American nonchalance about drug use stands in sharp contrast to what is happening across the border in Mexico. There lawmen are taking heavy casualties in a showdown with drug-running crime syndicates. On Thursday the chief of the Mexican federal police, Edgar Millán Gómez, was assassinated by men waiting for him when he came home, becoming the latest and most prominent victim of the syndicates.
It’s no secret that the narcotics trade is like a roach infestation. If you see one shipment or dealer, you can be sure that there are many others that go undetected. The signs of an infestation are everywhere, making a joke of their 40-year claim that any day now they will wipe out American drug use.
Yet if prohibitionists should find this lack of results troubling, imagine how Mexico must view it. That country doesn’t even produce cocaine, but it became a transit route to the U.S. when enforcers had some success in curtailing supplies coming through the Caribbean in the late 1990s.
That success didn’t change the U.S. appetite for the mind-altering substances. Instead, drugs started flowing over land routes and Mexican cartels took charge. Now they are rumored to be in control of most of the traffic from the Andes northward. A U.S.-Mexican joint assessment estimates that more than $10 billion in cash from drug sales flow from the U.S. to Mexico every year.
The upshot: Americans underwrite Mexico’s vicious organized crime syndicates. The gringos get their drugs and the Mexican mafia gets weapons, technology and the means to buy off or intimidate anyone who gets in their way. Caught in the middle is a poor country striving to develop sound institutions for law enforcement.
Most of the drug-related killings since [Mexican President Felipe] Calderón took office seem to be a result of battles between rival cartels. Still, the escalating violence is troubling. The official death toll attributable to organized crime since the Calderón crackdown began now stands at 3,995. Of that, 1,170 have died this year.
Especially alarming are the number of assassinations among military personnel and municipal, state and federal police officers. The total is 439 for the 17 months and 109 so far this year. Many of these victims have been ordinary police officers whose refusal to be bought off or back off cost them their lives.
But as the murder of police chief Millan makes clear, high rank offers no safety. Two weeks before he was gunned down, Roberto Velasco, the head of the organized crime division of the federal police, was shot in the head. Eleven federal law enforcement agents have been killed in ambushes and executions in the last four weeks alone.
If U.S. law enforcement agencies were losing their finest at such a rate, you can bet Americans would give greater thought to the violence generated by high demand and prohibition. Our friends in Mexico deserve equal consideration.
Here in America, one of the saddest consequences of the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs is the erosion of support for law enforcement in the eyes of the young. Older folks tell me of a day when they knew the beat cop who patrolled their neighborhood and young people would turn to that officer in times of trouble. Now, people my age and younger have a distrust for police, especially in minority neighborhoods, seeing law enforcement officers as “them” against “us”.
No responsible cannabis consumer with any sense hates police. In fact, most of us would prefer to be able to call police in times of crisis and not fear being caught with the so-called “controlled” substance that would land us prison time. It is unknown how many burglaries or assaults go unreported because the victim is a marijuana user afraid of punishment, but anecdotally I can relate many such occurrences from my friends and family.
Also, we want police and the public to be safe as well. We see no reason why a peace officer needs to put his or her life on the line busting marijuana growers who must protect their crops with guns, since growers can’t turn to police or courts to handle marijuana thefts. We see no reason why the public should face the danger of serious crimes not being responded to because an officer is too busy busting a young person with a baggie of pot.
All marijuana prohibition does is takes a popular activity and adds in violence, profit, and corruption, while not decreasing the popular activity one iota.
While the pro-marijuana lobby will vigorously refute this fact, citing selective bits of information from inconclusive research, they fail to mention that many professional medical organizations, including those representing the patients proponents say need it the most (the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and the American Cancer Society) do not support the medical use of marijuana.
Currently, medical researchers and scientists are conducting studies to determine if certain properties of marijuana may be suitable for medical treatment of illnesses or ailments, which can be refined for safe pharmaceutical distribution. One such drug, Marinol, is currently available in pill form.
Strange, isn’t it, how the free plant with 14% THC is a “dangerous drug”, but a 100% THC pill costing $20 a pop and making profit for a pharmaceutical company is “suitable for medical treatment of illnesses or ailments.” Turns out that the pill isn’t as useful as the raw plant as well, as the pill lacks cannabidiol, flavinoids, and terpenoids.
A 1999 landmark study of the Institute of Medicine found there is only anecdotal information on the medical benefits of smoked marijuana for some ailments, such as muscle spasticity.
For other ailments, such as epilepsy and glaucoma, the study found no evidence of medical value and did not endorse further research.
This study concluded that there is little future in smoked marijuana as a medically approved medication because of the dangers of smoking a substance that contains many harmful substances.
Dangers which don’t exist when cannabis is vaporized, or eaten, or given sublingually as a tincture.
Marijuana is also an addictive drug. According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, 7,784 people who reported marijuana as their primary substance of abuse received addiction treatment in 2007. That was 16 percent of all treatment admissions in our state last year.
Because close to 7,784 people were sentenced by a court to drug treatment when caught with cannabis. Only 7.3% of people who personally seek drug treatment (as opposed to being forced into it) are there for cannabis use. Of all the people in treatment for cannabis, only 16.6% put themselves there.
We are not the bad guys. Our goal is to protect, not exploit our citizens. We are united in our belief that passage of this legislation will have negative consequences on our communities, our youth and all our citizens. We are out in front telling you that this legislation is bad public policy. If you don’t believe us, then just ask our colleagues in California or Oregon about the problems “medical marijuana” has caused for them. They will be glad to tell you.
Law enforcement needs to look beyond their years of inculcation to the cult of reefer madness to realize that we have all been lied to about marijuana and its users for over seventy years now. Legalization for all users, healthy and sick, is the only rational public policy. Bushman’s belief essentially boils down to, “Sorry, cancer and AIDS patients should suffer because some healthy person might try to get high.” Well, I mean, high from the wrong drug, of course; I doubt Bushman has a problem with Minnesotans who drink vodka and wishes to return to alcohol prohibition.
Rachel Morningstar Hoffman, 23, a 2007 Florida State University graduate, was found dead in rural Taylor County early Friday after two men suspected in her kidnapping and robbery led investigators to her body. Murder charges are pending, according to the Tallahassee Police Department.
Hoffman was last seen Wednesday night near Forestmeadows Park while attempting to assist TPD vice investigators by buying drugs and a gun from two men.
When Hoffman agreed to help police, she was facing multiple felony charges and was in a diversion program after being caught with more than 20 grams of marijuana, Chief Dennis Jones said in a news conference Friday.
Hoffman was facing charges of possession of ecstasy with intent to sell, possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell, maintaining a drug house and possession of drug paraphernalia, Jones said.
She agreed to buy 1,500 pills of ecstasy, 2 ounces of cocaine or crack cocaine and a gun from two men, Andrea J. Green and Deneilo Bradshaw, Jones said.
TPD spokesman David McCranie would not say whether Hoffman was wearing a wire, but another of Hoffman’s friends, Shaina Hale, recalls Hoffman saying that police wanted her to do so. Police did not say why Hoffman was doing the bust, but McCranie said she was not coerced and helped willingly.
Hale and other friends said they think police scared Hoffman into thinking she was going to spend years in prison for the felony charges if she didn’t become an informant.
Here at NORML we have a saying that marijuana is not fatal, but its prohibition can be. Paramilitary SWAT raids terrorize and sometimes kill cannabis users, and sometimes non-users when officers accidentally get the wrong address on a warrant. Or, as in this case, a cannabis user is “flipped” into becoming an informant in order to avoid lengthy prison time.
In this case, we have a young woman who was caught twice with less than one ounce of cannabis and some ecstasy pills. Police then press her to give the names of these two dealers and to go make a deal, trying to parlay the “little fish” pot dealer into a “bigger fish” coke dealer. Now, do you think these guys might figure something is up when a small-time marijuana and club-drug user suddenly wants to get a gun, some coke and dealer-amounts of pills? And to meet in a public park?
The most shameful thing is the Tallahassee police trying to pin the blame of her death on her shoulders because she left the park, not because they put a naive young woman into a high-stakes drug sting and then lost her when she left with the two coke dealers:
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, announced the reversal yesterday of the Government’s earlier decision to downgrade the drug. But under18s caught with it will not be treated any more harshly, to avoid criminalising them.
Punishment for the over18s will increase from the existing “confiscate and warning” for a first offence to a possible penalty notice for disorder on a second offence followed by arrest and prosecution for a third offence.
Although the new jail term for possession rises from two to five years, it is unlikely that anyone will be imprisoned for simple possession of cannabis for personal use.
Reclassification will not take effect until early next year because Parliament has to approve the decision.
A report from the advisory council concluded that the health dangers from cannabis did not justify its inclusion in the higher category and that it should remain a Class C drug. Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, chairman of the council, said: “Changing the classification of cannabis is neither warranted nor will it achieve the desired effect.”
Ms Smith said that the Government was overruling the council because she was unwilling to “risk the future health of young people”. She told MPs: “Where there is a clear and serious problem, but doubt about the harm that will be caused, we must err on the side of caution and protect the public. I make no apology for that – I am not prepared to wait and see.”
The Home Secretary said she was concerned about the mental health effects of smoking super-strength skunk cannabis, which now accounts for 81 per cent of cannabis seized on the streets. There were also suggestions that young people were “binge smoking” to get the maximum high.
The reefer madness of Gordon Brown continues. The public health and law enforcement experts on the prime minister’s advisory body voted 20-3 that cannabis should remain in the lowest classification of drugs - Class C - and that Britons should not be arrested for its possession.
But politicians love to look “tough on crime” and by treating cannabis use as a crime, they can score easy points in the political arena, despite the overwhelming evidence that cannabis use is not a serious social problem and what few problems it does present are best treated in a public health model, not a criminal justice one.
Jacqui Smith says we can’t afford to “wait and see”, yet since cannabis has been downgraded from Class B to Class C, we’ve found that cannabis use has gone down in the UK. Furthermore, cannabis has been in widespread use since the 1960s - how much longer does Ms Smith need to wait and see?
This is driven in the UK by the tabloid headlines of the dreaded “skunk” cannabis, otherwise known by realists as “quality marijuana”. They trumpet false stats like “skunk is 30 times more potent than regular cannabis”. Since “skunk” tests out at about 12%-14% THC, then they must consider hemp rope to be “regular cannabis”. Actually, “regular cannabis” tests out to 7%-10% THC, so maybe it is at most twice as potent.
However, as we all know, more potent cannabis does not equal more public danger. Cannabis is non-toxic, so smoking more of the more potent varieties isn’t going to cause any more physical harm. Cannabis is self-titrating, which means users smoke to get high, and if the cannabis is more potent, they just smoke less of it to get high. Considering that inhaling the smoke of burning vegetable matter of any kind isn’t the nicest thing for your lungs, smoking less of it is probably a good thing.
We here at NORML call on all our friends in the United Kingdom to call your member of Parliament and tell them to vote no on the upgrade of cannabis from Class C to Class B.
reason.tv - Videos > Mississippi Drug War Blues
At 11p.m on December 26, 2001 police in Prentiss, Mississippi raided the residence of Cory Maye, a 21-year-old father who was at home with his 18-month-old daughter Ta’Corriana.
The cops were looking for drugs and smashed through the back door. In the ensuing chaos, Maye hunkered down with his daughter in a bedroom and when the police broke down that door, he fired three bullets, one of which killed Officer Ron Jones. Maye testified in court that the police did not identify themselves until after they had entered his residence; indeed, he testified that they did not identify themselves until after he had fired his shots. Once they did, he said he put his weapon on the floor, slid it toward police, and surrendered.
The police, who refused to talk with reason.tv, tell a different story. They claim that they identified themselves multiple times before entering Maye’s house and bedroom, and that there was no way Maye couldn’t have known who they were. A jury rejected Maye’s case that he was acting in self-defense and he was sentenced to death for the murder of Office Ron Jones.
“Mississippi Drug War Blues” is a story about the intersection of race (Maye is black and Jones was white); the war on drugs; the disturbing increase in the militarization of police tactics; and systemic flaws in the criminal justice and expert-testimony systems.
It is a tragedy in which one man is dead and another may spend his life in prison.
It was printed on a 16-foot-wide banner and strung above one of the busiest roads here, calling out to any “soldier or ex-soldier.”
“We’re offering you a good salary, food and medical care for your families,” it said in block letters.
But there was a catch: The employer was Los Zetas, a notorious Gulf cartel hit squad formed by elite Mexican army deserters. The group even included a phone number for job seekers that linked to a voice mailbox.
Outrageous as they seem, drug cartel messages such as the banner hung here late last month are becoming increasingly common along the violence-savaged U.S.-Mexico border and in other parts of the region. As soldiers wage a massive campaign against drug trafficking across Mexico, they are encountering an information war managed by criminal networks that operate with near impunity.
“The cartels are very good at this — they’ve had songs written about them, they put up these signs, they make themselves out to be Robin Hoods,” Carlos Martínez, a Nuevo Laredo elementary school principal and community activist, said in an interview.
The banners also appeal to many poorer Mexicans who respect the brashness of the cartels, which provide food, clothing and toys to win civilians’ loyalty.
Marcelino, a 74-year-old pensioner who did not provide his last name for fear of retribution, said that he had been wronged plenty of times by police but that drug traffickers had given him a sturdy mountain bike.
Marcelino said police had harassed his neighbors, trumping up phony criminal violations and extracting bribes to avoid incarceration. Previous local governments tried to throw him and other squatters off government land. Drug traffickers, however, sided with the squatters, earning their enduring gratitude by paying to build cinder-block shacks and distributing clothing.
“I trust the Zetas more than the thieving police and soldiers,” Marcelino said. “The police are rats.”
Once they join drug gangs, the deserters seem “cool” to many people, according to Martínez. Children in his neighborhood see banners advertising jobs in drug gangs and connect those images with the suddenly prosperous deserters, and other cartel recruits, they meet on the streets. With few opportunities for employment in Mexico’s weak economy, the prospect of joining a gang is appealing, he said.
And of course, what is fueling the massive profits for murderous Mexican drug cartels more than anything is the prohibition of drugs in the United States and failure to provide treatment and rehabilitation rather than arrest and incarceration for drug addicts. Without countering demand, we will never affect supply.
However, we will never eliminate demand for drugs in this country or any other; it is human nature for some to seek altered states of consciousness. Therefore, it behooves us to take the production, marketing, merchandising and distribution of drugs out of the hands of black market criminals. All we accomplish by prohibiting drugs is more violence, corrupt cops, and wealthy drug gangs.
The Associated Press: 75 students arrested in San Diego State University drug bust
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Dozens of San Diego State University students were arrested and six fraternities were suspended after a sweeping drug investigation found that some fraternity members openly dealt drugs and one even sent a mass text message advertising cocaine, authorities said Tuesday.
A five-month investigation prompted by a cocaine overdose death last year led to the arrests of 96 people, 75 of them San Diego State students. A second drug death occurred while the investigation went on.
Twenty-nine people were arrested early Tuesday in raids at nine locations including the Theta Chi fraternity, where agents found cocaine, Ecstasy and three guns. Eighteen of them were wanted on warrants for selling to undercover agents.
Two kilograms of cocaine were seized in all, along with 350 Ecstasy pills, marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms, hash oil, methamphetamine, illicit prescription drugs, several guns and at least $60,000 in cash, authorities said.
The district attorney’s office said search warrants were served in San Diego and suburban La Mesa, including the Theta Chi fraternity house and several apartments.
A member of Theta Chi sent out a mass text message to his “faithful customers” stating that he and his “associates” would be unable to sell cocaine while they were in Las Vegas over one weekend, according to the DEA. The text promoted a cocaine “sale” and listed the reduced prices.
San Diego State suspended Theta Chi and five other fraternities Tuesday pending a hearing on evidence gathered during the investigation. Members of at least three fraternities were arrested, according to law enforcement.
Investigators infiltrated seven fraternities in the course of the probe.
The undercover probe, dubbed Operation Sudden Fall, was sparked by the cocaine overdose death of a student in May 2007, authorities said. As the investigation continued, another student, from Mesa College, died Feb. 26 of a cocaine overdose at an SDSU fraternity house, the DEA said.
OK, first of all, anyone who would send out a mass text message advertising to sell cocaine should have his scholarships and grant money revoked and given to a student with with some sense. Advertising one’s felonies through traceable mass electronic communication doesn’t sound like the work of someone with stellar SATs.
However, are 75 arrests really required here? As we know, every one of those students, if convicted, will lose all federal student financial aid. They will have a drug conviction on their records for life as they enter the job marketplace. Surely, not all 75 of these arrests are for the kingpins of this enterprise. There was no violence involved. Isn’t this a bit of overkill?
Nobody wants college kids dying from cocaine overdoses. One of the reasons we lobby so hard for the end of adult marijuana prohibition is that it removes marijuana from the cohort of really dangerous illegal drugs and provides young people with the safest choice of recreational intoxicant. It’s sad that two kids died from cocaine, but how many students every year die from alcohol overdoses? When are the feds initiating a massive undercover probe to root out underaged drinking on campuses?
“We are facing in Brazil too much repression against the march. From 10 cities that were confirmed for the march, the Justice prohibited 6 cities from taking part. As citizens of a democracy we are very disappointed”.
It was a similar story in Moscow, with the Military and Police blocking the way to the Friendship of Nations fountain at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre. The meeting place for the 2006 Global Marijuana March in Russia, organised once again by the Cannabis Legalize League (CLL), who were hoping not to have any injuries to treat this year.
[A spokesman for CLL said,] “We published an official statement on the CLL site, so that both authorities and activists could learn that no marches would be held in Moscow in 2008. We invited our supporters to come to the “Friendship of Nations” fountain at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre. We made it quite clear there should be no banners or other means of political propaganda: only thematic clothes, excellent mood and musical instruments.”
“As soon as the statement was published we received an aggressive reaction from the Federal Service of Drug Control (Russian DEA analog). In the interview to one of the most famous Russian news agencies the head of the informational department of the FSDC Alexander Mikhailov commented our action in the following expressions”:
“Legalization of cannabis as a drug is out of the question. This theme mustn’t be discussed at all. Such actions are the grossest breach of the peace and hooliganism. This is a spring exacerbation on which the bodies of internal affairs and psychiatrists should react”.
Congressman John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has responded to the requests of numerous citizens as well as the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco regarding the use of federal DEA resources in enforcement of marijuana laws against patients legally using medical marijuana under state law.
The Conyers letter, sent to Acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, asks for the administration’s response to the complaints in advance of hearings to be held in front of the Judiciary Committee. Conyers’ questions include:
Is the use of civil asset forfeiture, which has typically been reserved for the worst drug traffickers and kingpins, an appropriate tactic to employ against individuals who suffer from severe or chronic illness and are authorized to use medical marijuana under California law?
Has the DEA conducted any analysis of the potential economic consequences of using civil asset forfeiture in an area that is experiencing some of the nation’s sharpest declines in property values?
Has the DEA considered the consequences of shutting down legally-operated public dispensaries, and whether that might drive the cannabis sales activity underground?
Given the increased level of trafficking and violence associated with international drug cartels across Mexico, South America and elsewhere, do you think the DEA’s limited resources are best utilized conducting enforcement raids on individuals and their caregivers who are conducting themselves legally under California law?
Have you considered that DEA activities against qualified individuals is negatively impacting the ability of state and local officials across California to collect tax revenue, which they are entitled to under California law?
Every month new science supporting the therapeutic value of cannabis is published. As a result, medical and scientific organizations, like the American College of Physicians and the American Psychiatric Association, are urging reform of the laws that place in legal jeopardy physicians or their individual patients who may benefit from the use of cannabis. As the Administrator, you have the discretion to decide whether to continue heightened enforcement activities in California and in other states that have authorized the use of medical cannabis by qualified individuals. Please explain what role, if any, emerging scientific data plays in your decision-making process to conduct enforcement raids on individuals authorized to use or provide medical cannabis under state law.
Would you support the creation of an intergovernmental commission comprised of law enforcement, law makers and people affected by the laws, to review policy and provide recommendations that aim to bring harmony to federal and state laws?
While Conyers awaits the response from the DEA, let me play the psychic and predict what the DEA’s answers to those questions will be: no, no, no, no, none, and no.
The legislation would make it a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison to own a house where marijuana is being cultivated, packaged and distributed.
The bill would also reduce the number of marijuana plants that would have to be in a home for a person to be convicted of a second-degree felony, which would be punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Right now, a person would have to have 300 plants in their home to be convicted of a second-degree felony, but the bill would reduce that number to 25.
In addition, if a child was living in the home, a person could spend up to 30 years in prison.
The Senate unanimously passed the bill today. It passed the House last month.
I think this is a bill they haven’t really put much thought into. Suppose you are a Florida landlord and you rent your property out to someone who then grows a single marijuana plant for personal uses. As the owner of the home, are you now headed to five years in prison? If your renter grows 25, are you sent up for 15 years? If your renter has kids, are you going to prison for 30 years?
Think about the consequences of this. The rental market is tight already and landlords are always having trouble finding good tenants. What will landlords do to protect themselves from the potential grower/renter? Will landlords, in addition to criminal background checks they already perform, now be insisting on pre-rental and random drug testing of their renters? Will they be forced to perform those 24-hour notice rental inspections?
And what of the people trying to rent? If you had made a mistake in your youth and got busted with marijuana, how likely are landlords going to want to rent to you? I believe this will create even more homeless people in Florida, as those people on the margins economically who have drug convictions in the past are rejected for rentals.
The Senate has already approved the bill, and it’s expected to hit the House floor in about a week.
Ads are already hitting the airwaves asking the governor not to veto the bill like he’s promised.
Like the governor, the Minnesota Sheriffs Association and the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association are against medical marijuana.
“They can say they’ve got a prescription but if we call the doctor, they’re not going to release if they have a prescription. It becomes a HIPAA issue,” says Mower County Sheriff Terese Amazi.
First of all, Sheriff, people don’t get prescriptions for medical marijuana, as that would violate federal law and cause the DEA to revoke a doctor’s license to prescribe scheduled drugs. But doctors are free to recommend medical marijuana, as adjudicated in the case Conant v. Walters.
As for the so-called HIPAA issue, there is no HIPAA issue (though it is nice to see law enforcement concerned about patient’s right to privacy). Obviously, the sheriff has not read the text of the Minnesota bill, which states:
A qualifying patient who possesses a registry identification card shall not be subject to arrest, prosecution, or penalty in any manner…
“Registry identification card” means a document issued by the commissioner that identifies a person as a qualifying patient or primary caregiver…
The commissioner shall maintain a confidential list of the persons to whom the department has issued registry identification cards. Individual names and other identifying information on the list shall be confidential, exempt from the Minnesota Freedom of Information Act, and not subject to disclosure, except to authorized employees of the department as necessary to perform official duties of the department.
The commissioner shall verify to law enforcement personnel whether a registry identification card is valid solely by confirming the random registry identification number.
SPRINGFIELD, IL. – In a press conference today, Sen. John Cullerton (D-Chicago), lead sponsor of a bill to protect from arrest seriously ill Illinoisans who use medical marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation, announced significant changes to the legislation based on input from law enforcement.
Although members of the law enforcement community have been among the most vocal opponents of the bill, Cullerton said the recent amendments reflected specific objections law enforcement officers raised in good faith in a meeting with bill proponents last month.
Also at the press conference, medical marijuana activist and Chicago multiple sclerosis patient Julie Falco announced a new campaign to reach out to representatives by sending personal video appeals by seriously ill patients asking for support on the medical marijuana bill.
Despite opposition from some elements of the law enforcement community, medical marijuana enjoys great support among the medical community and among Illinois voters. In February, the American College of Physicians – the second largest physician organization in the country with 124,000 members – became the latest major medical association to endorse laws protecting patients and doctors from arrest for using medical marijuana.
Also in February, a Mason-Dixon telephone poll of 625 randomly selected Illinois voters – commissioned by the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. – found that 68 percent of respondents agreed that “seriously and terminally ill patients should be allowed to use and grow medical marijuana for personal use if their doctors recommended it.”
SB 2865 – the medical marijuana bill – is expected to reach the Senate floor within weeks.
It always seems odd when I hear about how law enforcement is involved in creating medical marijuana law. I can’t remember the last time anyone asked a panel of doctors how we should build our next prison.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, upholding a 2006 decision by a U.S. District Court, has refused to reinstate a lawsuit that sought to strike down the law.
In its ruling the appeals court rejected arguments by the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Foundation, which filed the appeal, that the federal law is unconstitutional.
The group argued, in part, that denial of financial aid by the Education Department to students who have already served a court-imposed sentence violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on double jeopardy, criminally punishing someone twice for the same offense. But the appeals court said that the federal law’s sanctions cannot be considered criminally punitive, especially in the double-jeopardy context.
So refusing to grant federal aid for students caught smoking pot isn’t a criminal punishment, therefore, it is not double jeopardy. OK, I guess technically speaking, that is true. The student isn’t being fined, imprisoned, or put under probation.
But being told you lose your financial aid for school certainly is a punishment, after all, it is called the Higher Education Act Aid Elimination Penalty. A penalty that is not meted out to any other type of criminal - murderers, rapists, arsonists, thieves, con artists, brawlers, embezzlers, traitors, and spies can all receive financial aid, but a pot smoker cannot.
Minnesota continues to debate the medical marijuana legislation in the statehouse. Naturally, law enforcement is against the bill; it makes their jobs too difficult when they aren’t allowed to just arrest every toker and rip up every cannabis plant they find. So they have been trotting out the same tired old drug war lies:
Marijuana has no medical value
Medical marijuana lacks support from the medical community
Marinol is marijuana
Twelve marijuana plants produce far more marijuana than patients would be allowed to have under the law
The safeguards in the medical marijuana law will be unenforceable due to a “tremendous trade in phony scripts”
A medical marijuana law will increase youth access and use of marijuana
Medical marijuana laws cause “nothing but problems”
Every single prosecutor in every single medical marijuana state is opposed to medical marijuana
Illegal marijuana use has increased 50% in California since 1996
The 1999 Institute of Medicine (IOM) study discounted smoked marijuana for medicine
The potency of marijuana has increased 10 to 30 times since the 1960’s and 1970’s
The federal government is vigorously investigating medical marijuana
Medical marijuana use will lead to patients using more dangerous and addictive drugs
Medical marijuana harms, rather than helps, patients
You can overdose on marijuana
So the good folks at Minnesota Cares have put together an excellent white paper debunking all of these myths point by point. Even if you’re not in Minnesota, this paper makes an excellent guide for rebutting our oppenents.
wcbstv.com - NYCLU: City Now World’s ‘Marijuana Arrest Capital’
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ? Police busted nearly 400,000 people for carrying small amounts of pot in the last decade, making New York City the world leader in marijuana arrests, civil rights advocates said Tuesday while unveiling a study criticizing the war on drugs.
The study by Queens College sociologist Harry G. Levin, titled “Marijuana Arrest Crusade,” accused police of purposely singling out minorities during the 10-year crackdown. It said that data provided by stat Division of Criminal Justice Services showed that between 1997 and 2007, 52 percent of the suspects were black, 31 percent Hispanic and only 15 percent white.
Laws were revised in the late 1970s to largely decriminalize carrying small, concealed stashes of marijuana, Levin said. But he claimed police routinely “manufacture” arrests for possession in public view — still a misdemeanor — by stopping young black men on the street and goading them into emptying their pockets.
According to the study, arrests for marijuana possession began skyrocketing in the late 1990s during the Giuliani administration — a trend that continued under Mayor Michael Bloomberg at an estimated cost of between $50 and $90 million a year. There were 39,700 arrests last year alone, according to the study.
The 2007 total makes the city “the marijuana arrest capital of the world,” Lieberman said. The study says New York deserves that title because it devotes far more resources to arresting and jailing marijuana offenders than other large cities in Europe and elsewhere. It also cites a previous analysis of FBI data showing that five of the top 10 counties with highest per-capita arrest rate were the five boroughs.
Police spokesmen slammed the report, of course, saying Dr. Levine is a “legalizer” and was grossly distorting his research. Law enforcement believes that marijuana arrests are part of “quality of life” policing under the “broken windows” theory, which states that if you ignore graffiti, broken windows, garbage, etc., then people will believe that they live in a lawless zone and more serious crimes will increase.
The theory isn’t necessarily wrong, it’s the lumping of marijuana smoking in with those other misdemeanors that is the problem. It has created an adversarial relationship between young minority males and police and drives drug users toward crime and drugs that do create societal problems, like alcohol. It’s OK for young adults to sit on the stoop and drink a 40-ounce of malt liquor, a drug that’s proven to increase aggression and violence, but not to consume cannabis, a drug that leads to mellow happiness and social belonging.
MSNBC Articles -Vaune Dillmann thought the wording on his bottle caps was just a clever play on the name of the Northern California town where he brews his beer - Weed.
Federal alcohol regulators thought differently. They have ordered Dillmann to stop selling beer bottles with caps that say “Try Legal Weed.”
While reviewing the proposed label for Dillmann’s latest beer, Lemurian Lager, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau said the message on the caps he has been using for his five current beers amounts to a drug reference.
In a letter explaining its decision, the agency, which regulates the brewing industry, said the wording could “mislead consumers about the characteristics of the alcoholic beverage.”
Now who among us who have driven the long stretch of I-5 haven’t stopped for a picture in Weed, California? In fact, I have a relative who was busted for weed in Weed; it’s apparently not a good place to stop and light up a joint. For some reason, the police are very watchful for that sort of thing in Weed. Who could’ve predicted it?
I’m curious about the way we consumers might be misled about the characteristics of alcohol. It says “Try Legal Weed”? Do you mean that drinking this will make me more creative, relaxed, happy, and insightful instead of a sloppy smelly sweaty pukey drunk? If I drink too much, will I binge on Cheetos and suddenly like jam bands?
I’m also amused that we don’t want to put any drug references on a bottle of alcohol. Because alcohol is like… fruit juice? milk? Gatorade?
The baby’s mother, Aubrey Quinn, 24, told Bethlehem police Detective William Dosedlo that she was staying at her mother’s home Monday night. She said she drank beer and smoked marijuana before falling asleep on a sofa with her infant daughter on her chest, according to court documents.
Police filed a search warrant with District Judge Nancy Matos Gonzalez’s office Tuesday, and the inventory was returned this afternoon. In addition to the marijuana and two pipes, police seized infant formula and blankets, police said.
Quinn told police she placed Charlanna on a sofa about 12:30 a.m. and then went to sleep on an adjacent sofa. About 2 or 3 a.m., she said she heard the baby making noises, so she put the baby on her chest and fell asleep. She awoke around 7 a.m. and found Charlanna facedown between her body and the back of the sofa.
When police and emergency responders arrived at the home at 7:05 a.m. Charlanna was unresponsive and not breathing.
A second search warrant calls for officials to take blood and urine samples from Quinn to determine the level of alcohol or drugs in her system. These tests were still pending today.
The death of this child is, of course, a great tragedy. But it was an accident that could’ve happened to anyone, even without beer or weed. These scary headlines, though, help the reader infer that somehow the marijuana and the baby’s death are related. There is no headline of “Home where 2-month-old infant died contained beer”, because beer is legal.
Check the timeline. She smoked marijuana and drank beer. She puts the infant on one sofa and herself on a different sofa at 12:30. Between 2:00 and 3:00, she wakes up to put the infant on her chest. Now I’m assuming that when she woke up at that point, she didn’t fire up a bowl and chug a beer. So she’s had at least one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half hours of sleep since her last intoxicant. If the idea here is to blame her intoxication on the baby’s death, then beer is more to blame here, since your body will remain drunk longer than it will remain high.
‘Operation Green Reaper’ brings pot arrests
Federal agents and prosecutors are sending a message to commercial marijuana growers moving from British Columbia to Western Washington: Stay out.
The message came in the form of a task force of federal, state and local cops that swooped down at 6 a.m. Wednesday to conduct searches at about 14 locations and 10 vehicles in the Seattle area.
Their targets were two garden-supply companies and a mortgage broker that authorities say provide the horticultural supplies, financing and other support that make the indoor pot operations possible.
The marijuana grows — run primarily by motorcycle gangs or Vietnamese immigrant-organized crime groups — have “become a plague” in British Columbia, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Bartlett said.
With border security tightened after 9/11, some growers believed they could avoid having to run the gantlet at the U.S.-Canadian border by starting grow operations in Washington.
If found guilty of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, they face a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years to life in prison and a $4 million fine.
Federal agents were poised to arrest several people named in the indictments, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Vogel, the prosecutor in charge of the 15-month-long investigation dubbed “Operation Green Reaper.”
Bartlett portrayed marijuana grow operations as violent and the houses they occupy as miniature toxic waste dumps, filled with pesticides, fertilizers, mold and debris. He said five people have been killed in Tacoma, Everett and Covington in connection with grow houses.
Arnold Moorin, Drug Enforcement Administration special agent in charge, said about 450 grow houses have been raided in Washington in the past couple of years, and many of them had been booby-trapped.
First off, you have to love the militaristic names they come up with. “Operation Green Reaper”? What, was “Operation Gardening Apocalypse” taken?
In this story we’re seeing more of that talking point that I warned you about earlier: the indoor marijuana grow as a “toxic waste dump”. Meth lab, grow op, what’s the difference - that’s the message they’re pushing here.
Look, just re-legalize it and everyone can grow their own, indoors or outdoors, and large commercial operations won’t have to be hermetically-sealed mold-factories in suburban neighborhoods. What terrible thing will happen if marijuana is legal? People might smoke it?
Guess what, we are smoking it already. All you’re accomplishing with the “Green Reaper” operations is jacking up the price of marijuana, which makes it more lucrative for the motorcycle and Vietnamese gangs you’re fighting against. (Of course, that’s the point of the Drug War: the more money you throw at it the worse the problem becomes which then requires that you throw more money at it. Cops win, prisons win, politicians win, and drug dealers win.)
Volcano resident David Finley Jr., 65, was arrested Jan. 29, 2007, in a raid on his Volcano ranch that turned up three indoor growing operations on the property, including a greenhouse attached to Finley’s home, equipment for manufacturing hashish and more than 75 pounds of dried marijuana and other drugs.
The dried marijuana found on the property included 127 sealed 1-ounce packets labeled with prices of $280 to $300 each, according to court records.
Finley pleaded guilty on Feb. 14 to two counts of commercial promotion of marijuana, and yesterday told Hilo Circuit Judge Glenn Hara that “I’m terribly sorry for what I’ve done.”
“I know I’ve done wrong, and I have to be responsible for that,” he said.
More than 90 letters of support were submitted to Hara asking for leniency, including letters from members of Finley’s church, his childhood friends, college friends and others.
Finley’s lawyer Brian De Lima asked that Finley be sentenced to probation, but Hara told Finley that “any sentence other than prison would undermine the community’s respect for the law.” He then imposed two 20-year terms that will run concurrently.
Prosecutors also filed to seize the Volcano ranch in a forfeiture, and De Lima said the Finley family will pay $85,000 to settle that case.
Two twenty year terms for gardening? 240 months! Judge Hara, do you know that the average incarceration for murder and non-negligent manslaughter is only 232 months? I hope we all feel safer, knowing that this 65-year-old churchgoing grandfather will probably die in prison. That oughta send a message to the community, huh, Judge Hara?
The judge asked why a person with Finley’s background would be a commercial marijuana grower. Uh, did you catch that part about an ounce of a dried weed costing about as much as pure palladium mined from the earth? It’s the prohibition that creates the profits that leads to three indoor grow operations.
The war on marijuana is just a money-making venture for everyone involved. Finley made money selling the marijuana, now law enforcement and the government get to make some money from asset forfeiture and the $85,000 fine
“It’s an injustice. This should never have happened,” Lawrence Hubert Agecoutay said as he left Regina’s Court of Queen’s Bench to serve a six-year sentence. The 52-year-old Regina man, who conceived of and managed the operation, has already filed an appeal.
Chester Fernand Girard — the Ontario gardener who provided know-how, seeds and seed money to grow the 6,000 plants — was equally defiant. “It’s industrial hemp. It’s the only thing that can save the planet,” the 59-year-old shouted. With credit for the equivalent of six months of pre-trial custody, his sentence was reduced to 5 1/2 years
Robert Stanley Agecoutay, Lawrence’s 49-year-old brother and follower, was sentenced to 3 1/2 years after also receiving six months’ credit for pre-trial custody.
In February, a jury convicted the trio of unlawfully producing marijuana and possession of the drug for the purpose of trafficking. Three other men were acquitted.
[Justice Frank] Gerein soundly rejected Lawrence’s testimony that they were growing the plants on sovereign First Nations land (immune from Canada’s drug laws), at the request of the Creator, to make medicine for their people.
“When I weigh everything, I have absolutely no doubt that the accused were engaged in the production of a very large amount of marijuana for the express purpose of obtaining a large sum of money,” the judge said in his 28-page decision. All three have previous convictions for drug crimes.
Girard’s lawyer Drew Hitchcock hopes the case sparks some thought on “reasonable drug policy.
“The judge and the lawyers have to work with the law that Parliament gives, but I don’t see how arresting guys who are sitting on the ground praying to the Creator with a SWAT team (making arrests) is really a sane drug policy.”
Lawrence, the only one among the three to testify, always carries a multi-coloured sacred bundle holding ceremonial pipes into the prisoner’s dock. He identifies himself as Chief Ka-Nee-Ka-Neet, a hereditary, ancestral chief of the Anishinabe Nation of Turtle Island, encompassing all of North America. The elected chief of the Pasqua First Nation, Elaine Chicoose, has denounced the grow-op activities.
After the sentencing, Lawrence passed his eldest son the sacred bundle.
The Agecoutays’ use of culture and religion in their defence has drawn criticism from Pasqua’s chief and council, some elders, and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.
Canadian and American governments say they recognize the sovereignty of the Native American tribes, but that sovereignty flies out the window when it comes to hemp. Lakota Sioux in the northern plains have been thwarted by the DEA when they try to grow hemp. Several First Nations people have used cannabis in a culturally significant way or for religious purposes. The Indians were growing hemp on this continent long before the first Europeans ever set foot here.
If a tribe can have a casino in a state with no gambling, why can’t a tribe have a marijuana farm?
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