Gunners Look At Drugs

In an effort to enlist the gun rights community in the anti-prohibition effort I have written a piece for Gun Values Board.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

He Eventually Stopped Twitching

Evidently the merest twitch around police is grounds for immediate execution. And just for you geographically challenged (like me) East Point is in Georgia. Here is the story.

Dwight Person, 54, was shot Thursday afternoon when, according to police, he made a threatening gesture at a female officer “that put her in fear of her safety.” The officer, who has not been identified, fired one shot and hit Person.

He was treated and the scene and taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

OK the folks there were running some kind of dope house. Right? Right? Wrong.

"They didn't even know he was shot," Ballard said. "There were policemen saying, ‘Who fired that shot?'"

The search for drugs or a weapon was cut short after the shooting, police said.

“Once the shooting happened, our officers stopped their search and turned their focus to trying to save the man’s life,” Chandler said.

Police arrested seven people, charging them with operating a dive, a violation of a municipal code.

No drugs? No drugs? The article says nothing about drugs. Except that the police were looking for them. Normally if the police kill some one in a drug search everyone present (except the police) is charged with heavy felony drug crimes. Except no drugs were found. The heaviest crime they could find was a misdemeanor.

Seven people arrested during an East Point police drug search in which an officer fatally shot a man have been charged with violating a municipal code.

He was shot for that? And twitching. Fortunately for the police (I guess) he eventually stopped twitching.

It used to be such a nice country. Until some one decided it would be a good idea to start a war in it.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Another Government Road Block

The Department Of Health and Human Services (it has very little to do with health and is into denying services) has denied permission for an FDA approved study of cannabis for treating PTSD.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has blocked a pilot study to examine the benefits of marijuana for veterans with treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The study was sponsored by the nonprofit research organization the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), and would have been conducted by Dr. Sue Sisley of the University of Arizona at Phoenix.

“Hundreds of veterans in medical marijuana states already report using marijuana to control their PTSD symptoms,” MAPS said in a statement. “The growing number of service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with combat-related trauma combined with large numbers of treatment-resistant veterans highlights the pressing need for research into additional treatments for PTSD.”

It seems the Federales have an impenetrable wall to keep this reseach on cannabis from getting done.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has denied researchers requests to obtain licenses to grow marijuana, claiming that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) — overseen by the HHS — can be the only one to supply marijuana for Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated research.

Clever boys.

It seems like actual veterans are taking matters into their own hands. Green leafy matters.

“My life went downhill from the moment I came back from Iraq,” Begin, now a 31-year-old veteran, tells Danger Room. “Doctors at Bethesda had me on so much, and on such high doses of everything, that I didn’t even know what was a symptom and what was a side effect.”

At one point, Begin, diagnosed with PTSD shortly after coming home, was taking more than 100 pills a day. So many that he would stuff dozens of bottles into a backpack to lug everywhere he went. Now, he’s cut his dependency on prescriptions to zero. Their replacement? Five joints a day.

“Using marijuana balances me out,” he says. “It takes those peaks and valleys of PTSD and it softens them. It makes my life manageable.”

Begin’s now launched an online petition asking the feds to change their course on marijuana as a treatment for PTSD. In September, the first-ever study proposed to evaluate marijuana as a potential treatment for PTSD was blocked by officials at the National Institutes on Drug Abuse (NIDA). With an estimated 37 percent of this generation’s vets afflicted with PTSD, and a dearth of effective treatment options available, Begin thinks pot deserves, at the very least, a single study.

He is not the only veteran who thinks that cannabis ought to be an official medicine. I wrote about Jamey Raines recently.

And what do you know? Our friends the Israelis are on the case.

D., a 26-year-old woman from the north of Israel, says she began to suffer from nightmares about seven years ago, after her partner raped her. After undergoing various forms of therapy, she thought she had largely put the trauma behind her. Then, two years ago, she chanced to see the rapist not far from her home. The nightmares came swarming back.

"I fell into a depression that went on until not long ago, during which I hardly slept or ate," she says in a quiet voice. "My whole life turned upside down. I left my job. Everything came to a stop. I went back to taking antidepressants and tranquilizers - Cipralex, Lustral and Prozac; sleeping pills that made me addicted. It was a nightmare. There was no way I could get through the day without those pills. Then I discovered cannabis."

So war trauma is not the only way to get PTSD? Maybe that explains why 70% of female Heroin users report being sexually attacked. When they were children. Too bad no famous sports figures (in so far as we know) are involved. Too bad we can't figure a way to give such kids a pass. Until we figure out better ways to help them heal. Currently a long slow process that is not a sure thing.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Christian Science - Oppress Them

The Christian Science Monitor is discussing the medical marijuana situation in California. It seems they have come to a political conclusion on the subject.

Pot smokers are a small minority. They are containable...

Isn't there something wrong with oppressing people because they 'don't matter'? Even one person officially subject to persecution is too many. And since when was it Christian to be oppressing people? Even those that don't matter.

Well, Reform Jews and Orthodox Jews get it. Even if the Christians don't.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

The Botany Of Desire

You can watch the full video here.

About 5 minutes in to the video there is a discussion about society and mind altering substances. Every society has them except for Eskimos. Only one or two though with the rest frowned upon or actively discouraged. There is no universal agreement on which two mind altering substances should prevail. Americans like alcohol (it is traditional), Saudis do not. And so it goes. All around the world.

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World

Some people in Missouri are making an effort to get marijuana legalized. About 3 minutes into the video the pro-legalization guy explains that young people support it and old people are against it. Do the math. He thinks the math is good for 2012.

Drug Plants. No not that kind. It is police officers planting drugs to meet arrest quotas.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

This Is Your War On Drugs

Do not watch this video if you can't stand dogs getting shot and a SWAT team terrorizing a Columbia, Missouri family over a few pot pipes. I first blogged this on 10 May 2010. There has been some reaction to that video which I will get to shortly.

What was the disposition of the case?

In the end the victim pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge of possession of drug paraphernalia in exchange for dropping the charges of misdemeanor marijuana possession and second-degree child endangerment. Yes, you read that right: the police burst into this man's home, shooting weapons in his home and killing his dog with his seven-year-old sleeping in the next room and he's the one who was endangering his child by smoking pot in his own home.

It seems that that was not the only disposition. Here is what Norm Stamper, Seattle’s retired Chief of Police, had to say today about the raid.

As they are forced onto the floor, a young male is brought into the room. He is handcuffed and pushed against a wall.

“What did I do? What did I DO?” he shouts, as the woman and the child cower on the floor nearby.

We then learn the source of the dog’s pained cries.

“You shot my dog, you shot my DOG!” the man suddenly shouts. “Why did you do that? He was a good dog! He was probably trying to play with you!”

He, the woman and the child all break into pitiful sobs.

As of late October, just five months after it was posted, the Columbia police raid video has been viewed nearly two million times on YouTube. The clip quickly ricocheted across cyberspace, generating emotionally charged, outraged calls for the officers to be fired and prosecuted. Or subjected to the same kind of treatment that terrorized their fellow citizens.

Public indignation over the incident intensified when it was learned that the Columbia SWAT team was executing an eight-day-old search warrant, and that the only things seized were a pipe containing a small amount of marijuana residue. Since possession of small amounts of pot had long ago been essentially decriminalized in Columbia, the man was charged with simple possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor.

The reaction of Fox Business Network’s Andrew Napolitano was telling. In a segment about the raid that also found its way onto YouTube, the retired New Jersey Superior Court judge says, “This was America – not East Germany, not Nazi Germany, but middle America!”

Yet as former Cato staffer Radley Balko, who wrote about the Columbia video, has noted, what’s most remarkable about the raid is that it wasn’t remarkable at all. The only thing that made it unusual was that it was videotaped and made public, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper.

There are still a few "Americans" around who say the punishments are not near draconian enough. But they are getting fewer each day. And they are getting pariah status as any police state advocates should.

"Distrust anyone in whom the desire to punish is powerful" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Fortunately that distrust is growing every day. And one day it will be over and the folks behind these atrocities will do their best to avoid being connected in any way with their past. Just as after the war it was hard to find many Nazis in Germany. It really is a wonder that America has let things get this far.

But in a way it is not too surprising. It seems every country needs its scape goats. Germany had its Jews. America has its dopers. I just wonder who will be the targets of all that leftover police hardware when dopers are no longer suitable targets? They are going to need a whole new class of scapegoats.

Maybe we can learn from South Pacific.



On the other hand that was 1949. Evidently we have forgotten what was once as plain as the nose on your face. Mass hate leads to mass atrocities. And not even the Shining City on the Hill is immune. Especially when you consider that Jew hatred in America peaked in 1944. Just before the unmasking of the German atrocities. We are now in the process of unmasking a new round of hatred. It can't happen soon enough.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Drug Cartel PR?

Thanks to Howard Wooldridge of Citizens Opposing Prohibition I have a link to what purports to be a Mexican Drug Cartel PR site. We Are The Cartels. They boast on their current front page: Mexican Drug Cartel Association – Now offering To-Your-Door Service in many cities.

There is another page that I found interesting.

Breaking News

October 13, 2011 – California:

We applaud the efforts of the DEA today, as they destroy the Northstone Organics in Mendocino County. In fact we applaud all efforts of the DEA to destroy these so-called ‘legal, medical marijuana’ gardens.

Drug trafficking helping economy along border: October 17, 2011

This from a newspaper account whereby Marin “Gordo” Herrera, a former associate of the MDCA, was able to take the money he earned and develop a successful housing area in a suburb near McAllen, Texas.

Although now serving 20 years in a federal prison, the houses remain as testimony of the positive impact of his employment with us.

I wonder if this is for real or if it is a way of making fun of Drug Prohibition? Either way.....

BTW Howard, a retired police detective, educates Congress on the evils of Drug Prohibition. If you can - send him a few bucks.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Hi Tech Powered By Pot

It appears that industries powered by brains, commonly referred to as high tech, are also powered by marijuana.

Almost 92% of the people that work in the technology and telecommunications industries answered "yes" to the survey's question asking if they had ever smoked cannabis.

"Obviously, cannabis users work in a variety of professions," said James Malach, creative director at technology firm TongueWag, which commissioned the survey, "but the high proportion of users in the IT sector is considerably higher than we suspected."

The study says nothing much about current use in high tech. But even so. Think about what would happen to our high tech industries (the engines of our current prosperity such as it is) if a significant fraction of those folks had wound up with a pot conviction after trying the herb in their youth.

In my own experience in high tech, I would estimate that between 1/4 and 1/2 of the engineers I worked with were regular users. Of course there is no way for me to tell for certain (thus the wide variance in numbers) because no one with a job is going to admit to pot use and thus lose their job.

Update: I found a site which discusses the anecdotal evidence of pot use in high tech. Here is a bit from the site:

Several heavy pot smokers I’ve known have also been some of the smartest and most productive I’ve worked with. People seem to use these drugs to unwind, to blow off steam, and I’ve never seen anyone have trouble keeping it out of the workplace. If people have substance problems it’s more likely alcoholism.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

It Must Produce Revenue

Eric is discussing my post Prevention Methods, and looks at the harms that making things illegal causes. A commenter chimes in with this bit of wisdom.

...many of these “illegal drug” like Marijuana can be produced without a good means of tax revenue – another reason to outlaw them

You can make quite a bit of your own booze (200 gal a year I believe) without paying any taxes (a permit may be required). I wonder if we should be making alcohol illegal to recover that lost revenue. Oh. Wait. If they make alcohol illegal there is zero revenue. Only enforcement costs. Barring the usual theft pardon me "asset forfeiture" by police of anything people own that they cannot account for. Like cash. This is sometimes referred to as highway robbery.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Prevention Methods

So I'm having an ongoing discussion with a guy and he has me pegged.

MSimon believes that it is every individual's right to consume whatever drugs in whatever quantities that an individual so chooses.

What is your plan to prevent that? Because that is exactly the nature of current reality. The legality or otherwise makes no difference except for determining the distribution channels. For a lot of people "distributed by criminals" seems to be a very solid preference. I don't know why but there you have it. And quite a few of those claim to be conservative. But since when did conservatives support criminals? It is a paradox. Unless you understand Baptist/bootlegger coalitions. Prevalent everywhere but especially virulent in America. We LOVE our moral panics in the Good 'Ole USA.

I know. Facing reality puts me way out on a limb. It has been a life long curse. I rather enjoy it.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Texas Miracle - Dope Smuggling

We now know why Rick Perry thinks making pot legal may not be the best idea for Texas. The Texas economy is dependent on the dope trade.

Before a federal judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison earlier this year, prosecutors established that between 2006 and 2010 Herrera had been a conduit for more than 660 pounds of cocaine flowing from Mexico’s Gulf Cartel into the United States, a key link on a smuggling chain that distributed drugs to Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago and beyond.

For better or worse Herrera pumped a fair amount of money into the Texas economy, which is getting renewed attention because of Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign for the GOP presidential nomination and his proud declaration that his low-tax and low-regulation policies have enabled Texas to weather hard times — the “Texas Miracle.’’

Clearly, drugs were flowing across the Texas border with Mexico long before Perry became governor and will continue long after he’s gone. And drugs do not have the same level of economic impact on Texas as oil and gas, farming and ranching or legitimate trans-border commerce.

But experts who have studied the impact of drug money say it is undeniable that in a tough economy, trafficking has helped boost employment and economic growth in the state’s border regions, from the Rio Grande Valley to Laredo to El Paso.

As William Burroughs is reputed to have said, "Dealing is harder to kick than using".

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A Few Mistakes Have Been Made

Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia says the drug laws were a mistake.

"It was a great mistake to put routine drug offenses into the federal courts," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal went on to report Scalia's belief that the laws forced Congress to enlarge the federal court system, and diminished "the elite quality of the federal judiciary."

This isn't a new problem. Chief Justice William Rehnquist complained as far back as 1989 that the war on drugs was overwhelming the federal judiciary. In 1995, Kathleen F. Brickley, an academic, found that "the Federal system is strained to capacity due, in large part, to the government's war on drugs."

There also seems to be a quota system that has been strained beyond the breaking point. Which seems to be the reason some cops were fabricating drug charges.

A former NYPD narcotics detective snared in a corruption scandal testified it was common practice to fabricate drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas.

The bombshell testimony from Stephen Anderson is the first public account of the twisted culture behind the false arrests in the Brooklyn South and Queens narc squads, which led to the arrests of eight cops and a massive shakeup.

Anderson, testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, was busted for planting cocaine, a practice known as "flaking," on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 to help out fellow cop Henry Tavarez, whose buy-and-bust activity had been low.

Real investigations take time. And sometimes they don't pay off. Sometimes they do and the cops need to find some other people to keep their numbers up.

It is a difficult job and no one should be doing it.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Dopers Are Ruining The Country

Glenn Greenwald is having a look at Steve Jobs and how illegal drugs ruined his life.

It’s fascinating to juxtapose America’s reverence for Steve Jobs’ accomplishments and its draconian drug policy with this, from the New York Times‘ obituary of Jobs:

[Jobs] told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life. He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand.

Unlike many people who have enjoyed success, Jobs is not saying that he was able to succeed despite his illegal drug use; he’s saying his success is in part — in substantial part — because of those illegal drugs (he added that Bill Gates would “be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once”). These quotes (first published by a New York Times reporter) have been around for some time but have been only rarely discussed in the recent hagiographies of Jobs: a notable omission given that he himself praised those experiences as an integral part of his identity and one of the most important things he ever did.

I'd trade all the burnouts and drop outs who couldn't handle their drugs for another Steve Jobs. Maybe we could get 20 more like him.

In short, the deceit at the heart of America’s barbaric drug policy — that these substances are such unadulterated evils that adults should be put in cages for voluntarily using them — is more glaring than ever. In light of his comments about LSD, it’s rather difficult to reconcile America’s adoration for Steve Jobs with its ongoing obsession with prosecuting and imprisoning millions of citizens (mostly poor and minorities) for doing what Jobs, Obama, George W. Bush, Michael Phelps and millions of others have done.

It is all about connections. And Black people for the most part ain't got none. So guess who is going to jail? Clue - not white folks (very much).

Jobs’ praise for his LSD use is what I kept returning to as I read about the Obama DOJ’s heinous new policy to use the full force of criminal prosecutions against medical marijuana dispensaries in California. In October, 2009, I enthusiastically praised Eric Holder and the DOJ for appearing to fulfill Obama’s campaign promise by refraining from prosecuting medical marijuana dispensaries in compliance with state law (a “rare instance of unadulterated good news from Washington,” I gushed). As I wrote:

Criminalizing cancer and AIDS patients for using a substance that is (a) prescribed by their doctors and (b) legal under the laws of their state has always been abominable. The Obama administration deserves major credit not only for ceasing this practice, but for memorializing it formally in writing.

Yet now, U.S. Attorneys in California will expend substantial law enforcement resources to persecute medical marijuana dispensaries that sell to consenting adults even though those transactions have been legalized by the voters of California and 16 other states (to see what a complete reversal this is of everything Obama and Holder previously said on this subject, see here).

The article goes on at length discussing our All American Drug Prohibition. And finishes with this update:

UPDATE: In The Los Angeles Times today, a former Deputy Chief of the L.A.P.D. details how drug prohibition “has cost our country more than $1 trillion in cash and much more in immeasurable social harm”; “the damage that came from the prohibition of alcohol pales in comparison to the harm wrought by drug prohibition“; and “that ending today’s prohibition on drugs — starting with marijuana — would do more to hurt the [drug] cartels than any level of law enforcement skill or dedication ever can.”

Ah but think about all the government functionaries out of a job. And America out of Jobs.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Law Hijacked By Profiteers

I see by this statement that the private pot operations in California are seriously cutting into drug cartel profits. No wonder they needed a Haag to send the message. That is so ironic on so many levels. It is the government that keeps the real profiteers in business. Shouldn't she be inspecting chopped liver or something important?

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Branding

The small government party is at it again.

The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill yesterday that would make it a federal crime for U.S. residents to discuss or plan activities on foreign soil that, if carried out in the U.S., would violate the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) -- even if the planned activities are legal in the countries where they're carried out. The new law, sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) allows prosecutors to bring conspiracy charges against anyone who discusses, plans or advises someone else to engage in any activity that violates the CSA, the massive federal law that prohibits drugs like marijuana and strictly regulates prescription medication.

"Under this bill, if a young couple plans a wedding in Amsterdam, and as part of the wedding, they plan to buy the bridal party some marijuana, they would be subject to prosecution," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for reforming the country's drug laws. "The strange thing is that the purchase of and smoking the marijuana while you're there wouldn't be illegal. But this law would make planning the wedding from the U.S. a federal crime."

The comments were especially instructive. This one was my favorite:

More "thought crime" legislatio­n from the party that wants to keep big government out of your personal business by putting itself in your personal business. Extra cup of "Doublethi­nk" anyone?

The Republican Campaign Slogan for 2012: We favor smaller government except for (use your imagination).....

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Alcohol Is The Enemy Of The Family And Civilization

Alcohol Is The Enemy Of The Family And Civilization.

There ought to be a law.

That is my take away from watching the first two hours of Ken Burns "Prohibition".

Update: I said this in an e-mail.

Drug Prohibition. Same old song. New lyrics.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Prohibition Is Not Over

"Prohibition" on PBS - TV schedule

Cross Posted at Classical Values

More Police Come Out Against Prohibition

From Moms United To End The War On Drugs
The Colorado Independent tells the story.

Hundreds of law enforcement professionals including Denver’s U.S. District Judge John Kane have come together on a curious quest: Saying the drug war has failed, they want to legalize drugs.

Some are very nuts and bolts, saying the war on drugs has cost trillions of dollars while only making the problem worse. Others like Kane, while agreeing on that point, are more philosophical. “Our national drug policy is inconsistent with the nature of justice, abusive of the nature of authority, and ignorant of the compelling force of forgiveness,” he says on the web site of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

I'm of the opinion that we can't have a Free Country with a prohibition regime that arrests 1.6 million people a year for prohibition violations. Eric pretty much agrees although he is less sanguine than I am that it will end any time soon.

Winston Churchill said Alcohol Prohibition was "an affront to the whole history of mankind." And it seems so is Drug Prohibition.

Tony Ryan, who was a Denver police officer for more than 35 years, told The Colorado Independent that not only has the drug war been utterly ineffective but that it has also been counterproductive in many important ways.

He says the war on drugs is the number one reason cops become corrupt. “It’s the money. These drug cartels don’t care who they kill. Even a good cop, faced with the choice of ‘take this money or we’ll kill you’ will often take the money. And it is getting worse. Drugs are a vicious business,” he said.

The way it is put in the vernacular is Plata O Plomo, Silver Or Lead. An easy choice. Anyone who knows the history of Alcohol Prohibition knows that it was the same for that Prohibition regime. Human nature being what it is.

Officer Ryan goes on:

He says that while the money coming from the sale of drugs causes huge problems on one hand, money coming from the federal government–with virtually every law enforcement organization in the country getting grants of one sort or another to fight the drug war–causes additional problems.

“The war on drugs is an addiction because of the money police departments get,” Ryan says.

What the officer is saying is that a significant segment of local law enforcement has been Federalized. I don't believe that is what our Founders had in mind when they designed our governing arrangements some 220 years ago. Thomas Jefferson had something to say about that:

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

As usual desperate times call for desperate measure.

Ryan is among those circulating petitions for Colorado’s Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol initiative. He also serves as a public speaker through LEAP.

“We give members of law enforcement, who saw the drug war up close and risked their lives for it, a voice,” Tom Angell, spokesman for the group, told the Colorado Independent. “They will almost universally tell you that the drug war distracted them from the mission of solving crimes and ensuring public safety.”

He says LEAP wants to see all drugs made legal. “There is no drug that is made safer to the public by turning its manufacture and distribution over to cartels and gangs. You don’t want gangs selling drugs on your street corners, but that is what you have,” he said.

About 75 percent of Americans and 69 percent of police chiefs say that Drug Prohibition has failed.

You might also want to support another police organization against Drug Prohibition at Citizens Opposing Prohibition.

You can watch a history of that earlier failure tomorrow evening on PBS. It is called "Prohibition". Check your local listings.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Real Purpose

Patriot Action Network is going on about the Government plan (implemented) to deliver guns to the Mexican Drug Cartels.

One commenter said:

The real purpose of "Fast and furious" program was to shut down the Texas gun shops.

To which I responded.

The real purpose of the Drug War is to attack the 2nd Amendment.

Had enough yet?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Pagan Solution.

About 70% of female heroin users were sexually molested as children.

I'm all for the Pagan solution. Abuse them some more.