Drug WarRant

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.

Red Ribbon Week promotes anti-drug use

I hope they’re promoting responsible anti-drug use.

You wouldn’t want young people abusing anti-drugs.

I also enjoy the fact that “Throughout the week, junior high and high school parents will have a chance to sign a pledge to supervise teen parties and keep them free of alcohol and drugs.”

Makes it sound like a lottery. There’s a limited number of pledges available each day, but a few lucky parents will get to sign one.

Hey, I’m all in favor of fact-based education and encouraging young people to stay away from drugs. But this eager-beaver-fun-filled-abstinence-club approach is transparently fake and ineffective. Sure there are some kids who jump right into the activities, eager to look good to the appropriate adults. And two years from now, they’ll be the ones lying dead in an abandoned apartment with a needles sticking out of their arm because they never learned anything useful.

The only good thing about this is that a few of them will actually find something more than what was intended in the meaning of this year’s theme: “It’s up to me to be drug free.”

From the Hill

The Senate narrowly defeated an amendment on Thursday that would have established a commission to research avenues for reparing the “broken” criminal justice system after Republicans said it would encroach on states’ constitutional rights to conduct their own affairs.

Yep, this is the Webb commission that got defeated.

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) echoed Coburn, calling the proposed body a vast violation of states’ rights.

“This is the most massive encroachment on states’ rights I have ever seen in this body,” she said.

Kay Hutchison apparently has never heard of marijuana.

I found this article at The Auto Channel that, at first, would seem to be in support of the ONDCP’s effort to use driving laws as a back door method to criminalizing internal possession of marijuana.

Oct. 13, 2011: The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) announced today that it has strengthened its drugged driving policy during its recent Annual Meeting, held September 25-28 in Cincinnati. The new policy supports elevating drugged driving to a national priority and calls upon states to undertake several strategies to address this emerging highway safety issue.

Yep. Sounds like the Drug Czar has been doing a good job pushing his agenda.

But here’s where it differs. Kerlikowske has been pushing for states to establish per se laws on drugged driving (criminalizing even the slightest amount in the body whether or not impairment was involved).

In fact the priorities are clear at the ONDCP’s site:

• Encouraging states to adopt Per Se drug impairment laws;
• Collecting further data on drugged driving;

Standard ONDCP stuff: pass laws first, then find research to support those laws.

But check out what the GHSA calls for:

Amend statutes to provide separate and distinct sanctions for alcohol and drug-impaired driving;
Develop standard protocols or procedures for drug testing labs to use in identifying drugs that impair driving;…

That doesn’t sound like a throw-them-all-in-jail approach. And then…

In addition, GHSA is calling for much more drugged driving research. Studies are needed to understand the scope of the problem, to improve field testing of drugged drivers and to set impairments standards. According to Harsha, “Any countermeasures for drugged driving must be based on research and data. The highway safety research community should make this a priority.”

Oh no, the Drug Czar isn’t going to like that.

See, I talk about this drugged driving thing a lot, and it’s not that I’m in favor of people driving impaired. I’m not. But I do think it’s critical that any policies that are used are based on actual data, not the irrelevant statistics that the Drug Czar uses as fear tactics.

And I don’t think that reformers should be afraid to challenge the Drug Czar on his fact-free assertions in this area simply because some people lacking the ability of nuance might view this as being pro-impaired-driving.

The fact is that the drugged driving scare has the potential of diverting attention in a way that could make driving more dangerous. And the main purpose of it appears to be part of the multi-pronged attack on marijuana legalization and medical marijuana (don’t let them have guns, cars, jobs, banks, landlords, unemployment insurance, etc.).

An outstanding rant on marijuana legalization and the latest Gallup poll by Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC.

You have to sit through a commercial and MSNBC’s slow loading, but I think it’s worth it.

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