Drug WarRant

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?

No matter what you do to try to stop the supply of drugs, people will find a way to get around it, over it, under it, or through it.

Why? Because it’s so unbelievably profitable.

Here’s yet another drug smuggling submarine that was found in Colombia.

Just over 100 feet long and made out of fiberglass, capable of traveling 9 feet below the surface undetected. Authorities estimated that it may have cost $2 million to build.

Think about that for a moment. A criminal enterprise so lucrative that you’ll spend $2 million on a tool for committing the crime.

Here’s a nice spot over at the Economist to get a sense of some of the commenting of Malcolm Kyle, one of our regulars here. Malcolm really does a great job challenging the readers in comments sections at all sorts of media outlets.

It’s not just Obama that fails the question test. Check out this excellent piece at UKCIA News Blog: David Cameron shows his ignorance about cannabis

Democracy is a great idea, but the problem is it gives us politicians who can be the most dishonest peddlers of misinformation on the planet. David Cameron showed just how badly politicians can mislead when he answered a question about cannabis law reform this week.

When asked: “Why is marijuana illegal when alcohol and tobacco are more addictive and dangerous to our health, but we manage to control them? Wouldn’t education about drugs from a younger age be better?”

He answered:

“Well there’s one bit of that question I agree with which I think education about drugs is vital and we should make sure that education programmes are there in our schools and we should make sure that they work. But I don’t really accept the rest of the question. I think if you actually look at the sort of marijuana that is on sale today, it is actually incredibly damaging, very, very toxic and leads to, in many cases, huge mental health problems. But I think the more fundamental reason for not making these drugs legal is that to make them legal would make them even more prevalent and would increase use levels even more than they are now. So I don’t think it is the right answer. I think a combination of education, also treatment programmes for drug addicts, I think those are the two most important planks of a proper anti-drug policy.”

The article does a nice job of fisking that.

For those of you who may have missed it…

Jury nullification is an important tool for dealing with bad criminal laws that lawmakers (for whatever reason) don’t want to change. Judges and prosecutors are hostile to it and would prefer that jurors not know their rights and responsibilities in this area.

Is Advocacy of Jury Nullification a Crime?

Now someone has been arrested specifically for passing out information about jury nullification. This will be a case to watch since it is about silencing opposition.

Meanwhile, in our drug war next door…

28 in Mexico Killed in Attacks

It’s so routine it hardly seems worth reporting. Sigh.

An interesting legislative stunt in Minnesota…

Legislators want medical marijuana farming in Minnesota

A bill introduced in the Minnesota Legislature on Thursday would make it legal for farmers to grow medical marijuana and sell it to dispensaries in states where marijuana can be legally used for medicinal purposes. The Medical Marijuana Production and Export Act would direct the state government to develop a strict licensing plan for the potential grower and cites a positive economic benefit for the state’s agricultural sector.

It appears to me to be some kind of protest bill, because I can’t imagine it ever actually happening (at least until marijuana is legalized nationally). You can imagine that the feds would go ballistic over the idea of exporting medical marijuana across state lines, and the mental image of Minnesota shipping medical marijuana to California is pretty hilarious.

I always thought that Montanans had quite the independent streak. They thumbed their noses at the Feds when it came to speed limits. They considered themselves kind of frontiersmen who didn’t need the government telling them everything. Their conservatism was really more closely related to a form of libertarianism, I thought.

That may be true of the population, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be true of their GOP leadership.

I don’t know if you’ve been following this, but the GOP has apparently found the most pressing thing they need to do in Montana state government is to repeal the state’s medical marijuana law which was passed by the people 62 percent to 38 percent!

HELENA – Republican legislative leaders strongly condemned Montana’s medical marijuana program Thursday, as they spoke to reporters at the midsession break, while Democratic leaders denounced repeal attempts as another GOP effort to defy the will of voters.

At a Capitol news conference, House Speaker Mike Milburn, R-Cascade, talked about his bill to repeal the law, and Senate President Jim Peterson, R-Buffalo, spoke strongly against medical marijuana, although he stopped short of saying it should be repealed. […]

Milburn’s House Bill 161 would repeal that law. The bill has cleared the House on a mostly party-line vote and now faces action in the Senate.

As usual, out of control scare tactics are being used. Note, though, the subtle dig by the Missoulian reporter:

At the GOP news conference, Peterson asked if Montanans want one-third of high school kids with medical-marijuana cards.

Official state statistics show that 51 people under age 18 have been issued medical marijuana cards as of Feb. 1, or 0.18 percent of the 28,362 people with cards.

If they’re unhappy with the number of medical marijuana cards in the adult population, then the discussion that the Montana GOP should be having is to get government out of the business of running a drug war, and just legalize marijuana. They can then set an age limit of 18 if they wish. Save the kids, reduce government, promote individual responsibility, thumb your noses at the feds. Isn’t that what you really want, Montana?

Link

Thousands of U.S. agents and local police officers arrested and interrogated suspected associates of Mexican drug cartels across the United States on Thursday in response to the killing of a U.S. anti-narcotics agent in Mexico last week. […]

DEA officials said the sweep netted more than 100 suspects – most of them low-level – in Atlanta, Oakland, St. Louis, Denver, Detroit, San Antonio, San Diego, Chicago and New Jersey, as well as in Colombia, Brazil and Central America. […]

The DEA action, widely reported Thursday in Mexico, is intended to send a strong message to Mexican mafias that U.S. agents are off-limits, officials said.

“We’re doing what we always do. But a message was sent.”

Really?

So, these “cartels” who haven’t been deterred by the entire might of the Mexican army, who hire and dispose of mules and foot-soldiers with no regard to their lives, who slaughter rivals and innocents with a sadistic glee… What, they’re now going to quake in their boots because the DEA rousted a bunch of Americans with Mexican-sounding names… and questioned them?

“We’re sending a strong message.” >>translation>> “Uh, I got nuthin.”

Last week I talked about the powerful and well-written editorial in the Seattle Times…

MARIJUANA should be legalized, regulated and taxed. The push to repeal federal prohibition should come from the states, and it should begin with the state of Washington.

So what was the reaction to that editorial? Yesterday, the Times editorial page editor commented on that reaction.

It is rare we publish an editorial on a hot topic and receive near universal praise. But that is what happened last week when we came out in support of Washington state legalizing cannabis.

The fact that a lot of people support the drug being legal is not surprising. Most people I know have long supported legalization of marijuana.

Knowing people who support it and public opinion about a newspaper supporting it are different things.

When people take the time to e-mail or call me about an editorial, it is usually because they do not agree with the editorial page. This editorial was different. The compliments rolled in, the discussion in the comments section of the editorial is nearing 600 and is interesting and thoughtful — which is not always the case — and so far the editorial has been recommended by about 3,000 people on Facebook.

Those numbers are nice to see, but only a minor part of the story. What the editorial has shown is that a broad cross-section of Washingtonians supports legalizing cannabis, or at least are ready to discuss the issue seriously.

Editorial boards across the country, sit up and take note.

It is possible, however, that there was someone who wasn’t as pleased with the editorial.

The Stranger has learned that immediately after the Seattle Times ran an editorial last week supporting a bill to tax and regulate marijuana, the newspaper got a phone call from Washington, D.C. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy director Gil Kerlikowske wanted to fly to Seattle to speak personally with the paper’s full editorial board.

The meeting is scheduled for next Friday, an apparent attempt by the federal government to pressure the state’s largest newspaper to oppose marijuana legalization. Or at least turn down the volume on its new-found bullhorn to legalize pot.

Bruce Ramsey, the Seattle Times editorial writer who wrote the unbylined piece, says the White House called right “right after our editorial ran, so I drew the obvious conclusion… he didn’t like our editorial.”

Yep. I’d love to be in that room. What could Kerlikowske possibly have to say to that editorial board that has clearly researched the issue in depth, made a considered decision to run the editorial, and received near-universal acclaim for running it?

I’m not the only one who’d like to be in that room.

The Marijuana Policy Project is asking the Seattle Times to live-stream the meeting.

A follow-up to the Michael Dearman piece at SMU, where he argued that drug users should note that they have blood on their hands (a useless argument since that can’t lead to practical change, whereas working toward legalization can).

Dearman has published a response piece to some of the criticism, saying that he was misunderstood. In fact, he just muddles it up even more, by bizarrely agreeing with us disagreeably.

What one cannot do, which reader Thomas asserted, is state that the “blood is on the hands of the politicians who…implement the failed prohibitionist model of criminalizing what free people put into their own bodies.” One must not forget that it is the constituents that elect these officials to office in the first place.

If there is a tinge of guilt in the moral conscience of America because of our culture which promotes the use of marijuana, then America has a responsibility to put politicians in to office that will begin the process of the legalization of marijuana to curb the black market created by the illegality of the drugs themselves.

I’m pretty sure that’s what we were saying. And that by creating a distraction through blaming drug users, he was not contributing to a real solution of legalization.

A colleague of his, Adriana Martinez, from Mexico, jumped into the fray as well with No easy answer: Legalization of marijuana is not the solution to Mexican “War on Drugs” She attempts to defend Dearman’s first piece, which he pretty much negates with his second.

The overwhelming response from readers was simple – legalize marijuana. Much like during the prohibition era in the U.S., legalizing the substance will reduce illegal activity and eradicate a black market.

While I agree that this worked historically in the U.S., I do not believe that it is the solution for Mexico’s woes. As a citizen of the latter, I am neither commenting on the feasibility of marijuana legalization in the United States, nor am I making a normative claim about this policy. Instead, I argue that legalizing marijuana is not the solution to the violence south of the U.S. border.

The drug war in Mexico spiked to the extraordinary levels that we see today when the violence between the cartels escalated in recent years. Though attributable to various factors, it is probable that the shrink in the U.S. cocaine market was influential. If this is the case, then the legalization of marijuana in the United States or the increased growth thereof domestically would only result in increased violence as well. The drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) would struggle violently to gain control of the diminishing market.

The DTOs might also presumably turn to other black market activities to attempt economic hegemony there. Perhaps the sales of pirated movies and music, or maybe the illegal crossing of migrants, or sex trafficking. There is no shortage of options.

The control of these illegal, but influential sectors would only augment the cartels’ power and social dominance. Corruption is not new to the DTOs, and there would be no decrease in this, despite the legalization of marijuana.

Furthermore, what has been referred to as a “grey market” could also likely emerge. As the state taxes marijuana, the cartels can continue to dominate the market by selling marijuana more cheaply.

This is a truly bizarre (yet too common) line of arguments. Sure, we all know that the criminal traffickers will not evaporate (poof!) just like that with legalization. But if you cut off their major flood of income, you diminish their power so that you can actually go after them successfully. Pirated DVD sales? Please. Grey market marijuana? Tell me another. These are tiny pale money pots compared to the drug war profits. Without the same level of dollars, they can’t hire as many foot soldiers, bribe as many police and judges, or pacify entire towns. They become vulnerable.

And without the lure of huge money, there’s less pressure for new criminal enterprises to spring up and replace the ones you dismantle.

That’s how it starts. Our View: Agents should carry weapons for protection Las Cruces Sun-News.

It’s official that we have agents from ICE, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration embedded and working with Mexico against the drug cartels. Should they not be allowed to carry weapons for self defense?

And when does that become indistinguishable from having troops?

Good read: Why This Cop Asked the President About Legalizing Drugs by MacKenzie Allen

Another good read (from last week): Washington Post Editorial: New law on crack cocaine penalties should be made retroactive

The commission is preparing to forward to Congress amendments to the guidelines to reflect the changes in the Fair Sentencing Act. The commission should make the new guidelines retroactive.

Some 13,000 prisoners – 85 percent of whom are black – would be eligible for retroactive sentencing reductions, according to the commission’s analysis. The average prisoner would receive a sentence reduction of about three years. The releases would extend over 30 years, with potentially 3,000 to 4,500 prisoners being released during the first year after the sentence reductions are made retroactive. But release is not automatic: Prisoners would have to petition a federal court for the sentence reduction, and prosecutors would be able to lodge objections, including those based on public safety concerns.

Remember when the first reduction in sentencing occurred? It was two years ago when Attorney General Michael Mukasey warned us that the early release of these offenders would unleash “violent criminals” onto our streets and pose “significant public safety risks.”

Hmmm…. what happened to all that crack-head street violence?

But they’re keeping the prisons open! State will end all drug treatment funds

Expensive, counter-productive, and Unconstitutional: Lawmakers in Ten States Mull Drug Testing of Public Aid Recipients

At least two bills would require legislators to be drug-tested as well.

The Mind of a Police Dog – another must-read from Radley Balko.

This is an open thread.