Go ahead, click this link to the washingtonpost.com and ask yourself why this Google search on “gosinski” would pull up this:

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And yet when you click that link you get this:

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It couldn’t be that the capital city’s paper of record would be doing a favor to John McCain by hiding this story of John McCain lying and abusing his senatorial power to cover up his wife’s stealing of drugs from her charity and avoid prosecution by the DEA… could it?  [Major hat-tip to AmericaBLOG]

Open Left:: Did McCain Tamper with the Drug Enforcement Agency to Protect His Career?

You’ve probably heard about Cindy McCain stealing prescription drugs from her charity in the 1990s.  Today, Tom Gosinski, her former employee and a close friend of the McCain’s, came out on the record about the entire sordid episode.  …  Gosinski stayed quiet out of fear until today; a recent fight with cancer has strengthened his resolve.  As he told me today, if he can beat cancer, he can go on the record regarding how the McCain’s do business.

Gosinski was an employee of Cindy McCain who helped her run her charity, the American Voluntary Medical Team (AVMT) in the early to mid-1990s.  At the time Gosinski worked for her, Cindy McCain was addicted to prescription painkillers, taking between 30-50 pills a day of [Vicodin] and/or Percocet.  She had doctors writing out prescriptions in other peoples’ names, including Gosinski.  When Gosinski found one of the prescription slips, he got angry, and Cindy had him fired.  

Now, it begins to get dangerous and vicious after Gosinksi was fired.  At first the McCain’s said they’d help him find a job, but it became clear to Gosinksi that McCain was using his political connections to blackball him from another job in Republican politics in Arizona.  So he sued the McCain’s for wrongful termination, and went to the Drug Enforcement Agency to find out the legal repercussions of having prescriptions for painkillers written in his name.  To retaliate, McCain then had his political ally, Rick Romley, open an extortion investigation against Gosinksi.  In the course of that investigation, it was revealed that the DEA was circling around Cindy McCain and her charity.  It’s not clear what they were investigating her for, but it is clear she was bringing illegal prescription drugs around the world on a diplomatic passport secured for her by McCain’s Senate office.

McCain’s Senate staff and Senate resources were intimately involved in Cindy’s work with the charity.  John McCain procured her a diplomatic passport, which meant that her bags were not searched by customs, and Mark Salter and Torie Clarke were both coordinating with Gosinski on logistics for the trips abroad.

The charity was supposed to conduct medical missions abroad, but Cindy was also stealing from the charity’s supply of drugs for her own personal use.  In August of 1994, the story was going to come out, and so John McCain came out with his side of the story.  He claimed he didn’t know that Cindy McCain was using drugs until 1994, a clear lie.  Cindy McCain overdosed in 1991, and John McCain went to the hospital in Sedona and told the hospital staff not to make the information about Cindy public.  Gosinski heard about the overdose in 1992, after he began work for Cindy McCain.

There are lots of unanswered questions, but the basic contours of the story are clear.  John McCain used his position as a Senator to help his wife abuse illegal drugs and avoid being searched by customs, and somehow his wife managed to avoid any charges by the DEA or the state (which has mandatory minimums in cases like this) on drug charges despite ample evidence.  Did the DEA or the state not file charges against her because of political pressure?  Did they keep this on the Federal level to avoid mandatory minimums for Cindy McCain because of political pressure from McCain?  Did John McCain and/or his Senate staff tamper with a criminal investigation of his wife and her conspiracy to fraudulently obtain illegal drugs?

Silly blogger.  It’s OK if you’re a Republican.  I’ve noticed that doctor-shopping pill-popper Rush Limbaugh still has a job and managed to avoid a sharp look from the DEA and a stiff mandatory minimum sentence.  But if you are liberal or counterculture, like Tommy Chong, you don’t even have to be caught with drugs to have the DEA publicly humiliate and imprison you; they’ll spend months of time and millions of dollars to bust you for just selling the glass used by some to smoke marijuana!

Stop for a second and imagine that Michelle Obama was popping 30-50 Vicodin and Percocet a day, obtaining them through forged prescriptions, stealing the drugs from a charity she runs, and it is alleged that Barack Obama was using his Senate privilege to get her a diplomatic passport to help her hide her drugs while traveling, pressure the hospital to remain quiet about her overdose, and curry favor with the DEA and others to avoid prosecution, then lying about the details of the scandal.  Got that in your mind?

Do you think under that scenario that the first time you’d be hearing this whistleblower story would be in the Daily Audio Stash?  Do you think Barack Obama would have even won his state senate race, much less US senate and the nomination of the Democratic Party for president?

(For more details on the story, including Gosinski’s personal journal, see this 1994 article from the Phoenix New Times.)

That Queasy Feeling | Slog | The Stranger | Seattle’s Only Newspaper
As former chairman for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden is the person most responsible for passing a package of laws in the mid-80s that we think of as today’s drug war. Biden presided over the mandatory-minimum sentencing guidelines that required judges to sentence dealers’ girlfriends and small-time peddlers to decades-long terms in state and federal prisons, where thousands are rotting to this day. 

He used hearings “to mislead his colleagues and the public… on drug policy where police, prosecutors and DEA officials got the opportunity [to speak] while opponents were kept out,” says Kevin Zeese, a former director of Common Sense for Drug Policy and a leading drug-law reformer in Washington, D.C. since the 1980s. “Pick a drug law you don’t like from the last 25 years and thank Senator Biden.”

It wasn’t just coincidence that these laws were passed while Biden was at the helm of the judiciary committee. He was the leading advocate for establishing the Office of National Drug Control Policy—the White House Drug Czar’s Office—an agency that to this day gives lip service to drug treatment programs but spends its millions on ads linking pot to terrorism. The ads actually increased drug-initiation rates among teenagers. He’s a conservative on most crime issues. And in recent years, Biden pushed the so-called RAVE Act, which criminalized everyone attending parties where drugs were found. Biden is the drug war embodied.

But, since this is Obama’s campaign, I’m trying to hope—hope that Biden can change.

“Our intentions were good, but much of our information was bad,” Biden said in February. He decried the very sentencing disparities he created between crack and cocaine, which is one of the reasons prisons are full of young black men. “Each of the myths upon which we based the sentencing disparity has since been dispelled or altered,” he said.

A change of heart, perhaps. And when it comes to the playing the old white guy card—a requisite in the run against McCain—Biden’s the king of hearts. Also, nice teeth. They must be fake. Anyway, I like to think that the folks who pushed the drug war in the 1970s and 1980s—Richard Nixon, Nancy Reagan, Joe Biden—believed that it may have worked. Clinton should have known better. But by every measure of efficacy, it’s failed.

Obama cannot alter drug laws on his own—he’s lived a youth of indiscretions. (Realistically, no politician can make any sweeping changes; it must be incremental.) But if anyone has the credibility at the federal level to say we were wrong, to push the Senate for sentencing reform, to back Barney Frank’s bill in the House to decriminalize pot—nobody is more more capable than Joe Biden. And if he does, this could be an excellent four years.

As one commenter at The Slog noted, with Obama/Biden, we may have a shot in hell at getting some positive drug law reform.  With McCain/Palin, we have no shot in hell.  And while the Greens and Libertarians are much better on the drug issue, they’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected.

My personal recommendation – not a NORML official stance – when asked how a drug law reformer should vote is to first figure out whether your state is “safe”.  If it is a lock for either McCain (say, Utah) or Obama (say, California), then vote the issue and throw some love to the Greens or Libs.  The more votes they get the more their platform has to be recognized by the Dems.

But if you’re in a “battleground” state, I believe personally that you’ve got to put your hope on Obama and cross your fingers with Biden.  John McCain literally has turned his back on wheelchair-bound medical marijuana patients and said he doesn’t believe in medical marijuana.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“I believe that there is some possibility that quote ‘medical marijuana’ could spread into other areas and that the definition of medical could expand rather dramatically. You’ve seen that in other cases.” (July 14, 2007, town hall meeting in New Hampshire)

“I don’t think marijuana is healthy, I don’t think that it is good for people, and I also, there is a large body of medical opinion that says there is plenty of other medications that are more effective and better and less damaging to one’s health to use to relieve pain.” (July 14, 2007, town hall meeting in New Hampshire)

“I think there’s other ways to relieve pain … I do not believe in legalizing it because I think there’s other ways of relieving pain and applying medical help than that, and that’s my position.” (August 9, 2007, town hall meeting in Merrimack, New Hampshire)

“I believe that marijuana is a gateway drug. That is my view and that’s the view of the federal drug czar and other experts, although that is also a debatable question. I think that there is much more effective ways of relieving pain and suffering than the use of marijuana, and so therefore I view it as something that I do not support. That’s just my considered opinion, I’d be glad to receive additional information.” (August 11, 2007, house party in Milton, New Hampshire)

“No town hall meeting in New Hampshire is complete without some young man who has been sent here to talk to me about medical marijuana … The fact is I do not approve of the medical use of marijuana, I never have and I never will, and you all keep coming to the town hall meetings. I’m always glad to see you, it helps with the attendance.” (September 29, 2007, house party in Exeter, New Hampshire)

“Every medical expert I know of, including the AMA, says that there are much more effective and much better treatments for pain than medical marijuana … I still would not support medical marijuana because I don’t think that the preponderance of medical opinion in America agrees … that it’s the most effective way of treating pain.” (September 30, 2007, town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire)

“The law is the law, and I do not believe it’s going to be changed, and it’s not going to be changed by me.” (October 23, 2007, town hall meeting in Exeter, New Hampshire)

“The will of the people, my friend, is that medical marijuana is not something that the quote ‘people’ want. Certain people feel strongly about this issue, and they show up at most town hall meetings, obviously feel very strongly about it. There is no convincing evidence … there’s evidence, but no convincing evidence to me that medical marijuana relief of pain and suffering cannot be accomplished by prescriptions from doctors.” (Nov. 14, 2007, McCain blogger conference call)

“There may be times when the will of the people, for example Iraq, the will of the people, unfortunately is that we withdraw from Iraq immediately or very very soon. I don’t share that view of the will of the people. And I think the will of the people was that we get out of Korea when Harry Truman was president of the United States, but then he decided to do what he thought was best for the will of the country. Now, I don’t compare this issue with Iraq or Korea, but, look, I’ll be glad to continue this discussion, and read the stuff about it, but I am not changing my position on quote ‘medical marijuana,’ okay?” (Nov. 14, 2007, McCain blogger conference call, said upon being reminded that the will of the people in California was to make medical marijuana legal)

Cindy McCain: Drug Dealer – DrugDealerCindy.com

Our friend Mason Tvert and the good folks at SAFER have announced a new publicity campaign called “Drug Dealer Cindy”, which highlights the fact that Mrs. John McCain is a beer heiress guilty of pushing a drug more harmful than alcohol.

I’d also like to add that Mrs. McCain drives around Arizona with a personalized license plate reading “MS BUD”, which I can guarantee would be yanked as a “drug promoting reference” if it were on a cannabis user’s car.  Also, don’t forget that Cindy McCain is an admitted drug addict who stole Percocet and Vicodin from her own non-profit charity medical relief organization.  Mrs. McCain did no prison time for that crime, which defense lawyers noted would probably have been the case if she were a poor minority woman not married to a US senator.

The Swamp: Jim Webb’s fighting political manifesto
In his new book, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb describes an America that lacks a coherent national security strategy while bogged down in a war that should never have been fought.

It is a country, he says, where the economic disparities between rich and poor have reached frightening levels.

And it is a nation, he says, that is waging an ineffective battle against crime by locking up more than 2 million residents– or 25 percent of the world’s reported prisoners.

It also serves as a political manifesto of sorts for Webb, who has been touted as a potential running mate for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in November.

On crime policy, Webb calls for rethinking a strategy focused on incarceration that he says is costly and ineffective.

“Either we are home to the most evil population on earth, or we are locking up a lot of people who really don’t need to be in jail, for actions that other countries seem to handle in more constructive ways,” he wrote.

“The time has come to stop locking up people for mere possession and use of marijuana. It makes far more sense to take the money that would be saved by such a policy and use it for enforcement of gang-related activities.”

Can you imagine?  A president in Barack Obama who says he “inhaled frequently – that was the point” alongside a vice president in Jim Webb who says it’s time to “stop locking up people for mere possession and use of marijuana”!

I try not to get my hopes up.  President Carter said we should decriminalize marijuana back in 1978, but then a cocaine scandal involving one of his staff sunk that initiative.  President Clinton became the first president from the cannabis-friendly baby boom generation, admitted to trying marijuana… and then presided over the rise in annual marijuana arrests from around 300,000 to around 700,000.

Yet this time I feel like we are on the verge of some serious change in federal cannabis policy.  Obama says he will not let the DEA raid medical marijuana states.  In 2004 he said we need to decriminalize marijuana, though he’s backed off of those statements during this campaign.  But during a time when our economy is busted and we’re fighting two wars in the Middle East, I’m hopeful that the lure of tax revenue from cannabis and expenditure reductions in the drug war will overcome the fear of change and the scaremongering about the “demon reefers”.

Then there’s John McCain, who has literally turned his back on medical marijuana patients on the campaign trail.  He talks a lot about reducing the size of government and eliminating wasteful spending.  Typical conservative points, but how come that never applies to the failed War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs?

Next president might be gentler on pot clubs
Ever since California voters became the first in the nation to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, the state has faced unyielding opposition from the federal government, which insists it has the power to prohibit a drug it considers useless and dangerous.

That could all change with the next presidential election.

As the candidates prepare for a May 20 primary in Oregon, one of 12 states with a California-style law, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois has become an increasingly firm advocate of ending federal intervention and letting states make their own rules when it comes to medical marijuana.

His Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, is less explicit, recently softening a pledge she made early in the campaign to halt federal raids in states with medical marijuana laws. But she has expressed none of the hostility that marked the response of her husband’s administration to California’s initiative, Proposition 215.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee-in-waiting, has gone back and forth on the issue – promising a medical marijuana patient at one campaign stop that seriously ill patients would never face arrest under a McCain administration, but ultimately endorsing the Bush administration’s policy of federal raids and prosecutions.

Senator Obama seems to understand that there is legitimate medical use for marijuana, comparing doctor-prescribed morphine to doctor-recommended marijuana.  Senator Clinton seems to have waffled a bit, saying first that the DEA raids in medical marijuana states should end, but later saying instead that DEA raids shouldn’t be a “high priority”, which leaves the possibility open that the DEA raids would be a priority to some lesser extent.  She also seems unaware of marijuana’s proven medicinal benefits, calling for more research despite the dozens of studies that have confirmed marijuana as medicine.  And Senator McCain has flip-flopped numerous times on this issue, telling one patient he’d never be arrested for using medical marijuana, but then stating that he would not end DEA raids in medical marijuana states.

At a November appearance in Audubon, Iowa, Obama recalled that his mother had died of cancer and said he saw no difference between doctor-prescribed morphine and marijuana as pain relievers. He said he would be open to allowing medical use of marijuana, if scientists and doctors concluded it was effective, but only under “strict guidelines,” because he was “concerned about folks just kind of growing their own and saying it’s for medicinal purposes.”

Obama went a step further in an interview in March with the Mail Tribune newspaper in Medford, Ore. While still expressing qualms about patients growing their own supply or getting it from “mom-and-pop stores,” he said it is “entirely appropriate” for a state to legalize the medical use of marijuana, “with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors.”

Those raids have been the focus of Hillary Clinton’s comments on the issue. At a July campaign event in Manchester, N.H., she told a medical marijuana advocate that she would end the federal raids, according to Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana, which recorded the exchange.

But the candidate was less absolute in a more recent interview with the Willamette Week newspaper in Hillsboro, Ore.

“I don’t think it’s a good use of federal law enforcement resources to be going after people who are supplying marijuana for medicinal purposes,” Clinton said in the April 5 interview. But when asked whether she would stop the raids, she replied, “What we should do is prioritize what the DEA should be doing, and that would not be a high priority. There’s a lot of other, more important work that needs to be done.”

Clinton has also said she opposes repealing criminal penalties for marijuana, but told advocates in October that the government should conduct more research “into what, if any, medical benefits it has.”

McCain has taken a variety of positions, according to comments recorded by medical marijuana advocates.

At an April 2007 campaign kickoff event, when asked if he would end federal raids, he said, “I would let states decide that issue.” But less than two months later, he said he would not end the raids. Then, in November, he promised a man who described himself as a seriously ill marijuana patient that he would “do everything in my power” to make sure the man was never arrested for using the drug.

While maintaining that medical experts considered marijuana ineffectual and potentially dangerous, McCain promised at the same November event in New Hampshire to consult with experts and issue an “in-depth policy paper” on the topic within a few days. McCain’s campaign has not responded to media inquiries, and marijuana advocates say the policy paper was never issued.

He was also asked during a November conference call whether the federal government should override the will of the people in states with medical marijuana laws. “Medical marijuana is not something that the, quote, people want,” McCain replied.