.

’bout time.

Levitt Announces US Senate Candidacy

Levitt’s campaign platform advocates policies in the public interest: investment in sustainable energy, infrastructure jobs and education, single payer health care, ending the drug war, and popular policies on energy, war, and finance that PAC-friendly party leaders don’t dare to endorse.

Drug warrior Feinstein is connected to all the big money, so this won’t be an easy one, but it sure is refreshing to see. It’s been a long time since she’s been forced to care about her constituents.

This American Life

Advance the audio to 23:35 for the segment: 21 Chump Street

Last year at three high schools in Palm Beach County, Florida, several young police officers just out of training were sent undercover to pose as students, tasked with making drug arrests. They went to classes, slept through classes, copied other students homework, texted during class, had Facebook accounts, etc. just like all the other students. Only the police knew who they were, not the teachers, or parents, or obviously, the real students.

A kid named Justin – an 18-year-old honor student – was in the last semester of his senior year. And Justin could hardly believe his luck when a very pretty new girl (everyone had noticed her) showed up in not just one, but two of his classes. …

He flirts with her in classes, tells her all his secrets, and even asks her to prom. After some time, this pretty girl asks him if he can get her some pot….

Next thing Justin knows he’s a felon.

… and shoot your dog.

Kerlikowske said one of the key parts of the Obama administration’s strategy to combat drug abuse is to “remove the stigma…and to help people understand you can recover.”

“I think it is what we might call a teachable moment when someone passes – particularly as someone as highly thought of and such an incredible performer as Whitney Houston,” Kerlikowske said. “We can use this as a moment to help people understand. There are millions of Americans that are suffering from this problem…so we can use this as a chance to move forward.”

That’s right, the government is here to remove the stigma and that’s why they’re raiding medical marijuana dispensaries and sending DEA agents to bust down doors, and funding drug wars around the world that end in thousands of deaths.

Yes, death can be a teachable moment, and a time to move forward. But Kerlikowske’s the last one to look to for lessons or direction.

Tony Bennett stands by his call to legalise all drugs

Following last night’s (February 12) Grammy win for his duet with the late Amy Winehouse, ‘Body and Soul’, crooner Tony Bennett has stood by his call to have all drugs legalised.

He made the original comments at Clive Davis’ Saturday night pre-Grammys party in the wake of Whitney Houston’s death. Speaking to Rolling Stone, the 17 time Grammy winner said he had received a “mostly positive” reaction to his comments, adding that legalisation would: “get rid of all the gangsters that make people hide.

Good for Tony.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy something from a real class act.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIrcxGdyUdk&feature=related

Don’t have time to write about it now (and I will be at some time), but…

Read this: Killing Whitney Houston by Jack Marshall at Ethics Alarms

and this: Don’t let Whitney Houston become the next Len Bias – a response by Mark at Nobody’s Business (along with a comment by Jack there).