Drug WarRant

I got an email from President Barack Obama on Friday. I didn’t realize he knew me, but it was a nice letter and apparently he wants to hear from me personally!

The day after I delivered my State of the Union Address to Congress, I took off to connect with ordinary Americans around the country, talk more about our Blueprint for an America Built to Last, and get some feedback.

That’s why I’m writing you.

I guess my presence on the internet finally paid off. He realizes that I’m someone he can turn to for guidance.

On Monday we’re going to do something a little different. At 5:30 p.m. ET, I’ll walk into the Roosevelt Room across the hall from the Oval Office, take a seat, and kick-off the first-ever completely virtual town hall from the White House.

All week, people have been voting on questions and submitting their own, and a few of them will join me for a live chat.

What do you want to ask me?

This is going to be an exciting way to talk about the steps that we need to take together at this make-or-break moment for the middle class.

I suppose I should ask him about drug policy. Probably nobody else has done that yet, and I bet he’s anxious to have the opportunity to talk about legalization.

…

Seriously, here is the actual top vote-getter for tomorrow night, from LEAP’s Stephen Downing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0IpiATxdR4

Drug WarRant was down for most of the day Sunday due to massive problems at DreamHost that affected a large number of virtual private servers. Nothing directly connected to this site. Sorry for the temporary lack of couch.

Posting has been extremely light the past few days as I’ve been exceptionally busy with a variety of diverse and interesting projects (description after the fold)

Wayne State Law School symposium on the federal-state dichotomy on marijuana. Kevin Sabet starts at about 22 minutes, and Dan Riffle, Legislative Analyst for MPP starts at about 43 minutes, and he gets in some really nice counters to Kevin Sabet’s “extremism.” Dan talks about tax policy as it could relate to marijuana sales (interesting).

I haven’t listened to the whole video yet, but there’s some really good stuff here.

Continuing on the theme of the fed-state dichotomy, we have Can a Strong Coalition of Pot Activists Define Medical Marijuana Regulation — And Avoid the Feds?

A broad coalition of California advocates has filed a statewide medical marijuana regulation initiative aimed at ending the years-long confusion over what is and what is not allowed under state law by explicitly allowing sales and legalizing dispensaries statewide absent affirmative local popular votes to ban them.

It’s an ambitious move to further codify the medical marijuana system and make it harder for the feds to interfere, but time is short for it to get on the ballot.

Mark Kleiman proposed a design problem as an assignment to his students: “How can you tax and regulate, at the state level, something that remains a Federal felony?”

Turns out that a group of his students came up with a pretty smart notion. Here’s their idea: Designing State-Level Cannabis Legalization

It could work — purely intended as a short term solution until the feds get out of the game, obviously. The idea is to make it difficult for the feds to get in there and bust operations (too many in this instance) while also not keeping state records the feds could seize that are trackable to individual sellers.

Virginia Sheriffs Addicted to Drug Cash

Michael P. Botticelli to be nominated as Deputy Director of the ONDCP

Interesting piece about a shadowy drug store – the Silk Road on a “secret” internet… Amazon.com for Illegal Drugs?

Continue reading →

BBC: Richard Branson drugs policy advice to David Cameron

It’s up to politicians, I think, to get the message across, and sometimes to ignore a newspaper like the Daily Mail and just get on and do what they believe is right. If you talk to any individual politician they know what’s right. […] [David Cameron]’s got to be brave as Prime Minister. You’ve got to do what’s right for the country and what’s right for society and individuals, and treat them like your children, or treat them like your brothers and sisters who have got a problem. You’d never throw your family into prison – you’d help them.

BBC: 100 years of the war on drugs. Interesting, though ultimately superficial account of the war on drugs over the past century.

U.S. spying on Mexicans using drones?

But does the U.S. government ever risk the international fallout of using the aircrafts’ high-tech surveillance abilities to take a peek south of the border – or share what they see with Mexican counterparts fighting for their lives?

The American public likely never will know.

“Officially, no,” said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, whose district hugs the Texas-Mexico border. “I will leave it at that.” […]

Exactly where they fly is classified.

The agency steps gingerly around Mexico surveillance. […]

She wouldn’t discuss whether the planes had flown counternarcotics missions over Mexico, saying Mexico should answer questions about its airspace.

The office of Mexican President Felipe Calderón declined comment.

‘Blind mules’ unknowingly ferry drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border – a scary situation. Always know what’s in the trunk of your car when you cross the border.

Americans for Forfeiture Reform report on another cash grab, this time by prosecutors. Buried in a proposed New York State bill is a measure that “was inserted at the request of prosecutors, especially Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.”

The measure increases the percentage of forfeiture takings that the DA’s office can keep. It also wildly expands what can be seized.

The worst part of the bill would allow courts to forfeit any property that is somehow involved in an offense if the person charged with the offense jumps bail.

2. IN THE EVENT OF A PENDING CRIMINAL CASE IN WHICH A DEFENDANT HAS ABSCONDED FROM THE JURISDICTION OF THE COURT, THE COURT MAY ORDER FORFEITURE OF ANY PROPERTY, REAL OR PERSONAL, CONSTITUTING, OR DERIVED FROM, PROCEEDS OBTAINED DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, AS THE RESULT OF ANY VIOLATION OF THE THIS CHAPTER, AS WELL AS ANY PROPERTY, REAL OR PERSONAL, INVOLVED IN ANY VIOLATION OF THIS CHAPTER, OR ANY PROPERTY TRACEABLE TO SUCH PROPERTY.

Note that it does not limit forfeitures to the property of the accused that jump bail. Rather, property involved in an offense where a defendant absconds from jurisdiction is subject to forfeiture. Thus, your property is subject to seizure if someone skips bail and your property is allegedly involved in, or traceable to property involved in, an offense that gave rise to their criminal charge. As stated, you needn’t have any culpability to lose your property. Indeed, you might face the forfeiture of your property because of a crime against you or your property.

There’s a lot more here. These forfeiture schemes are really bad law, but what makes it worse is that the thieves themselves are writing the laws that let them steal “legally.”

Here’s a six-page paper called Drug Legalisation: An Evaluation of the Impacts on Global Society. Position Statement

It’s been put together by:

• Drug Prevention Network of the Americas (DPNA)
• Institute on Global Drug Policy
• International Scientific and Medical Forum on Drug Abuse
• International Task Force on Strategic Drug Policy
• People Against Drug Dependence & Ignorance (PADDI), Nigeria
• Europe Against Drugs (EURAD)
• World Federation Against Drugs (WFAD)
• Peoples Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance (PREDA)
• Drug Free Scotland

Transform describes it best

Is this seriously the best the defence of prohibition that can be mustered? Its embarrassingly bad.

An important decision by the Supremes today in United States v. Jones.

Lyle Denniston at ScotusBlog has the details:

The Court flatly rejected the government’s argument that it was simply not a search, in the constitutional sense, to physically — and secretly — attach a small GPS tracker on the underside of the car used by a man, Antoine Jones, who was a principal target of an investigation into a drug-running operation in Washington, D.C., and its suburbs. […]

Given the complexity of the voting pattern, and what the votes actually supported or failed to support, it nonetheless was clear that the Court was unanimous in one respect. It upheld the result — but no more than the result — of a D.C. Circuit Court ruling that Jones’ Fourth Amendment rights had been violated.

So that part was very clear, but where it goes from there is a lot murkier.

The choice Monday was between a minimalist approach, one in the middle, and an expansive view of Fourth Amendment privacy. Each had support among the Justices, but counting the votes was a bit tricky.

The most sweeping argument about constitutional protection against government monitoring with sophisticated new devices came in an opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, but that represented — at least for now — only her views. The narrowest view (which Sotomayor said she also supported, at least this time) came in the opinion for the Court by Justice Antonin Scalia, and that is the five-vote result that clearly put police and federal agents on notice that it would be smart to get a warrant before they attach a monitoring device to a vehicle during a criminal investigation. Approximately in the middle was the view of Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., which attracted perhaps four and a half votes — the half-vote being that of Sotomayor, who would have gone further.

So, the Fourth Amendment does actually mean something in the Supreme Court — it’s just that all of them have differing views of just what it means.

Ezra Klein in the Washington Post:

On Saturday’s edition of “Up With Chris Hayes,” Gary Johnson brought up an old Newt Gingrich idea I hadn’t heard before: Putting individuals who brought more than two ounces of marijuana into the United States to death. That sounded extreme, even for Gingrich. So I looked it up. And sure enough, there it is: “The Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996.” What makes the bill even more amazing is that Gingrich himself is a confessed pot smoker.

Yep. Of course, we know that about ol’ Newt, but it’s good to get more of the populace aware of how ridiculously dangerous he is.

Some interesting reactions to this story: Va. lawmaker wants to legalize marijuana to sell in ABC stores

For those who aren’t aware, ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) stores are state-run stores to sell alcohol, a system that exists in certain states as opposed to licensing private alcohol stores.

Radley Balko tweets: “I genuinely don’t know how I feel about this.”

I understand. As a libertarian, he can’t be thrilled with turning it all over to the government, while at the same time he’d be happy to get it out of criminal prohibition.

I would prefer that marijuana not be restricted to government distribution only, but have no problem with almost any half-way measure (including this one) if it actually moves us away from prohibition.

The most ridiculously self-serving comment goes to:

Wayne Frith, of Substance Abuse Free Environment (SAFE), is opposed to the idea. He said marijuana comes with dangerous health ramifications.

“The simple truth is the health implications and public safety implications are horrible with this drug. Somehow we’ve created this myth that marijuana is a harmless play drug and it’s not. It needs to be controlled. To equate it with alcohol and put it o the general public, I mean what’s next? Selling it at Wal-Mart and having young people steal it? That’s the wrong track to go down,” said Frith.

Beyond his Reefer Madness hysteria, I found it ironic that Frith wants marijuana “to be controlled” and thus opposes putting it the ABC system (yes, the C stands for “Control”). Instead, he prefers that it be sold completely without control by criminals.

Most ignorant response comes from pttownnative in the comments to the article:

Anyone who smokes marijuana is a criminal and your comments does not matter anyways. This politican who states that members of society use marijuana should be placed under oath and made to release those names. If your life sucks so bad that you have to get high just to make through your miserable existance, no one cares about thier comments either. We need to stop or regulate the government handouts to bring our economy up not wasting time with this stupid topic.

More anecdotal evidence of the link between prohibition and brain dysfunction.

It’s been suggested in comments that we have an annual Prohibitionist of the year award. I think it’s a great idea.

Perhaps, in addition to the big award, we could have a few sub categories, such as Most Outrageous Single Prohibition Action (OpEd, quote, etc.), Prohibition Apologist of the Year, etc.

What other categories would you suggest? And when should we give the award?