Drug WarRant

This one really cracked me up.

WASHINGTON — U.S. attorneys have a message for California’s medical marijuana advocates: Don’t blame Barack Obama. After it was announced that the crackdown on medical pot establishments in the Golden State was a collective decision by the four U.S. attorneys in California and not the result of any directive from Washington, spokeswoman Lauren Horwood emphasized that the administration never even green-lighted the ramped-up enforcement actions.

Really?

Anyone who has ever worked within an organization with a charismatic leader knows that if that is actually true, there are very few possibilities now that the U.S. attorneys have made that statement.

1. Barack Obama does, in fact, agree with the decision and can be blamed.
2. Barack Obama does not, in fact, agree with the decision and the U.S. Attorneys either must stop what they’re doing, or they must stop what they’re doing while turning in their resignations.

So… which is it?

I mean, do they really think that they can somehow get Obama off the hook with the liberals who support medical marijuana with something that lame?

This morning, a large number of people got an official White House letter from David Plouffe, Senior Advisor to the President.

It was a letter to talk about the success of the “We the People” online petition initiative from the White House and to encourage more involvement. The opening of the letter was just what I had hoped for…

Good morning,

It’s part of my job to make sure President Obama gets to hear the voices and perspectives of people outside Washington – and lately, that’s not been difficult.

Everywhere the President goes, he gets the same message:…

Ah, here it comes. Finally. Acknowledgement from the White House that in every forum of this kind, drug policy reform is not only the top message, but usually the top 10.

…Americans just want folks in Washington to work together to build an economy that works for the middle class, not just the wealthiest – and is based on rewarding responsibility, hard work and fairness.

Wait. What?

Let me read that again. I must have accidentally skipped the words “marijuana” and “drug policy”… nope.

OK, I get it. He wants a chance to promote his agenda first, and then later in the letter he’ll discuss specifics that have come through the petition process.

Then, he’ll mention how thousands of citizens have signed the petition for drug policy reform, and how he understands the issue based on his experience with drugs in his youth, and that he has gotten the message loud and clear.

Let me scroll down further through the letter…

Ah, here it is!

In the past month, thousands of citizens signed a petition about…

See, I told you.

…student loans. These individuals rightly pointed out that the weight of this debt is preventing graduates all over the country from achieving their dreams.

It’s a message received loud and clear and one that President Obama – who spent almost a decade paying off his own student loans – understands.

Sigh.

So what else do you have? What’s the next issue you think needs attention? Make sure your voice is heard in our government:

http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/YourIdeas

We can’t wait to see what you have to say.

Sincerely,

David Plouffe
Senior Advisor to the President

… just for clarification, I’m just having fun with a completely and thoroughly expected letter content by the Administration.

The following article from The Voice of Russia sounds even more entertaining if you imagine it being spoken by Yakov Smirnoff.

U. S plans to legalize marijuana.

There is a term in the U.S.: “war on drugs” which describes the state’s attempt to wage war on the spread of drugs. The campaign is having a telling effect not only on the state’s budget. 80 per cent of all the prisoners in American jails were convicted for marijuana offence.

And most of them come out of prisons mentally damaged. Against this backdrop, 50 per cent of Americans are calling for the legalization of Indian hemp. This is not because Americans have become more liberal-minded, says Bill Piper, Chief of the “Drug Policy Alliance”.

In the past 50 years, the numbers of supporters of the “poison” has been increasing steadily, and towards the end of the 90s, a law which allowed obtaining of marijuana on a prescription, in a free medical marijuana dispensary, was adopted in 17 American states. […]

An organization called “Law emforces against ban” has been formed. The members have proposed legalizing all the existing drugs, arguing that this could help protest children from prohibited substances, remove drugs from the streets, and keep more effective records of drug addicts.

Some excellent conferences coming up shortly…

Reform Conference

This is the major biennial International Drug Policy Reform Conference being held November 2-5 in Los Angeles. Full of speakers, workshops, and social events with over 1,000 people in attendance.

The Cato Institute is hosting Ending the Global War on Drugs on Tuesday, November 15.

An excellent group of speakers including Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Former President, Brazil; Jorge Castañeda, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mexico; Mary Anastasia O’Grady, Member of the Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal; Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou, Speaker of the House of Deputies, Uruguay; Glenn Greenwald; Columnist and Blogger, Salon; Leigh Maddox, Board Member, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Professor, University of Maryland Francis Carey School of Law; Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director, Drug Policy Alliance; Tucker Carlson, Editor-in-Chief, Daily Caller

…

Unfortunately, my work schedule makes trips to either coast completely impossible right now, or I’d be trying to do one or both.

If there’s anybody who is attending either conference and is interested in sharing reactions and reports with our readers here, please let me know.

This is one of the best articles I’ve read on the subject so far.

In a Strange About-Face, the President Tries to Hack Medical Marijuana Off at the Knees by Ray Stern in the Phoenix New Times.

There was no doubt about it: Obama was intent on killing an entire industry — in the middle of a depression, no less. Left unexplained was why, especially since he was giving the finger to voters in 16 states just a year before he would face them in his own election.

Except one group, says Salazar: “It’s a mystery . . . where the pressure is coming from. My sense is it’s coming from law enforcement.”

Makes sense to me.

As more research comes in showing that pot can be an effective treatment, and with America’s elderly population exploding in the coming decades, interest in its medicinal qualities apparently will only rise.

Ignorance, false propaganda, and rank political posturing tend to be the foundation of the anti-marijuana argument. (Throw in bureaucratic turf protection, as well. The DEA, for example, would need fewer agents if pot was decriminalized nationwide.)

Bingo.

The author does a great job of ridiculing the public servants who try to push propaganda rather than science:

Last December in Arizona, Will Humble, the state’s Department of Health Services director, held a proposed-rules-on-medical-marijuana news conference about the state’s new Medical Marijuana Act. He took a moment to remind reporters that more than 1,000 Arizonans died last year from accidental overdoses of prescription drugs.

But when asked how many of them died from marijuana, Humble refused to answer — to chuckles from the audience. He referred the question to his chief medical officer, Laura Nelson, who would only say she’d “have to do the research on that” before she could answer.

Then Nelson began stammering about the danger of marijuana related to “car accidents” — though she had done no research on that, either.

He covers the importance of state action.

Like women’s suffrage, the medical-marijuana movement has — in 10 states, anyway — benefited by the direct democracy of citizens initiatives. These elections have taken the pulse of voters in a way that congressional elections cannot.

And he points out the challenge that the crackdown faces:

[Pheonix attorney Ty] Taber thinks the president may have underestimated his foe. “The people behind this marijuana movement — they’re committed. They are zealots. And these are smart people — not stoners saying, ‘Hey, dude, pass another slice of pizza.'”

Not that there’s anything wrong with pizza.

Officials Use Ruse At Wolcott High To Clear Halls For Drug Search

Combine the War on Terror with the War on Drugs to help create a docile and obedient future generation.

At Wolcott High School one morning this week, an urgent announcement crackled over the intercom: a threatening intruder was in the building and students were told to immediately take refuge in classrooms.

Doors were locked and police, with dogs, moved in. Students stayed huddled in classrooms where they were told to stay away from the windows.

But what sounded like a frightening situation was just a search for narcotics. Drug-sniffing dogs combed the school while students stayed in locked classrooms, believing that an attacker was roaming the halls.

The schools, of course, just want to terrify the students in a positive way…

[Superintendent of Schools Joseph McCary:] “We are providing a safe and secure nurturing environment.”

No drugs were found.

But that wasn’t what it was about, was it?

Interesting (though a bit meandering in focus) piece by Robbie Gennet in the Huffington Post: How Do You Quantify a Hallucination? And Why Are They Illegal?

The DEA has a nice hallucinogen page, though it’s sorely lacking in footnotes to back up their “facts”. Nor does it tell us why hallucinogens are so dangerous as to be banned from use. […]

If the only reason that these drugs are illegal is that they make you have hallucinations (sometimes) and they can be scary (sometimes) but are often pleasurable and enlightening, how is that grounds for banning them? […]

So they are admitting that the substances listed are not well understood on a variety of scientific levels, they might not even been correctly named and that they don’t even always work. If you refuse to test and understand them, how can you justify making them illegal? Without correctly defining them, how can hallucinogens be accurately applied to a scheduling chart full of quantifying statements? And furthermore, how can they refuse to let said substances be tested for the kind of empirical data they would need to properly schedule them? Do they not want to test hallucinogens and have to schedule them honestly?

Or is it that you can’t quantify a hallucination?

Perhaps it is time to reschedule ALL drugs to create policy based on scientific rationale and empirical data rather than propaganda and fear.

Of course, our political leaders have never felt the need to justify making anything illegal. And the mere mystery of hallucinogens is enough to give sadomoralists the screaming heebie-jeebies.

Several items of interest (via Radley Balko and others)…

More questionable raids…

A Gibbs Road couple came home from work Thursday to find their home surrounded by Richland County sheriff’s deputies, their front door kicked in and their home ransacked. […]

The informant told investigators the drug buy was made at 402 Gibbs Road. That’s where the sheriff’s drug unit staged its raid, looking into the one drug purchase the informant alleges happened there.

Yep. One drug purchase alleged by an informant. All you need to get your door kicked in and home ransacked.

The sheriff’s office says an apology is just not happening, and they’ll continue investigating this case until they make an arrest.

Wrong address

The next day, the police executed their search at 3815 West Diversey, the building next door to 3811. The officers approached the building through the alley in the rear and broke down the back door with a sledgehammer. Two officers stayed outside to watch the building entrance.

Startled by the noise, Nancy Simental walked upstairs from her basement apartment with her two children. She claimed to find police pointed their guns at her and saying, “Don’t move or I’ll shoot you.” When she asked the police to put their guns away because children were present, a policeman repeated that he would shoot Simental and another pointed a gun at the children.

Officers also walked in on first-floor resident Francisca Nava as she was in the bathroom and told her not to move. The court said officers also pointed guns at Guadalupe Simental and Cesar Leon.

Sometime after the police entered the building, one of the officers stationed outside informed the team leader that the address on the front door did not match the warrant. All the officers then exited the building, leaving furniture overturned and the residents’ belongings strewn across the floor…

Good news from Florida

A federal judge Monday halted Florida’s law mandating drug testing for welfare applicants. District Court Judge Mary Scriven in Orlando granted a temporary injunction barring the state from enforcing the law until the case is resolved.

The new law, which went into effect in July, was challenged as an unconstitutional violation of the Fourth Amendment’s proscription against unwarranted searches and seizures in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Florida and the Florida Justice Institute on behalf of a Central Florida man. Luis Lebron, 35, a Navy veteran turned college student was denied state benefits after he refused to submit to a drug test.

In her order granting the temporary injunction, Judge Scriven thoroughly demolished the state’s arguments that drug testing didn’t amount to a search, that welfare applicants were more likely to use drugs than the population as a whole, and that the state had a special interest in drug testing welfare applicants that would override constitutional proscriptions against it. She also found that the ACLU of Florida has a good chance of prevailing in its lawsuit.

We were all pretty sure that this would be the outcome. It’ll be interesting to see if Florida continues to try to pursue this in court.

Seems to me that this was one of those political games where the politicians knew that what they were passing was unconstitutional, yet went ahead anyway because there’s enough idiots out there that can get stirred up with false stories of “those” people using taxpayer money to buy drugs.

Here’s a really fascinating story: Controversy in BAT van investigation

For months, some of the people closest to HPD’s breath testing vans have told you and us that the vans are unreliable — meaning the roadside tests they do on alleged drunk drivers may not be accurate.

Now the controversy has spilled over into a grand jury investigation, and it’s become so heated that a prosecutor working for Harris Co. District Attorney Pat Lykos was thrown out of the grand jury room earlier this week under the threat of arrest.

That’s right, the grand jury wanted to hear the stories directly from the witnesses without interference from the DA.

When Mayr walked in to testify before the grand jury on Tuesday, the foreperson told prosecutors to get out. They wanted to hear from Mayr and Culbertson without a DA in the room.

“They obviously believe that the DA’s Office played a role in this case and that they can’t be independent,” said KTRK Legal Analyst Joel Androphy.

While it is rare — and legal — the DA’s Office threw a fit. Court records show top assistants to the elected DA refused to leave the room until a bailiff threatened to arrest them. The DA tried to force a judge to let them back in, but it was denied. An appeals court said the same thing.

Kudos to that grand jury and its foreman. I think that too often grand have been rubber stamps for the interests of prosecution, and this has been so pervasive that this DA’s office was genuinely startled that their “lackeys” would actually want to do their job.

Juries have great power (or should) to prevent miscarriage of justice, but jurors need to be aware of their authority and exercise it.

Taking a few days off – just finished a major theatre trip to Chicago with a group this weekend.

Facts on medical marijuana are stubborn things, too is an OpEd by Joseph Summeril, who seems to prove his point by eschewing facts entirely.

Colorado to formally ask DEA to designate pot Schedule II controlled substance

Actually, they’re required to, by law.

Anybody reading this who is an Illinois State University student — please check out the Illinois State chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, which meets every Thursday night at 8 pm in Schroeder 242.

That’s the powerful message from former Mexican President Vicente Fox is this very hard-hitting video interview with BBC News.