Drug WarRant

Via Scott Morgan

The drug czar has gone to great rhetorical lengths to convince the American people that our drug policy isn’t a war any longer, but you don’t have to look very hard to see the violence that still erupts daily, not only in Mexico, but right here in our own communities. If you can handle it, I’d like you to take a look at just one example of the incredible violence police use when enforcing our drug laws.

The guy was a small-time drug addict who lived in a house belonging to his parents. He had $4 on him, and the police found a small amount of marijuana in the house and a vial that had contained meth in his pocket. And he was holding a golf club.

This is how fast it happens.

In the video:

:23 Police start to yell “Police. Search Warrant.” and enter home
:27 Police moving through home yell something. Perhaps “freeze.”
:28 Todd is shot three times
:29 Todd is on the ground
:31 Officer yells “Get on the ground.”

Do you all feel safer now?

The coca leaf has been an important part of the culture of Andean indigenous people for thousands of years (at least 5,000 years, in fact). It improves metabolism at high altitude, relieves feelings of hunger and provides energy, and also serves as an integral part of religious and cultural ceremony.

In all that time, there has been no clinical evidence of toxicity and nobody has ever been admitted to drug treatment centers for being addicted to the coca leaf.

In 1950, the Commission of Enquiry on the Coca Leaf was prepared by a United Nations commission that visited Bolivia and Peru briefly and, despite noting that it wasn’t addictive, made some rather strong, racist, and completely unsupported claims, 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.”

Naturally, this was the information that was used for the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which included not just cocaine, but the coca leaf. Article 49, paragraph 2 (e) states that:

coca leaf chewing must be abolished within twenty-five years from the coming into force of this Convention

It also allows a state joining the Convention to take 25 years to abolish coca leaf chewing. The convention was ratified in 1961 (50 years ago) and it was entered into force in Bolivia in 1976 (almost 35 years ago).

About a year and a half ago, I reported:

The Bolivian government has successfully commenced the formal process for amending the UN’s Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961) to eliminate the provision that would require all countries to prohibit coca leaf chewing within 25 years (for Bolivia, that was 2001).
Interesting amendment process. If no country objects within 18 months, then the amendment passes (a nice, if time consuming, way to do it – countries need not get on the record to approve it). Countries most likely to object: United States and Sweden. If that happens, then there’s a conference to consider it.

The proposal has a very nice argument as to why this provision should be removed from the Single Convention.

Seems quite reasonable. It’s unenforceable. It’s not been enforced. New understanding shows that the reason to include coca leaf chewing at the time was racist. Plus, a study in 1995 found chewing coca leaves to be therapeutic with no negative health effects. The provision should just quietly go away, and if nobody objects within 18 months, it does. Let’s see… 18 months from 30th July 2009 would be… 30th January 2011. Hey, that’s just a couple of weeks away and nobody so far…

Oh, wait.

The TNI/WOLA Drug Law Reform Project reports:

In two weeks time, on January 31, the deadline ends for countries to present objections to this change; without any objections the amendment would automatically enter into force. And at this very last moment, the United States formed a “friends of the convention” group and announced it would object. Several other countries – notably the Russian Federation, Japan, Colombia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, Bulgaria, Denmark and Estonia – have announced to present a formal objection as well. […]

It seems that those who do not regularly chew coca have run mad. All recent efforts to establish support in international fora resulted in proof for the point made: a cultural heritage that harms no person, merits protection and a legal base. Outcomes of a WHO study on coca/cocaine in 1995, determined that the “use of coca leaves appears to have no negative health effects and has positive therapeutic, sacred and social functions for indigenous Andean populations.” Moreover, the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights approved in September 2007 – recently endorsed by the United States on December 16, 2010 –, promises to uphold and protect indigenous cultural practices.

The proposed amendment by Bolivia implies a mere symbolic change: no new country will be facing masses of coca chewing citizens. Not objecting to this amendment simply recognizes coca chewing is there to stay. Time has come to repair a historical error responsible for including the leaf amongst the most hazardous classified substances, causing severe consequences for the Andean region. It is a sad fact that our governments are representing us citizens in disregard of facts, led by mere ignorance and fear. Still there is a chance now to come to our senses.

Update: It appears that the news is potentially better than I thought after all… (Thanks, Gart – I missed that one).

According to the government of Bolivia, the only three countries that did file a formal objection to the amendment of Bolivia to abolish the ban on coca leaf chewing in the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, withdrew their objections. […]

The United States has been lobbying with other countries to object to the Bolivian amendment but they have not filed a formal objection yet. According to Summaries of discussions of the EU Horizontal Working Party on Drugs, usually referred to as the “Horizontal Drug Group” (HDG) – the committee for drug policy falling under the European Council – the US prepared a “friends of the convention” group to oppose the abolition of the ban on coca leaf chewing because in their opinion the request would significantly weaken the Convention.

The main reason that the US has not filed a formal objection yet seems to be that they are not sufficiently sure about the support for their objection from other countries, and want to avoid the impression that the US is leading on this. It seems they are playing a diplomatic game, trying to spread the message that many countries are going to submit an objection, and waiting for some others to do so first, so they can be seen as rather ‘joining’ the opposition from others than taking the lead.

Let’s hope the US finds no support.

Anthony Papa

Civil rights advocates are honoring Dr. King’s legacy by standing up against the “new Jim Crow” – mass incarceration and the racially disproportionate war on drugs. It is impossible to talk frankly and honestly about racism without talking about the drug war. Few U.S. policies have had such a devastating effect on Blacks, Latinos and other racial minorities than the drug war. Every aspect of the war on drugs – from arrests to prosecutions to sentencing – is disproportionately carried out against minorities.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds. […]

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” […]

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. […]

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust. and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws. […]

I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: “All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.” Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely rational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

This is an open thread.

Packets of Reefer Madness wrapped up in a caricature called Peter Hitchens.

The crazed smile that says: It’s the little packets of madness that we really need to fear

There is another aspect of this case that the smug media seem to be avoiding. Look at the strange picture of the alleged killer Jared Loughner. He has just been arrested for a crime for which he could be put to death, if convicted. And he is smiling. From this, and from many other things we already know about this man, it seems likely that he has lost his reason.

Why and how? The most likely cause is Loughner’s daily cannabis-smoking habit. The link between this drug and serious mental illness grows clearer every day. Wickedly, the dope lobby still tries to deny this and seeks to legalise it.

Loughner has been, for much of his short life, a habitual smoker of this so-called ‘soft’ organic drug. This is not in doubt. Police records, the testimony of U.S. army recruiters who rejected him partly on these grounds, and the accounts of several friends confirm that Loughner is a marijuana victim.
Yes, I know. Not all cannabis-smokers lose their minds. And not all cigarette-smokers get cancer. But in both cases the risk is enough to cause concern.

When police caught him driving a car that stank of marijuana, Loughner was let off, as he would have been here. So much (as usual) for the non-existent ‘war against drugs’. Cannabis is now effectively legal in Britain and in several parts of the USA, where this dangerous and unpredictable poison is ironically permitted for ‘medical use’.

Arizona voters, fooled by years of cynical and shameful ‘cannabis is harmless’ propaganda, approved just such a stupid law in November.
The town council of liberal Pima (scene of the murders) last week took the first step towards licensing ‘dispensaries’ for dope.

Arizona has always had plenty of guns. America has always had heated political rhetoric. What is new is that it now has legal dope as well.

Those who are seriously interested in public safety should worry less about guns and radio shock jocks, and more about the little packets of madness on sale in every school.

Of course, it’s no surprise that this is in the Daily Mail, that bastion of Reefer Madness propaganda.

And Hitchens has long had an irrational and fact-free hatred of marijuana (makes me wonder if his girlfriend in college left him for someone with a bong). He once called for a law requiring a year of hard labor for a second offense of marijuana possession.

Mostly, he’s just a nutcase inside an authoritarian “moral” conservative, who is less interested in morality than in forcing people to act the way he thinks.

Editorial: After Marijuana, The Cold from The Bulletin (Bend, OR)

Those really don’t look like such tough questions, do they? They may not be tough, but the truth of the matter is that there are no definitive answers to them. That’s because we really have no marijuana experts. That’s why the penalty for possession of marijuana is more severe than the penalty for possession of LSD, which all the non-experts agree is a far more dangerous narcotic.

Huh?

There aren’t all that many things we know more about than marijuana.

What are they looking for? We’ve got experts. We’ve got experts in marijuana science, marijuana economics, marijuana history, marijuana cultivation, marijuana distribution, marijuana politics, and, of course, marijuana consumption.

Sure, we always want to know more, but… no experts?

In yet another wrong-address drug raid. Radley Balko passed it on Thursday

Spring Valley, New York

David McKay said he, his wife, 13-year-old daughter and his brother-in-law were sleeping at 5:30 a.m. when they heard banging on the door of their townhouse at 36 Sharon Drive. When they went to open the door, at least 10 police officers forced their way into the home, he said.

“Their guns were drawn, they were screaming ‘Where’s Michael, Where’s Michael,’ ” McKay recounted hours later in a telephone interview from Nyack Hospital, where he took his terrified daughter for treatment after she had an asthma attack and fainted following the ordeal.

McKay said he was still groggy from sleep but tried to explain that there was no one named Michael in the house.

“They pulled me outside in the freezing cold in my underwear, manhandle my wife, point a gun at my daughter and they won’t even tell me what they are doing in my house,” said McKay. “It was terrifying and humiliating beyond belief.” […]

When the police were preparing to leave, McKay and his bewildered family asked them again what they were doing and why they entered the house.

“They wouldn’t say,” he recalled. “All they would say was ‘You’ll read about it in the paper tomorrow.’ “

Well, the local police still aren’t talking — they’re referring all questions to the DEA. And the DEA has responded with an “apology.” Not directly to McKay and his family, who only learned about it from the media. But the DEA issued a statement.

John P. Gilbride, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration, issued a statement Friday clearing Spring Valley resident David McKay and his family of anything to do with the series of drug raids that took place early Thursday in Westchester and Rockland counties.

“We sincerely regret that while attempting to execute an arrest warrant for a member of this drug trafficking organization, the innocent McKay family was inadvertently affected by this enforcement operation,” Gilbride said.

“Though we take many precautions to prevent this type of incident from happening, drug investigations are very complex and involve many fluid factors,” Gilbride said. “DEA will continue to pursue these criminal organizations to protect the public from the scourge of drug trafficking.”

Wow. That’s a pretty pathetic apology for storming into a man’s home with guns drawn, dragging him out in the snow in his underwear while screaming at him, shoving his wife around and sending his daughter to the hospital.

“Inadvertently affected”? Inadvertently affected is when it takes you an extra five minutes to get to work because there was an accident on the bypass and one lane was blocked by the police. Storm troopers terrorizing you in your home is something else entirely.

…

The article reporting this quoted Radley Balko and talked about the rise of problems with this kind of raid. That’s good.

We’re making a difference. And more and more people are getting fed up with this.

I used to think that each country had its own laws and those laws affected the people in that country. How naive I was.

I also used to think that to break a law you actually had to, you know, break the law, not just think about breaking the law, or know something about some law that might be broken in the future. And that if you thought you broke the law but really hadn’t, then you hadn’t. (In other words, if I thought I ran a stop sign, but it turns out there wasn’t really a stop sign there, then I didn’t run a stop sign.)

Obviously I was young then, and not experienced in the intricacies of modern U.S. criminal justice.

Still, I found the following bit of braggadocio in an email that the DEA sent me today someone unsettling…

On January 10 the indictment of Franklin William McField-Bent, a/k/a “Buda,” a Nicaraguan national, and five members of his drug and weapons smuggling organizations was announced. McField-Bent was charged with three narcotics counts and four counts of conspiring and attempting to provide material support to the Colombian Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), which is a foreign terrorist organization. According to the indictment, McField-Bent and the other five members of his group conspired and attempted to distribute cocaine knowing that it would eventually be imported into the United States. The indictment also alleges they conspired and attempted to provide grenade launchers, grenades, automatic rifles, and other weapons to what they thought were AUC members. To their surprise, they soon found out that these “terrorists” were undercover agents.

I like that little bit of humor at the end.

So, to recap (with some additional detail from the press release):

A foreigner, who was in a foreign country, was arrested in that foreign country and indicted in U.S. court for violating a U.S. law while in a foreign country. He was indicted for two things:

1. “Conspiring and attempting to distribute cocaine knowing that it would eventually be imported into the United States.” Hmmm… my head just about exploded with that one.
2. “Conspired and attempted to provide grenade launchers, grenades, automatic rifles and other weapons to what they thought were members of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (“AUC”).” Except of course that there were no AUC members, just undercover agents.

I have no doubt that this McField-Bent guy is probably not a nice guy and maybe deserves some criminal justice attention. But when did our laws get so squirrelly? And have we really gone from a nation that supposedly wasn’t allowed to have a national police force, to a nation with a national police force, to a nation with an international police force that enforces U.S. laws on people anywhere in the universe?

If the Russians send another cosmonaut to the moon and his lunar rover has the capability of going 140 kilometers per hour, can we arrest him for conspiring to violate U.S. speed laws?

If I wanted to win the hearts and minds of farmers in Latin America and Afghanistan, I probably wouldn’t start by destroying their fields and removing their only hope of feeding their families. – Guitherisms

Afghan campaign caused $100 million damage: inquiry

(Reuters) – Afghan and foreign forces have caused more than $100 million damage to fruit crops and homes during security operations in southern Kandahar province, a government delegation said on Tuesday.

Just as the harvest was about to begin.

Bhutan

Bhutan police can raid homes of smokers in a search for contraband tobacco and are training a special tobacco sniffer dog in a crackdown to honor a promise to become the world’s first smoke-free nation.

Buddhist Bhutan, where smoking is considered bad for one’s karma, banned the sale of tobacco in 2005, but with a thriving tobacco smuggling operation from neighboring India, the ban failed to make much of an impact.

But legislation passed in the new year, granting police powers to enter homes, is set to stub out the habit, threatening five years in jail for shopkeepers selling tobacco and smokers who fail to provide customs receipts for imported cigarettes.

And yes, I checked. This is in Reuters, not the Onion.

… that’s the title of an excellent column by Larry Gabriel in the Detroit Metro Times

Welcome to the world of science. I didn’t do well in high school science and have pretty much avoided addressing scientific subjects formally until now. That’s because I’ve been delving into the science of marijuana to try to figure out some of the hows and whys of medical marijuana’s workings. There are some 20,000 published scientific papers analyzing marijuana and its parts. So don’t let anybody tell you there is too little known about marijuana to make a call regarding its usefulness.

Most of those papers are beyond my understanding, and making sense of those I could understand came with the help of a medical dictionary. But at least I’m trying. Most public policy and attitudes about the plant have been formed without the help of science. In fact, when President Richard Nixon ramped up the drug war in the early 1970s, it was in direct contradiction of the information and recommendations of his own marijuana task force.

A breath of fresh air in the media — a journalist who actually tries to understand the science, rather than merely repeating what the government tells him.