Drug WarRant

When the Drug Czar said that “legalization” wasn’t in his vocabulary or the President’s vocabulary, there was a movement to send dictionaries to the White House. The DEA needs some as well…

Chemicals Used in “Spice” and “K2” Type Products Now Under Federal Control and Regulation

Really?

this action makes possessing and selling these chemicals or the products that contain them illegal in the United States

And that’s “control and regulation”? Just like all the other drugs that the federal government “controls and regulates”?

Let’s look at some definitions:

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con·trol – verb \kÉ™n-ˈtrōl\

transitive verb

1. 1. : archaic : to check, test, or verify by evidence or experiments
   2. : to incorporate suitable controls in (a controlled experiment)
2. 1. : to exercise restraining or directing influence over : regulate
   2. : to have power over : rule
   3. : to reduce the incidence or severity of especially to innocuous levels (control a disease)

intransitive verb
: to incorporate controls in an experiment or study —used with for (control for socioeconomic differences)

Examples of CONTROL

• The parents could not control their child.
• The police controlled the crowd.
• The small boy could not control the big dog.
• Her family controls the business.
• One country controls the whole island.
• The rebel army now controls nearly half the country.
• The lights on stage are controlled by this computer.
• She struggled to control the cart as it rolled before her down the steep, bumpy road.
• He controlled the volume by turning the radio’s knob.
• A thermostat controls the room’s temperature.

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reg·u·late – verb \ˈre-gyÉ™-ËŒlāt also ˈrā-\

transitive verb

1. 1. : to govern or direct according to rule
   2. : to bring under the control of law or constituted authority
      1. : to make regulations for or concerning
2. : to bring order, method, or uniformity to (regulate one’s habits)
3. : to fix or adjust the time, amount, degree, or rate of (regulate the pressure of a tire)

Examples of REGULATE

• The dam regulates the flow of water into the river.
• We need better laws to regulate the content of the Internet.
• Laws have been made to regulate working conditions.
• The government regulates how much lead may be found in our water supply.
• The department regulates foreign trade.

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Recognize anything in those definitions that even remotely resembles the disaster that we are experiencing and which the DEA is enforcing?

The DEA isn’t in the business of regulating or controlling drugs, and it bothers them greatly when we remind them of that fact. Criminalization leads to the absence of control.

What the DEA has done is merely outlawed things and used that arbitrary distinction to declare war on Americans (and others).

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outlaw – verb

transitive verb

1. 1. : to deprive of the benefit and protection of law : declare to be an outlaw
   2. : to make illegal
2. : to place under a ban or restriction
3. : to remove from legal jurisdiction or enforcement

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Outlawing is not controlling or regulating.

The Orange County Register prints this “Reader Rebuttal” from Ken L. Williams, physician, member of the Orange County Board of Education, and law enforcement officer.

Judge Jim Gray is an honorable man but, unfortunately, once again is leading a statewide effort endorsing a tragic public policy position for the unrestricted use of marijuana.

First sentence! Not bad. I don’t believe that Jim Gray has ever come even close to endorsing the unrestricted use of marijuana.

Marijuana laws present a significant problem for law enforcement officers because of the chemical stimulant in and of itself…

Stimulant? Yes, it does stimulate pleasure, appetite, and has some other similarly healthful benefits, but is rarely classified a “stimulant” in terms of illicit drugs.

Over the past few years since the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana possession from misdemeanor to an infraction, while on patrol I also have observed a distressing increased use of and societal dysfunction caused by the abuse of marijuana laws.

“the abuse of marijuana laws”? Ah, now I see what bothers him. Interesting phrase.

From a health perspective, marijuana smoke is a highly toxic substance and associated with an increased risk of lung cancer.

Wrong again. Time to turn in your internet doctor’s certificate.

Advocates of marijuana decriminalization believe drugs don’t negatively impact society.

Name one. Seriously. One.

Proposition 19 was rejected by California voters in November, and the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act of 2012 should also be opposed. We can’t further dilute the “Just Say No to Drugs” school-based, anti-drug campaigns in place. We can’t send a two-faced and double-standard message to our children and society.

The use of automobiles must be opposed. We can’t further dilute the “Give a Hoot! Don’t Pollute”” school-based anti-pollution campaigns in place.

Have your own fun with this.

It’s a tactic that the federal government has regularly used against us. Wear them out. Allow for a system of re-scheduling marijuana, but let it take 20 years to go through the process of appeals and denials and maybe we’ll just get tired of trying.

It’s been an effective tactic in stalling progress, but it can’t ultimately succeed, because we also use that tactic in a positive way.

Medical Marijuana Making Progress in Illinois Again

It’s been made very clear that every defeat of medical marijuana in Illinois will now mean another bill the next year. And it will get harder and harder for the opposition to mount a serious challenge to it, particularly as more of the public gets educated.

There is a strong and dedicated group of medical marijuana advocates in Illinois who will not give up.

The same is true of groups in various other states pushing for legalization of recreational or medical marijuana. As we’ve seen, success may be delayed, but with persistence and patience, we persevere.

It’s frustrating, but it won’t always move this slowly. Critical mass will see to that.

This has been a much-needed break, along with a whole lot of work keeping up with these college students.

Here’s another open thread.

I’m having way too much fun in New York right now seeing good shows, eating good food, leading good walking tours (along with an amazing single-malt tasting session tonight) to possibly keep up with reading and commenting on drug war news.

But you need another open thread, so here it is.

Video: Drug Czar says LEAP “Is Wrong”

An 8 minute interview with Gil Kerlikowske. Lots of lies and deception, and all the stuff we have come to expect from the drug czar.

I’m taking a group of 18 college students to New York tomorrow for a week of theatre and walking tours over Spring Break. We’ll be seeing Diary of a Madman with Geoffrey Rush, How to Succeed in Business with Daniel Radcliffe and John Laroquette, the much-talked-about Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark, Good People with Frances McDormand, and probably The Book of Mormon. I’ll be taking them on walking tours of Coney Island/Brighton Beach, Lower Manhattan/Chinatown/Little Italy, Chelsea/Meatpacking District/Village, East Village, Midtown, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, Roosevelt Island. I’m also really looking forward to eating at a lot of my favorite places.

I plan to continue posting while I’m gone as I can, but may not have much time.

UMass professor drops bid to grow medical pot (see update)

Sad. It’s what they do. They tie you up in processes and legal steps and hope that you just die or get tired before you get satisfaction.

A University of Massachusetts-Amherst professor says he’s dropping his nearly decade-long fight to persuade the government to let him grow marijuana in bulk for medical research.

Horticulturist Lyle Craker wanted to cultivate marijuana to boost research into the plant’s potential medicinal benefits. But he’s been rebuffed — even as more than a dozen states have legalized medical marijuana.

Craker, 70, said he saw no end in sight to the legal wrangling, given the likelihood of an appeals process that could run several years, or even decades. He was frustrated, too, that he never got a hoped-for boost from the Obama administration.

“I’m disappointed in our system,” he said. “But I’m not disappointed at what we did. I think our efforts have brought the problem to the public eye more. … This is just the first battle in a war.”

Update: Thanks to Rick in comments, it appears that this report is premature. Go ahead and read the comment. They’re not giving up yet.

Obama, Calderon Pledge Cooperation On Drug Wars

Yawn.

Seeking to repair damaged relations, President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon agreed Thursday to deepen their cooperation in combating drug violence […]

During a joint news conference at the White House, Obama praised Calderon for his “extraordinary courage” in fighting the violent drug cartels that have been responsible for deaths on both sides of the border. Obama pledged to speed up U.S. aid to train and equip Mexican forces to help in those efforts, but he also acknowledged that the U.S. must stem the flow of cash and guns to Mexico that have aided the cartels.

Sócrates Rizzo: PRI Presidents oversaw drug trafficking

During an interview session the former PRI Governor admitted that previous PRI presidents held strong control over drug trafficking routes that prevented the attacks on civilians and the violence that Mexico is undergoing today.

Although an open secret in Mexican society and a charge occasionally leveled publicly by the country’s two other major political parties, the National Action Party (PAN) and the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), this is the first time in recent history that a former or current PRI politician has admitted publicly that this arrangement existed.

“Somehow the problems with drug trafficking were avoided, there was a strong State control and a strong President and a strong Attorney General and a tight control of the Army.”

“Somehow they (drug traffickers) were told: ‘You go through here, you here, you there’, but do not touch these other places,” he said in his speech.

The former Governor added that this strategy allowed the State to ensure the social peace that has been lost in the war on drugs launched by the PAN administration of Felipe Calderon.

Unless we’re willing to either legalize and take the profit out of trafficking (or wave a magic wand and make demand go away), the Mexican government really only has two choices:

1. Wink and let the traffickers get rich without interference
2. Take them on head-on with force… and the traffickers still get rich, except now lots of people are dead and the country destabilizes.

Once we legalize, then you can crush the cartels successfully.

Extra drug tests added to try to stop medical marijuana patient from winning the race. Iditarod Expands Drug Testing After Last Year’s Pothead Victory

The top finishers all tested clean, according to Iditarod officials, including champion Lance Mackey, who believed jealous competitors called for the drug tests in hopes the throat-cancer survivor and well-known medicinal cannabis smoker would test positive.

Reyes Family: “Militarization of Drug War in Mexico to Blame for Extortions, Kidnappings and Murders”

The recent kidnapping and murder of three family members related to a slain human rights defender in the state of Chihuahua has drawn more scrutiny to the Mexican military’s role in policing and fighting the drug war. Lost in the national and international media’s reporting of the story are claims that soldiers on the ground in and around Ciudad Juarez are involved with committing assassinations and kidnappings to silence those who accuse them of corruption.

Members of the Reyes Salazar family have criticized the military for a number of illegal acts, including extortion, harassment, and murder. In the last three years, six family members have been killed. All of the incidents involve suspicious circumstances that happened after the family began denouncing the Army for human rights abuses.

You’re not paranoid. They really are out to get you.

In This Week’s Corrupt Cops Stories, there’s an extraordinary (I hope) case where police, prosectors, and judge all conspired to allow perjured testimony to be used.

Harper’s Faith-Based Drug War by Neil Boyd

The Harper Conservatives are under fire for their extraordinarily expensive legislative initiative, Bill S-10. Among other things, the bill seeks to spend at least hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on prison building, in order to impose a mandatory minimum term of six months in jail for anyone who grows more than six marijuana plants. […]

The mistake we make is to believe that the Harper Conservative agenda is based on fact, data relevant to public health, or the best available empirical evidence. That’s not what they care about. Stephen Harper is an ideologue, publicly committed to increasing imprisonment for a greater range of criminal offences and personally in favour of the death penalty. […]

Bill S-10 is about a belief in a particular world view – one that is hostile and emotionally driven in its intent, having more in common with George Bush’s Texas than our longstanding Canadian values of tolerance and compassion. We should not pretend that this legislation has anything to do with evidence – or with making our country a safer place in which to live.

Bolivian President Evo Morales snubs US drugs agents – Bolivian President Evo Morales has refused to invite US anti-narcotics agents back into the country.

Since the arrest last week of Gen Sanabria by DEA agents in Panama, some opposition politicians have been calling for the return to Bolivia of the American agents to help the Andean country in its fight against drug trafficking.

But President Morales said the DEA was “an instrument the US uses to blackmail those countries who don’t comply with imperialism and capitalism”.

He said that even though Bolivia was only a small country, its government, armed forces and police would not bow to the DEA.

“The fight against drugs is driven by geopolitical interests,” he said.

I haven’t heard yet any reaction from Calderon’s visit with Obama yesterday, but it doesn’t really matter. Nothing good could come from it, because neither one of them can really discuss a solution. All they can do is complain about failing to throw enough gas on the fire.

Stories from Reuters and Houston Chronicle

Calderon last week accused the United States of damaging efforts to beat back drug cartels, just days after one of the worst attacks on U.S. officials in Mexico left one Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent dead and another wounded.

Instead of seeking to reassure Washington, Calderon uncharacteristically blasted the U.S. ambassador to Mexico as “ignorant”, and lashed out at ICE, the CIA, and the Drug Enforcement Administration for their role in the drugs war.

This was a calculated effort to excuse Calderon’s own failures in this drug war, since Mexico is getting tired of the violence, and despite putting his whole administration’s credibility behind attacking the drug war, he has nothing to show for it.

Mexican sensibilities also have been jangled in recent weeks by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s suggestion that the drug gangs might somehow ally with Islamic terrorists. A senior official in the U.S. Department of the Army riled feelings yet again by describing Mexico’s violence as an “insurgency” that might require direct U.S. action.

And, of course, the U.S. is frustrated because they can’t do anything that would actually, you know, make a difference, because they’re stuck in the prohibition mind-set.

Whenever they’re frustrated, they play the terrorism card and try to show how big a dick they have. Direct U.S. action? The U.S. military is an anachronistic behemoth that does little today but serve the greed of the military industrial complex while bankrupting the U.S. It doesn’t even realize that it can’t effectively deploy against terrorists or drug traffickers. Sending in the U.S. military to deal with the drug traffickers in Mexico would be like sending an elephant to get rid of the moles in your garden.

In preparation for today’s talks, the Obama administration on Wednesday also sent Congress a request for $10 billion in funding for programs to reduce U.S. drug consumption, long blamed by Mexican authorities for fueling the violence.

Ah, yes. The other truly American solution. Throw money at the problem. But when the actual solution isn’t on the table, that’s all you’ve got. Either the destructive use of supply-side drug war, or the ineffective and poorly targeted demand-side efforts.

“At some point it becomes deeply frustrating on both sides,” said Eric Olson, a security analyst at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., where Calderon also will meet today with select members of the public. “A lot of us are scratching our heads and asking what is going on. Things were going so well.”

If that’s true, Eric, then a lot of you are idiots.

Despite the various irritations, analysts said, today’s presidential chats are unlikely to produce any fireworks, at least in public. The U.S.-Mexico relationship, and the crime crackdown, is too important for both governments.

Rather, the meetings will entail “maybe some private venting and air-clearing, public solidarity and recommitment,” predicted John Bailey, an expert on Mexican national security issues at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

“Sounds like the same agenda: do more about reducing drug consumption and arms trafficking,” Bailey said. “Obama can’t do much about either. But he can help Calderon’s political standing in Mexico.”

Illinois keeps trying to do the right thing. They’ve gotten close on medical marijuana a couple of times in the legislature, but couldn’t quite close the deal (there’s no referendum process in Illinois).

Yesterday, the House Agriculture and Conservation committee passed the Illinois Industrial Hemp Act 11-2. Next, it goes to the full house. (Hemp is defined in the bill as having a THC content below 0.3%)

Another teen has fallen victim to the dangers of Equasy. Lauren Bryant, 16 was found on Sunday afternoon and died on the way to the hospital.

Sure, the rich protect their use of equasy even as they work to imprison those who use ecstasy, a drug no more dangerous. In fact, Professor David Nutt was fired from his job advising the UK government for daring to point out that equasy is as harmful as ecstasy.

While they shudder in horror at the notion of a 16-year-old using marijuana (something that couldn’t kill them), these same people actually encourage equasy for their youth (it was, in fact, a birthday present from her family that ended up causing Lauren’s death).

Children are dying. Attractive white children even. Children who live far from the inner city.

How can we possibly outlaw marijuana and ecstasy while these jodhpur-wearing country-club trash continue to defend and protect their equasy?