DrugReporter

For the past 15 years, lawmakers have pursued tough-on-drugs policies in an effort to create a "drug free America," plowing billions of dollars into prosecuting and imprisoning drug offenders. Is it working? Not according to many drug policy observers o

Who's Getting Rich Off Prohibition? Just Look Who Opposes CA's Prop. 5
Posted by Paul Armentano, NORML on November 1, 2008 at 1:12 AM.

You can learn a lot about the merits of a proposal by taking a good, hard look at who's lobbying against it.

Take California's Proposition 5, the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act, which would require the diversion of certain non-violent offenders to drug treatment and increase funding for state-sponsored rehabilitation programs. The measure seeks to expand upon the alternative sentencing programs initially enacted by Proposition 36, which is estimated to have saved taxpayers some $1.7 billion dollars and reduced the number of people incarcerated for simple drug possession by one-third. So who would oppose this proposal?

If you guessed: the folks who make their living arresting non-violent drug offenders, you'd be right! According to the 'No on 5' website, the California State Sheriff's Association, the California Narcotics Officers Association, the California Peace Officers Association, the Police Chiefs of California, and the California District Attorneys Association all oppose Prop. 5.

However, even more disturbing is who's bankrolling the 'No on 5'campaign. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, California's powerful prison guards union has spent close to $2 million dollars to lobby against the passage of Prop. 5.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

CA's Prop 5, Rehab vs. Lockup: Voters' Chance to Become a More Advanced Society
Posted by Jan Frel, AlterNet on October 28, 2008 at 3:21 PM.

Supporters of California's Prop 5 have released a new ad touting the positive benefits of adopting the initiative:

From the release:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Former Warden of San Quentin Prison Supports Dramatic Justice Reform Initiative in CA
Posted by Jan Frel, AlterNet on October 24, 2008 at 4:36 PM.

Supporters of California's Proposition 5, the Non-Violent Offender Rehabilitation Act, have released a powerful TV ad:

From the release:

The first Yes on 5 spot, titled "Warden," features Jeanne Woodford, former warden of San Quentin State Prison and former Director of the California Department of Corrections. Against a backdrop of images of San Quentin, she speaks of her 25 years working at the prison, where she began as a prison guard. "Let me tell you," Woodford says, "too many of the men I dealt with started out as kids with drug problems. But California doesn't have treatment for kids." She goes on to say that the youth treatment provisions of Prop. 5 are one of its main draws for her. "I can't tell you how good I feel," Woodford says, "when I think of all those kids who will never wind up in prison."

Watch the video:

Global Cannabis Commission: No Justification for Jailing for Pot Possession
Posted by Bruce Mirken, Marijuana Policy Project on October 9, 2008 at 10:37 AM.

"If something is not legal, you can't regulate it very effectively." - Prof. Robin Room, School of Population Health, University of Melbourne

On October 2, the Global Cannabis Commission, a group of top scientists commissioned by the Beckley Foundation, issued its groundbreaking report, "Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate." Your faithful correspondent was able to attend the daylong seminar in which the report was discussed, held in the distinctly imposing Moses Room of the House of Lords in the Palace of Westminster.

This is a highly condensed summary of the 175-page report. I wrote a lengthier summary here, and the full document can be downloaded here.

The report was written by five leading marijuana and drug policy researchers: Benedikt Fischer of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Peter Reuter of the University of Maryland, and three Australians: Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland, Simon Lenton of the National Drug Research Institute at the Curtin University of Technology, and Robin Room of the University of Melbourne. A number of other important researchers joined the discussion (and contributed advice and research to the report).

Some highlights:

RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH MARIJUANA USE:

Marijuana is not harmless. Intoxication "increases the risk of motor vehicle crashes 2-3 times" -- not trivial, but "far more modest than that of alcohol." There is clearly an increased risk of bronchitis among heavy marijuana smokers, but no evidence of increased rates of emphysema, while the evidence regarding lung cancer is mixed, the report states.

Marijuana almost certainly exacerbates symptoms of schizophrenia in vulnerable individuals, but epidemiologic evidence argues against it causing psychosis in healthy people. As for worries about increased potency, more research is needed. If users adjust their intake in relation to potency, dangers are minimal. Perhaps most important, "All of these trends [toward increased potency] have been encouraged by prohibition, which favors the production of more concentrated forms."

Overall, the report finds the risks of marijuana use are "modest" compared with those of legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco. 

POLICY AND REFORM:

While causing obvious harm to those arrested and convicted, criminalization of marijuana possession has not succeeded in preventing marijuana from being widely available. Contrary to wild claims being made in Massachusetts right now, decriminalization measures have not increased use rates. "If a nation chooses to use the criminal law for controlling cannabis use, there is no justification for incarcerating an individual for a cannabis possession or use offense, nor for creating a criminal conviction," the report concludes.

While not firmly advocating one policy alternative, the report lays out many advantages to a system of legal regulation like that used for alcohol. As report co-author Prof. Robin Room noted succinctly, "If something is not legal, you can't regulate it very effectively."

Let Them Eat Dirt Pancakes: The Republicans Who Voted Against Extending Unemployment Benefits
Posted by Staff, Down With Tyranny! on October 4, 2008 at 6:38 AM.

142 Republicans joined every single Democrat on Friday to pass HR 6867, the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008. Even far right lunatic fringe Republicans like Steve Pearce (R-NM), Virgil Goode (R-VA), David Dreier (D-CA), Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH), and Adam Putnam (R-FL) didn't have the guts to vote against this and reversed themselves on a bill that extends unemployment compensation for an increasing number of working families in dire straits. And, as this morning's NY Times points out more and more economically distressed members of the middle class are starting to understand who the enemy really is.

Here in a swing state of severe economic hurt — a leader in foreclosures where empty offices now litter strip malls — there are signs that Mr. Obama is gaining ground. In interviews and surveys, voters across Florida said the debate in Washington over how to fix the credit crisis had fueled frustration with the Bush administration and pushed them away from the Republican ticket.

The four most recent polls from late September put Mr. Obama ahead of Mr. McCain by three to eight percentage points, a sharp swing from the previous six weeks, when Mr. McCain led by as much as 10 points.

So who would oppose a bill to extend unemployment benefits? 28 far right Republican extremists, the worst of the worst-- and on a day when the newpapers announced gigantic layoffs, overwhelmingly caused by GOP trade and financial policies! Most of the 28 maniacs who voted NO are in safe districts where their constituents are as filled with hatred, fear and ignorance as they are and it is hopeless to even try to oppose them. But not all. A few are in genuinely moderate districts and can be defeated in November, particularly:

Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
John Culberson (R-TX)
Bill Sali (R-ID)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)

Shadegg's vote was particularly callous since he had just voted 90 minutes earlier for the $700,000,000,000 Wall Street bailout. His campaign contributors will be well-taken care of. Regular American families thrown out of work through no fault of their own just got the middle finger (once again) from John Shadegg.

The Sad Essence of Drug Prohibition: The War on Fun
Posted by Jan Frel, AlterNet on October 2, 2008 at 5:31 PM.

Don't worry, said the Canadian law enforcer to the Vermont Agricultural Committee about the possible dangers of allowing people have legal access to hemp: "You'd have to smoke 400 pounds of it to even get a smile on your face."

That's the whole concern -- that's why the Ag Committee got together, why the Canadian guy made the trip to talk to the Committee; to say that smoking hemp is not an easy path to fun. Of course it's easy to point out that this concern is a rather scary one for a society to have. But it's true. It's a war on fun -- Mark Ames:

"If everyone would admit that people do drugs because they're fun, then suddenly, the whole 30-year war on drugs thing would seem savage and bizarre: the war on fun. Which is exactly what it is. Drugs are also incredibly practical. They can help you get through rough times. They can numb you to horrible circumstances. They can improve your social skills. Or they can increase your work efficiency."

California Cops: Here's Your Pot Back, 3 Years Later
Posted by Jan Frel on September 18, 2008 at 4:00 PM.

Uhh, here's your weed back:

A medical marijuana user has his pot back, nearly three years after police in Huntington Beach, Calif., seized it. A judge Tuesday ordered police to return about four ounces of marijuana to Jim Spray. Spray says he used the pot to relieve back pain. He was arrested but charges were dropped. Police have been struggling to decide how to deal with California law allowing marijuana use for medical reasons but federal law that prohibits it.

Hopefully, the pot wasn't kept in sunlight ...

What Will the Candidates Do to End the War on Drugs?
Posted by Johann Hari, Huffington Post on August 11, 2008 at 10:38 AM.

On January 20th 2009, either the president of the United States will be a man who used cocaine, or the First Lady will be a former drug addict who stole from charity to get her next fix. In this presidential campaign, there are dozens of issues that have failed to flicker into the debate, but the most striking is the failing, flailing 'War on Drugs.' Isn't it a sign of how unwinnable this 'war' is that, if it was actually enforced evenly, either Barack Obama or Cindy McCain would have to skip the inauguration -- because they'd be in jail?

At least their time in the slammer would feature some familiar faces: they could share a cell with Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and some 46 percent of the US population.

The prohibition of drugs is perhaps the most disastrous policy currently pursued by the US government. It hands a vast industry to armed criminal gangs, who proceed to kill at least excess 10,000 citizens a year to protect their patches. It exports this program of mass slaughter to Mexico, Colombia and beyond. It has been a key factor in reviving the Taliban in Afghanistan. It squanders tens of billions of dollars on prisons at home, ensuring that one in 31 adults in the US now in prison or on supervised release at any one time. And it has destroyed an entire generation of black men, who are now more likely to go to prison for drug offenses than to go to university.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Pot Can Ease Pain for Some HIV Patients
Posted by Paul Armentano, NORML on August 7, 2008 at 5:25 PM.

Oh, so this is why the Feds do everything they can to discourage any investigation into the safety and efficacy of inhaled cannabis.

Medicinal Marijuana Eases Neuropathic Pain in HIV

via The Washington Post

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 6 (HealthDay News) — Medicinal marijuana helps relieve neuropathic pain in people with HIV, says a University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine study.

It included 28 HIV patients with neuropathic pain that wasn’t adequately controlled by opiates or other pain relievers. The researchers found that 46 percent of patients who smoked medicinal marijuana reported clinically meaningful pain relief, compared with 18 percent of those who smoked a placebo.

The study, published online Aug. 6 in Neuropsychopharmacology, was sponsored by the University of California Center for Medical Cannabis Research (CMCR).

“Neuropathy is a chronic and significant problem in HIV patients as there are few existing treatments that offer adequate pain management to sufferers,” study leader Dr. Ronald J. Ellis, an associate professor of neurosciences, said in an UCSD news release. “We found that smoked cannabis was generally well-tolerated and effective when added to the patient’s existing pain medication, resulting in increased pain relief.”

The findings are consistent with and extend other recent CMCR-sponsored research supporting the short-term effectiveness of medicinal marijuana in treating neuropathic pain.

“This study adds to a growing body of evidence that indicates that cannabis is effective, in the short-term at least, in the management of neuropathic pain,” Dr. Igor Grant, a professor of psychiatry and director of the CMCR, said in the UCSD news release.   

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Feds Storm Medical Marijuana Operation on Day Court Rules DC Can't Undermine State's Law
Posted by Auguste, Pandagon on August 4, 2008 at 3:55 AM.

There’s not a single item in this article that doesn’t make me stuff-throwing, puppy-kicking angry.

Federal agents raided a Culver City medical marijuana dispensary and spent more than four hours there, making no arrests but leaving the shop in disarray, it was reported Friday.

Nice place you have here. Shame if anything were to happen to it...on the taxpayer’s dime.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents arrived about noon Thursday at Organica Collective in the 13400 block of Washington Boulevard, DEA spokeswoman Sarah Pullen told the Los Angeles Times.

“Marijuana remains a controlled substance, and it is illegal under federal law to possess, dispense or cultivate marijuana in any form,” she said.

Someone should probably teach DEA spokesperson Sarah Pullen a little bit about the timing of public statements:

The federal operation came on the day an appellate court in San Diego ruled that federal law does not preempt the state’s law allowing the use of medical marijuana—a ruling touted by supporters of California’s medical marijuana law as a significant win.

Unless Congress passed that one law making DEA spokespeople pope-like in their infallibility, this is a real black eye for the feds. Or it would be, if I thought any of them cared. 

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

McCain Jokes About Killing Iranians With American Tobacco Exports
Posted by Satyam Khanna, Think Progress on July 9, 2008 at 7:57 AM.

Last year, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) joked about bombing Iran to the theme of the Beach Boy’s “Barbara Ann.” McCain was widely criticized for the remark, but simply told critics to “lighten up and get a life.” The Washington Post notes that McCain tried joking about “killing” Iranians again today:

Responding to a question about a survey that shows increased exports to Iran, mainly from cigarettes, McCain said, “Maybe thats a way of killing them.” He quickly caught himself, saying “I meant that as a joke” as his wife, Cindy, poked him in the back.

According to a report released today, U.S. exports to Iran “grew more than tenfold during President Bush’s years in office even as he accused Iran of nuclear ambitions and helping terrorists. America sent more cigarettes to Iran, at least $158 million worth under Bush, than any other products.”

NYC Cops Harass Club Owner Whose CCTV Footage Overturned Drug Conviction
Posted by , bOING bOING on July 4, 2008 at 9:10 AM.

Posted by Cory Doctorow

Law enforcement LOVES surveillance cameras -- except when those cameras are used to surveil dodgy busts and get them overturned:

Last year, New York police officers were seen dancing in the streets just before arresting four men in a city nightclub on charges of selling $100 worth of cocaine. It took six months and the men's life savings, but their names were finally cleared when prosecutors took the unusual step of announcing in court that the men had committed no crime.

That's because club surveillance video shows that the undercover cops had no contact with the accused men in the two hours they were in the club.

Now, club owner Eduardo Espinoza says the police are retaliating against him.

Link

[Photo by Joi]

Is the Department of Justice Tracking Your Mobile Phone Without a Warrant?
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, AlterNet on July 3, 2008 at 11:35 AM.

Public Records Guy seizes on an interesting legal battle between the Department of Justice and the ACLU.

In 2007, some U.S. Attorneys Offices were quoted in the news saying that federal law enforcement didn't need warrants or probable cause to track people's movements using the signals emitted by their moble phones. The ACLU wasn't so sure about that. The Justice Department rebuffed the ACLU's FOIA request for more information on the program. Now, the ACLU is suing the DOJ to get some real answers:

WASHINGTON (CN) - The Department of Justice has violated open government laws, says the ACLU in a Federal Court action, by rejecting requests for information about the government's role in "tracking the location of individuals' mobile phones without first obtaining a warrant based on probable cause."

The ACLU submitted the [FOIA] request after court decisions and media reports revealed that the United States Attorneys Offices were claiming not to need probable cause to obtain real-time tracking information and that some field offices were violating a DOJ 'internal recommendation' that 'federal prosecutors seek warrants based on probably cause to obtain precise location data in private areas.' ... The information now in the public domain suggests that defendant may be engaging in unauthorized and potentially unconstitutional tracking of individuals through their mobile phones. ... The limited information currently available about the government's tracking practices raises serious questions about whether the government is complying with the law and the Constitution." [Courthouse News]

Julian Sanchez has many more details at Ars Technica.

Fake Federal Agent Fought Own Private Drug War
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, Majikthise on July 1, 2008 at 11:00 AM.

A mystery man came to Gerald, Missouri. Said he was sent from Washington, DC to fight our town's meth plague. Wouldn't take any money.  "Sargent Bill" said he didn't need a warrant to search people's houses because he worked for the federal government. Pretty soon, Sargent Bill was busting people left and right. It seemed almost too good to be true. Maybe we shoulda known:

GERALD, Mo. — Like so many rural communities in the country’s middle, this tiny town had wrestled for years with the woes of methamphetamine. Then, several months ago, a federal agent showed up.

Busts began. Houses were ransacked. People, in handcuffs on their front lawns, named names. To some, like Mayor Otis Schulte, who considers the county around Gerald, population 1,171, “a meth capital of the United States,” the drug scourge seemed to be fading at last.

Those whose homes were searched, though, grumbled about a peculiar change in what they understood, from television mainly, to be the law.

They said the agent, a man some had come to know as “Sergeant Bill,” boasted that he did not need search warrants to enter their homes because he worked for the federal government.

But after a reporter for the local weekly newspaper made a few calls about that claim, Gerald’s anti-drug campaign abruptly unraveled after less than five months. Sergeant Bill, it turned out, was no federal agent, but Bill A. Jakob, an unemployed former trucking company owner, a former security guard, a former wedding-performing minister, a former small-town cop from 23 miles down the road.

The strange adventures of Sergeant Bill have led to the firing of three of the town’s five police officers, left the outcome of a string of drug arrests in doubt, prompted multimillion-dollar federal civil rights lawsuits by at least 17 plaintiffs and stirred up a political battle, including a petition seeking the impeachment of Mr. Schulte, over who is to blame for the mess.
[NYT]

And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for that pesky reporter Linda Trest from The Gasconade County Republican!

Pentagon Ramps Up Drug War in West Africa
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, AlterNet on June 30, 2008 at 8:00 AM.

Walter Pincus of the Washington Post reports that the Pentagon is ramping up the drug war in West Africa, including training programs for West African military officers:

The Pentagon is stepping up its counternarcotics programs in West Africa, in what can be considered the Defense Department's continuing expansion into the traditional territory of a civilian agency.

West Africa has experienced "a dramatic increase in drug smuggling and associated corruption and intimidation that turns weakly governed areas into nearly ungoverned spaces," according to Joseph A. Benkert, the nominee to become the first assistant secretary of defense for global security affairs.

"Currently the threat of the expanding illicit drug trade threatens Africa's fragile future," Benkert wrote in answer to a Senate Armed Services Committee questionnaire, which was released at his confirmation hearing last Wednesday.

The Defense Department already has a full menu of support for African governments, including training for top younger military officers, military assistance and foreign military sales support, and more recently, a new range of counterterrorism, troop-training and construction programs. [WaPo]

This questionnaire is part of an effort by the House Armed Services Committee to scrutinize the activities of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM).