Drug WarRant

Domestic use of aerial drones by law enforcement likely to prompt privacy debate by Peter Finn in the Washington Post.

But by 2013, the FAA expects to have formulated new rules that would allow police across the country to routinely fly lightweight, unarmed drones up to 400 feet above the ground – high enough for them to be largely invisible eyes in the sky.

Such technology could allow police to record the activities of the public below with high-resolution, infrared and thermal-imaging cameras.

Obviously, there are significant privacy issues involved here (as well as safety issues). The article does a pretty good job of covering them.

Here’s what some of the drones look like.

This bold satire by the Onion News Network hits home in funny and disturbing ways, particularly given the inherent racism often present in the drug war.

Judge Rules White Girl Will Be Tried As Black Adult

In the U.S.

Former Border Patrol agent sues over firing

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit for a former Border Patrol agent who claims he was fired — just weeks before his probationary period ended — because he expressed opinions about illegal immigration and drug legalization. […]

Gonzalez said while patrolling near Deming, N.M., in April 2009, he told a fellow agent during a casual conversation that he believed legalizing drugs would reduce violence in Mexico.

Gonzalez, who held dual citizenship in Mexico and the U.S. until he turned 18, also told his colleague he understood the economic factors driving immigrants to cross the border illegally.

The lawsuit says word of Gonzalez’s comments spread to his supervisor, who notified agency officials in Washington, D.C. An internal affairs investigation followed, leading to the firing.

According to the lawsuit, the termination letter stated that Gonzalez held “personal views that were contrary to the core characteristics of Border Patrol agents, which are patriotism, dedication and esprit de corps.”

In the U.K.

The U.K. government’s been going through all sorts of efforts to get rid of actual scientists from its Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). Actual scientists sometimes tend to tell the embarrassing truth rather than merely providing government with made-up justification to support the policy they already chose.

Now the government is demonstrating the kind of advisors they want…

Government drug adviser under fire over views on gay lifestyle

The body that advises the government on its drugs policy faces fresh controversy after the appointment of an expert with controversial views on homosexuality and the role of religion in combating addiction.

Dr Hans-Christian Raabe, a Manchester GP and member of the Maranatha Community, an inter-denominational Christian movement, was appointed to the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) last week.

Here are some of the beliefs of this new “scientific” drug policy advisor.

“Harm reduction has its place, but I’m concerned that it’s the only policy being advocated,” said Raabe, who has spoken out in favour of abstinence-based approaches. [….]

Raabe wrote: “The only way of stopping people from dying from drug-related deaths is to prevent drug use in the first place!” […]

He also co-signed a letter to a national newspaper in 2004, warning against the government’s decision to reclassify cannabis from class B to class C […]

“Studies have shown that religious commitment, religious involvement or being part of a religious community significantly reduces the risk of alcohol, nicotine and drug misuse, and reduces the risk of depression and suicide,” the Council for Health and Wholeness said [Raabe is their medical co-ordinator]. […]

Raabe also co-authored a paper that claimed: “While the majority of homosexuals are not involved in paedophilia, it is of grave concern that there is a disproportionately greater number of homosexuals among paedophiles and an overlap between the gay movement and the movement to make paedophilia acceptable.”

A reader has asked that I pass on an appeal for assistance in a newspaper comment thread: Medical marijuana patient convicted at the Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

I have been working the blogs in Hawaii and there is a drug counselor that floods the threads with his reefer madness. Here is the latest thread about a legal patient a Kona judge convicted for 1 gram ( they call it 2 in the article but that included the bag)

I have been countering his arguments for over a year and was wondering if you might ask your readers to jump in and post some useful information. I normally end up putting up lots of post and think it may be better if they were coming from a wider variety of people.

Looks like just the job for the folks on Pete’s couch.

Whenever we have another one of those accidental shootings during drug raids, the officials are always quick to assert that such a thing is unbelievably rare.

Really?

Can they still call it rare when it no longer suffices to list the victim by name?

“Oh, you’re talking about the Jose Colon who was accidentally shot by police during a drug raid in Bronx, New York?

I was talking about the Jose Colon who was accidentally shot by police during a drug raid in Suffolk, New York.”

Occurs in the pilot episode of “Harry’s Law” starring Kathy Bates. To watch it, go to the NBC video and go to the 23:45 mark of the episode (I haven’t watched the whole episode yet, but if the rest of the show is anything like this, it should be pretty interesting).

Transcript isn’t the same without Kathy Bates’ fiery acting, but for those who can’t get NBC video, here’s my attempt… Kathy Bates plays Harriet Korn, a defense attorney, and in the pilot episode she defends a young black man named Malcolm on his third drug offense.

Continue reading →

The latest ignorant and fact-free screed comes from Connecticut State Senator Toni Boucher: “Fake Pot” — A New Threat to Children and Parents.

I began work on halting efforts to expand marijuana use after emotional appeals for help from mothers and fathers who had found their young children dead from drug overdoses after years of marijuana use.

Clearly, those mothers and fathers have been betrayed by giving their trust to their senator. Marijuana did not cause those deaths. Those deaths have come about because Toni Boucher and other elected officials have continually put the distribution and safety of illicit drugs in the hands of criminals through banning them, rather than saving lives by regulating these drugs.

She knows her responsibility:

As elected officials and advocates for a health and safety of our constituents, we are entrusted to help improve the lives of the people we represent, not place them in harms way.

And yet, it is through banning drugs that she puts their lives in harms way.

Additionally, by continuing the push to ban marijuana, it is the politicians who have created a market for fake pot, it is the politicians who have created a reason to shift to other drugs, and it is the politicians who have put marijuana sales in the same category and distribution network as heroin and cocaine.

Toni Boucher has blood on her hands. And she attempts to clean up that blood either with willful ignorance, or outright lies.

According to medical experts, however, one marijuana cigarette is even more lethal than a cigarette, 4-5 times more.

You don’t serve your constituents by lying to them and making them less safe.

The Economist regarding the U.S. decision to object to Bolivia’s amendment regarding coca-leaf-chewing…

Bolivia is considering pulling out of the convention if its modest proposal is struck down.

Now and then the ignorance of the masses depresses me when I read bizarre comments related to a drug war news item (usually at Yahoo news, for some reason). Yet, on the whole, I am incredibly impressed with the knowledge of commenters at news sites.

What a difference from even 5 years ago!

This inspires me to optimism.

Case in point. Really bad letter in the Springfield, Illinois, State Journal-Register by Dora Dixie, M.D.: Smoking marijuana is not medicine

It was full of the kind of nonsense that gets my blood boiling, from someone who is Immediate past president of the Illinois Society of Addiction Medicine in Chicago.

I stand with thousands of physicians across our country and around the world who know that smoking marijuana is not medicine. […]

It is apparent that the legislators for legalization of medical marijuana are minimizing the potential harm to public health and safety […] Is it possible that they are far more interested in the millions of dollars that stand to line pockets and political coffers?

People who need alternative therapies for pain relief and other symptoms associated with end-stage illness have plenty of options that don’t require them to smoke. Those options should be determined by patients and their reputable health-care providers, not Illinois legislators. […]

I urge more physicians to stand up to the medical-marijuana industry and the drug-legalization movement and to refuse to allow responsible medicine to be compromised by them. I also urge Illinoisans to contact their legislators and insist that they just say no to Rep. Lang and his latest medical marijuana proposal, SB 1381.

As I was reading the letter, the obvious retorts were screaming in my brain, and yet.. check out what I found in comments before I even had a chance. Clear. To the point.

artie: From the penultimate paragraph, ‘Those options should be determined by patients and their reputable health-care providers, not Illinois legislators.’

I agree entirely. Legalize it and let the decision be with patients and their reputable health-care providers, not Illinois legislators.

lunarschooner:well, you have a stake in ‘drug’ rehabilitation don’t you?

dg48: Here we have another professional drug warrior who spent over twenty years being part of the problem instead of part of the solution and cannot now ever admit this to herself. It is unfortunate that she would sell so many suffering people down the river just to justify her career choice.

MrM: I wonder if Dr. Dixie has actually read the bill. The bill does not allow for a medical marijuana industry. It allows a patient and 1 caregiver to grow their own plants. The number and size of plants is quite limited. The amount of marijuana that the patient and caregiver are allowed to possess is 2 ounces.

Where is all of this ‘millions of dollars that stand to line pockets and political coffers’ going to come from?

Boom.

With only about a dozen comments, the visitors had covered vaporizing marijuana as medicine, the hypocrisy of supporting more dangerous prescribed drugs, and more.

Nice to see. Good job, “army” (although it didn’t appear to be any of ours directly commenting, the work everyone does feeds into the knowledge base of the citizenry).

Ignoring 5,000 years of the history and culture of the indigenous Andean people, the U.S. Government has formally opposed Bolivia’s amendment to the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs that would have eliminated the unenforced (and unenforceable) provision requiring countries to eliminate coca chewing within 25 years.

Remember that the ban was based on a 1949 brief visit to Bolivia and Peru by a completely unqualified commission from the U.N., which gave erroneous and racist reports including that chewing the coca leaf “induces in the individual undesirable changes of an intellectual and moral character,” “reduces the economic yield of productive work, and therefore maintains a low economic standard of life.”

Remember also that the coca leaf chewing ban is separate from the ban against cocaine. Removing this bad section would not affect the cocaine ban. And remember that coca leaf chewing is, in fact, non-addictive, with proven therapeutic benefits and no negative health effects. Additionally, remember that lifting this ban would not suddenly make coca leaf chewing legal in the U.S. or anywhere else, unless that country decided to legalize it.

So why is the U.S. pushing to keep this racist policy that doesn’t affect them and further marginalizes indigenous people?

Well, they have their reasons, but it doesn’t seem that they’re too proud of them.

AFP

“Alongside concerned member states, we cannot go along with the proposed amendment, and we filed our note with the UN secretary-general on January 19,” a State Department official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

On condition of anonymity? The U.N. has already confirmed receiving the note from the U.S. What’s the secret? U.S. officials are so embarrassed by this that they don’t want their name attached to it?

AP

A U.S. official speaking on background also confirmed that the letter was filed with the United Nations on Wednesday.

The official said the United States was concerned that the proposal would weaken the integrity of the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs by removing language obligating signers to prohibit coca leaf-chewing.

Weaken the integrity? What integrity?