Kevin Booth, our guest today on the Stash later this afternoon, is the writer/director of the fantastic documentary, “American Drug War: The Last White Hope” which is airing on Showtime and available through Amazon and in stores on DVD May 27th. Kevin has also posted this excellent video on the recent drug bust of dozens of students at San Diego State University.

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?

Boat loaded with marijuana washes ashore off San Diego
An 18-foot boat loaded with marijuana has washed into rocks along the shore in San Diego’s Sunset Cliffs area.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lauren Mack says the boat was already abandoned when authorities responding to a distress call found it Monday morning.

Mack says the damaged craft capsized and sank before it could be hoisted off the rocks.

And in related news, scuba shops in the Southern California area are reporting a massive increase in sales to stoners looking to take up scuba diving. 

But seriously, once again you can see the great lengths people will go to in a prohibitionist world to get their marijuana.  Boats, trains, trucks, buses, even submarines are being used to bring drugs into America.  Let us grow our own and we’ll never have to waste another Coast Guard minute responding to shipwrecked ganja boats.

Woman Shot by Off-Duty Officer Had Marijuana, Alcohol in System - FOX6 San Diego
A woman shot by an off-duty San Diego police officer in Oceanside last month had a blood-alcohol level of nearly twice the legal limit and also had marijuana in her system, according to search warrants made public Monday.

Oceanside police investigators have determined that a near-collision on Old Grove Road evidently led to the March 15 confrontation during which off- duty San Diego police Officer Franklin White opened fire on 27-year-old Rachel Silva’s car, wounding her and her 8-year-old son.

White and his wife were southbound in their black Mercury sedan when, according to a witness, Silva steered her Honda out of a gas station directly into their path, forcing the officer to swerve sharply to avoid a crash.

White, 28, then continued down the road for a short distance and pulled into a parking lot outside a Lowe’s store, according to Oceanside police investigators.

As he did so, Silva, whose son was seated next to her, reportedly tailgated him, revved her engine and yelled, prompting the 911 call from White’s wife, a Carlsbad police dispatcher, Oceanside police have said.

The off-duty officer stopped his car, and Silva pulled alongside. White responded by displaying a pistol and backing his car away as Silva, in turn, made an emergency call, reporting a man with a gun, according to police.

She then reversed her car, as well, sideswiping White’s in the process. At that point, the officer opened fire through his closed driver’s side window, shattering it, police said.

The first bullet went through the darkly tinted front passenger window of Silva’s vehicle, striking her son in the left leg, and four others pierced her windshield. Two of those slugs struck her in the upper right arm.

Silva and her child both spent about five days in a hospital.

The night of the shooting, Silva was driving on a suspended license and facing a drunken driving charge in connection with a prior arrest. Police ordered her blood taken at the hospital.

So let me get this straight. A drunk woman is driving on a suspended license with her eight-year-old. She whips out of a gas station and nearly hits the car of an off-duty cop. She has a bit of road-rage and follows the cop. Suddenly the cop, who she doesn’t know is a cop, flashes a handgun. Drunk woman panics and tries to escape, sideswipes cops car, so he begins opening fire?

Now, how exactly does the marijuana have anything to do with this? You had me at “twice the legal limit” for alcohol and “suspended license”. Finding marijuana “in her system” just means she smoked pot sometime within the past few weeks; it doesn’t turn her into a road-raging demolition derby driver (that’s the alcohol talking).

As for this cop, if he feels his life is threatened, he absolutely has the right to open fire. But he’s in his closed, parked car and she couldn’t have possibly built up any serious speed pulling away from the man threatening her with a gun. And at that short distance, could the cop not have seen the eight-year-old? Do you think maybe he should have flashed his badge instead of his gun?