London Police Accused Of Water Torture - via news.sky.co.uk

Six Scotland Yard officers have been suspended over allegations of “waterboarding” drug suspects.

The men are said to have pushed the suspects’ heads repeatedly into buckets or bowls of water in a bid to force them to reveal the locations of drugs.

The accusations suggest they were simulating the notorious “waterboard” torture techniques employed against al Qaeda suspects by CIA staff.

The incidents are said to have taken place at the homes of four young men arrested on suspicion of drug offences at properties in North London in November

(via UK TimesOnline) The part of the inquiry focusing on alleged police brutality has been taken over by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It is examining the conduct of six officers connected to drug raids in November in which four men and a woman were arrested at addresses in Enfield and Tottenham. Police said they found a large amount of cannabis and the suspects were charged with importation of a Class C drug. The case was abandoned four months later when the Crown Prosecution Service said it would not have been in the public interest to proceed. It is understood that the trial, by revealing the torture claims, would have compromised the criminal investigation into the six officers.

They shoot us, arrest us by the hundreds of thousands, imprison us, entrap us, deny us health care and access to college, and in the UK, they treat us like terrorists just to find another kilo. We are the most hunted minority in the world and have to endure every sadistic thing the immoral minority can think of.

Despite all that, I can still get an eighth anytime day or night.

This is your neighborhood War on Pot.

Letters: VA marijuana policy outllined via mlive.com

Gabriel Perez director of Lutz Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Saginaw Michigan recently wrote a letter to the editor of The Saginaw News to explain the VA policy regarding Medical Marijuana and Pain Management.

Editor, The News:

As a clarification to the article on medical marijuana in the VA, it is important for veteran patients and visitors of the VA medical center in Saginaw and community based outpatient clinics in Alpena, Clare, Gaylord, Oscoda and Traverse City to understand how the new law regarding the use of medical marijuana will be handled by VA medical center police and practitioners.

The legalization of medical marijuana in Michigan is acknowledged. However, pursuant to federal law, VA physicians, nurse practitioners and other licensed clinicians are not authorized or permitted to participate in the recommendation for treatment of or prescribing medical marijuana to a VA patient that would otherwise be legal in Michigan. Furthermore, the VA will not dispense, prescribe or store medical marijuana, and its possession on VA property remains illegal and a criminal offense.

However, it is acknowledged that testing positive for marijuana in a patient, based upon a random drug screening, will not serve as a breach of the current pain management agreement if the patient submits documentation in support of the marijuana being prescribed and dispensed in conformity with Michigan law.

The above withstanding, veteran patients and visitors who are registered users of medical marijuana must follow all laws and regulations for the possession and use of the medical marijuana and shall not bring medical marijuana on the grounds of the VA medical center. Possession on federal grounds remains illegal and may subject the possessor to appropriate criminal charges.

Our priority to provide quality health care to veterans remains steadfast. A veteran’s care and the right to pain management continue to be very important in enhancing the veteran’s health care outcomes.

Veterans with questions or concerns regarding their participation with medical marijuana may be directed to their primary care provider.

Gabriel Perez
director
Lutz Veterans Affairs Medical Center
Saginaw

I’m glad that Mr. Perez took the time to recognize that medical marijuana was not only legal in Michigan but that by using it, a veteran would not jeopardize his access to the other treatments that they need. This common sense approach is far better than the “deny and die” policy of such prestigious hospitals like Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center and The UCLA Medical Center who denied the transplant of a liver for Timothy Garon just because of his legitimate and legal use of marijuana.

Boston Police waste Time looking for Pot at Phish Concert

Drug warriors hate a party, but they loathe a concert. It’s pretty standard fare for local cops to waste time looking for pot at a concert simply because the band has a 420 friendly message, but even after the voters passed Q2 the police act like they don’t know what to do with their time.

Boston police threatened to whack weed enthusiasts this weekend at Fenway Park but could not say how many $100 pot citations were issued to fans of Phish and the Dave Matthews Band.

Despite the weekend-long music mayhem, police tallied just one arrest – for distributing nitrous oxide-filled balloons – according to BPD spokesman Eddy Crispin.

The reason the “Bosto PoPo” wouldn’t say how many citations they issued at the concert was because they didn’t issue more than a handful. The “high” profile crackdown they were touting and hoping for was simply a bust. Another taxpayer funded wild goose chase puts the local residents further at risk for violent crimes in a city where in the past years 6 out of every 10 murders went unsolved.

The sad fact is that police love to bust non-violent pot smokers. We’re generally very co-operative, seldom refusing a search, and rarely resist arrest. What cop in his right mind would go out an stake out a killer, when his time could easily be taken up with a few arrests and some quality time with a laptop. Besides, even if you don’t smoke pot, Dave Mathews and Phish allways put on a good show.

And for the record, the pot smokers won another battle against the police that night.

“I’m not scared; we’ve smoked a couple of bowls right here,” said shirtless Johnny B., 24, of Rochester, N.H. “I think they are going to let it go, turn a blind eye to it.”

“Just look around, everyone’s happy,” said Brent C., 28, of Marshfield. “There’s no trouble. Just beer, barbecues and bros.”

I guess we’ll win the war on drugs one jam at a time.

Drug Czar’s Pot-Potency Claims Go Up In Smoke via huffingtonpost.com

A newly released report about marijuana potency undermines previous claims by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) that the drug’s potency has hit record highs.

“According to the latest data on marijuana samples analyzed to date, the average amount of THC in seized samples has reached a new high of 10.1 percent,” reads the announcement by Gil Kerlikowske, the Drug Czar.

But the full report is now available and it shows that the 10-percent bar is only crossed by throwing hash into the equation. Without hash, the average potency was 8.52 percent. The average potency of hash was 20.76 percent.

I’m not personally suprised to hear that Gil was given some bad information by the ONDCP. They give out bad information all the time to keep their funding and the war on pot going. But I am always suprised when they manufacture half truths from a study that will eventually find the light of day and expose them for being the deceitful liars they are. ONDCP works on a shock therapy meme that will only work as long as the media and the public swallows the disinformation first and forgets the whole thing before the facts come out.

I fully encourage you to read the full report (a scant 21 pages) and draw your own conclusions. I was personally thrilled to see that “Ditch Weed” is an official term, and that hash oil is pretty potent stuff at an average 87% THC. Enjoy!

Student Arrested For Smoking Pot During A Class Presentation via q13fox.com

I know how important it is to win this stupid war, but please don’t do this. Sparking one up at a high school while you extol the virtues of the noble weed isn’t the best way to press your point and it’s very hard to work for legalization at juvie. Not to mention all the other road blocks that a simple possession charge will put in your way.

Pierce County deputies say the 17 year old Peninsula High School student pulled out a joint of marijuana and lit it during his essay.

The student then smoked it and swallowed the rest of the joint.

Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer says there were about 150 students and teachers in the auditorium Tuesday morning. All of them witnessed the end-of-the-year essays that were presented to the class.

Immediately after the presentation, the student was taken to the principal’s office where he was disciplined.

Deputies were called to the school. They found remnants of pot in the student’s possession.

The 17 year old was quickly arrested and taken to juvenile hall on suspicion of possession of marijuana.

While I was contemplating this story, I noticed that there was an armed robbery of a Walmart which resulted in the death of an armed guard. The police are still searching for the violent murderers, but they knew just where to find a 17 year old student with a 3.7 GPA who felt that smoking weed shouldn’t be a crime.

This is your community being put further at risk for an unwinnable war against a plant and the Americans who use it.  Any Questions?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our friends at Showtime released this video history of our mighty weed. I bet there’s a fact or two that you didn’t know in there.

Officer said to have kicked suspect owns clothing line tailored to gang life via whittierdailynews.com

From the office of “you just can’t make this stuff up”

EL MONTE – The police officer who sources inside City Hall say kicked a gang member in the head after a long car chase Wednesday also owns a clothing company that glorifies gang and prison life.

George Fierro is listed as the owner of Torcido Clothing of El Monte, according to records at El Monte City Hall. “Torcido” is slang for being imprisoned. The Torcido Clothing company “features some of the hardest authentic jail house threads for the streets. Straight from East L.A., Califas …” according to its Web site.

On Torcido’s Web site, shoppers can buy a T-shirt emblazoned with “186.22,” the section of the state’s criminal code that gives more prison time to people who commit a crime related to street gang activity.

Another shirt has “L.A. County Jail” on the front. Another has “Dept. of Corrections P-Bay Segregated Housing Unit,” which refers to the Pelican Bay State Prison unit where leaders of the Mexican Mafia are housed.

This story underlines the economics that keep the drug war turning. George was already getting a check from the enforcement side of the drug war, but that wasn’t enough. He had to figure out how to get a slice of that juicy drug money. Besides the State was already using forfeiture laws to steal from it citizens, why shouldn’t a beat cop be able to get gangsters and wannabe gangsters to fork over some cash for authentic prison “Bling”?

When Gil Kerlikowske says we shouldn’t fight a war on Americans, it’s a nice sentiment. But it’s action that needs to be taken. Even the beat cop knows that this war is lost even as he’s kicking in a suspects head.

UPDATE – via whittierdailynews.com

Dieter Dammeier, an attorney representing the El Monte Police Officers Association, said Thursday the actions were justified.

“When you’re going to have to take a bad guy into custody physically, it is sometimes going to be aggressive and the cops are there to win,” Dammeier said.

The officer’s kick was what is called a “distraction blow,” Dammeier said, and is not designed to harm people.

So be aware that in El Monte, you can expect a swift kick in the head to ‘distract’ you from laying down on the ground spread eagle. Since absolutely no bad idea goes to waste in the drug war, look for other cops in a municipality near you to use the “I was just trying to distract him” defense when he’s caught on tape beating the crap out of somebody.

Allen Stanford was ‘US government informer’ via The Telegraph (UK)

When the news is this bad, you’ll just have to read it in the foreign press..

Sir Allen Stanford, the Texan financier and cricket promoter accused of a $8 billion (£5.6 billion) bank fraud, is at the centre of allegations that he worked as a US government informer, according to the BBC.

A Panorama [a weekly current affairs program in the UK] investigation has suggested that Sir Allen was shielded from an earlier inquiry into his activities because he co-operated with a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) attempt to track money laundering by Latin American drug cartels.

Panorama claimed some US officials were aware of Sir Allen’s cartel links as long ago as 1990. It reported that Sir Allen, paid a $3.1 million (£2.05 million) cheque to the DEA in 1999 after that sum was invested in his bank by another Mexican drug gang, the Juarez cartel of Amada Carillo Fuentes.

According to Panorama, whose investigation will air on Monday, Sir Allen was initially investigated by the SEC over suspicions he was running a Ponzi scheme in the summer of 2006, but the inquiry was over by the winter of that year.

The BBC claims the decision to close the investigation followed a request by another government agency.

Panorama says it is aware of “strong evidence” that Sir Allen was a “confidential agent” for the DEA as far back as 1999 and turned over details of money laundering by clients from Colombia, Mexico and Ecuador.

My mother used to day that when you wrestle with pigs you’re gonna get dirty, and the DEA has “ponzi scheme” all over it’s shirt. This man was allowed to bilk $8 Billion dollars from Americans just so the DEA could have it’s money mole. So, you can just add $8 Billion to the cost of the drug war for this year, just feel lucky that you didn’t take Sean Hanity’s advice and buy gold from Stanford Financial.

There is a dirty little secret that could cost all the drug warriors their positions, and Mexican President Calderon mentioned it but few took notice. There are large numbers of police, DEA agents, accountants, judges and attorneys who are neck deep in corruption. We never hear about them, we never even get so much as a whiff that the US government is as corrupt as the Mexican government. But they are, and Calderon knows it, and you should know it too. When America wakes up to see the legions of Police that have been bought we will begin to understand the true cost of this war and what it has done to us.

Prompted by Schwarzenegger, North Coast begins debating legalizing pot via pressdemocrat.com

It’s no surprise that when Gov. Schwarzenegger called for a discussion on the legalization of marijuana it would be seen as a call to arms for prohibitionists. For Sonoma County, the usual suspects are taking their places.

“I think we need another drug like we need a hole in the head,” Sonoma County Sheriff’s Capt. Matt McCaffrey said.
The societal costs of having more people using drugs would exceed the tax benefits, he said.

“A lot of the money would be going to the ills caused by this drug,” in much the same way alcohol taxes don’t cover the costs of problems caused by alcohol consumption, he said.

It’d help if you remember the “we don’t need another drug” argument. It’s the first new talking point that you will be hearing from the prohibitionists. It stands the prohibitionist argument of “this drug is so bad we HAVE to outlaw it” on it’s head. Since marijuana is so much safer than currently legal drugs, we should legalize it right now. When law enforcement gets a place at the FDA’s approval panel for new drugs, I’ll take what they have to say about the harm of marijuana more seriously. I’m sure that when Purdue Pharma introduced “Oxycontin” the dear Sheriff didn’t say a word.

The second point the good Sheriff makes is that the ills of legalization of marijuana will outstrip the revenue it generates. With 18 million marijuana users per year, the cost of marijuana use is already baked in. Other countries (Gov. Schwarzenegger’s criteria) only saw a slight increase (around 5%) in the use of ADULTS who grew up with prohibition.

Sonoma County District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua said he’d be willing to participate in discussions about legalization. But he questioned whether now is the time.

“I don’t think on an important topic like this it can be done when we’re facing a deficit at our doorsteps,” he said. “At this point it serves as a needless distraction to Sacramento.”

The DA needs money today and removing a source of billable income isn’t the tune he wants to hear. Lightening his workload is a needless distraction, and is outright dangerous to his future as an elected official. When a DA needs to up his conviction rate, or show he’s one tough dude he needs a bus load of pot smokers to incarcerate (for a mandatory long time). He’d spend months or years tracking down robberies before he could get a mere handful of convictions. It’s not time now, and it’s never a good time for the DA to discuss marijuana legalization.

Next up: “What about the children?”

“It would contribute to greater abuse” by children if it’s freely available to adults, said Sonoma County schools Superintendent Carl Wong.

Children living on the marijuana-rich North Coast already use marijuana at a higher rate than elsewhere, said Lynn Garric, the director of Sonoma County’s Safe Schools Program.

A survey conducted by the group ranked Sonoma County fourth in the state in student marijuana use. Marin County students reported the highest use, followed by Mendocino and Humboldt counties, she said.

The survey showed that 30 percent of Sonoma County eleventh-graders had used marijuana in the month preceding the survey. The state average was 16 percent.

“We have to be careful about impacts on children,” she said.

So a survey created, funded, and conducted by Sonoma County’s Safe Schools Program found an alarming usage rate amongst the county’s eleventh graders, forgive me if I’m not shocked. Black market dealers don’t ask for ID and don’t care who’s buying, and that goes for any product, from guns to unpasteurized milk. It’s the black market that feeds drugs to our children, in the free market your drugstore doesn’t sell to minors because it’d get shut down and lose all that wonderful revenue.

When the debate is joined by the prohibitionists, they will trot out every skewed study, every frightening headline, every pot horror story to defeat you. Don’t let them get away with sentencing 800,000 Americans every year to a tour of our incarceration system, get prepared, get motivated, get active.

“We are starting to see a real change,” said Ellen Komp, a Humboldt County-based spokeswoman with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Komp said the price of marijuana from the North Coast likely would remain high, much like premier wines from the region. She envisions “tasting” rooms, which could boost tourism and bring relief to the North Coast’s battered economy.

I think I’ll order an eighth of Mendocino’s finest Sour Diesel and a tumbler of Maker’s Mark…

Click here to view the embedded video.

In case you missed it, Paul Armantano has a great piece about this unexpected good news. It’s very notable that the anchor begins to put very pointed questions to the prohibitionist that was brought on to “debate” Rob Kampia.

If you live in CA, be sure to drop Arnold a line at NORML take action page.