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Matt
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Matt
Border Patrol Agent Fired For Views On Drug Legalization Files Lawsuit
By Lucia Graves
In September of 2009, border patrol agent Bryan Gonzalez was fired for expressing his views on drug legalization to a fellow agent. Now, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico has joined Gonzalez in filing a lawsuit on First Amendment grounds seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Gonzalez, 26, alleges that he was dismissed from his job in El Paso, Texas after saying in casual conversation that legalizing and regulating drugs would help stop cartel violence along the southern border with Mexico. His letter of termination stated his comments were “contrary to the core characteristics of Border Patrol Agents, which are patriotism, dedication, and esprit de corps.”
Gonzalez told his colleague Shawn Montoya in April of 2009 that “legalization of drugs would end the drug war and related violence in Mexico,” adding that “the drug problems in America were due to American demand for drugs supplied by Mexico,” according to the complaint he and the ACLU-NM filed in federal court.
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Deb
Pat Robertson Favors Marijuana Legalization
By Stephen C. Webster
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010Count this among the 10 things nobody ever expected to see in their lifetimes: 700 Club founder Pat Robertson, one of the cornerstone figures of America’s Christian right movement, has come out in favor of legalizing marijuana.
Calling it getting “smart” on crime, Robertson aired a clip on a recent episode of his 700 Club television show that advocated the viewpoint of drug law reformers who run prison outreach ministries.
A narrator even claimed that religious prison outreach has “saved” millions in public funds by helping to reduce the number of prisoners who return shortly after being released.
“It got to be a big deal in campaigns: ‘He’s tough on crime,’ and ‘lock ‘em up!’” the Christian Coalition founder said. “That’s the way these guys ran and, uh, they got elected. But, that wasn’t the answer.”
His co-host added that the success of religious-run dormitories for drug and alcohol cessation therapy present an “opportunity” for faith-based communities to lead the way on drug law reforms.
“We’re locking up people that have taken a couple puffs of marijuana and next thing you know they’ve got 10 years with mandatory sentences,” Robertson continued. “These judges just say, they throw up their hands and say nothing we can do with these mandatory sentences. We’ve got to take a look at what we’re considering crimes and that’s one of ‘em.
“I’m … I’m not exactly for the use of drugs, don’t get me wrong, but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot, that kinda thing it’s just, it’s costing us a fortune and it’s ruining young people. Young people go into prisons, they go in as youths and come out as hardened criminals. That’s not a good thing.”
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MaryJane
How large is the U.S. prison population?
Drug Policy Question of the Week – 11-9-10
As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 11-9-10. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3138
Question of the Week: How large is the U.S. prison population?
According to an April 2010 study from the Pew Center on the States,
“Survey data … indicate that as of January 1, 2010, there were 1,404,053 persons under the jurisdiction of state prison authorities, 4,777 (0.3 percent) fewer than there were on December 31, 2008. This marks the first year-to-year drop in the state prison population since 1972.”
However, the report goes on to say,
“In this period, however, the nation’s total prison population increased by 2,061 people because of a jump in the number of inmates under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The federal count rose by 6,838 prisoners, or 3.4 percent in 2009, to an all-time high of 208,118.”
Added together, total state and federal prisoners now equal 1.6 million.
The Pew Center then added local jail inmates to state and federal prisoners to conclude,
“the overall incarcerated population [has] reached an all-time high, with 1 in 100 adults in the United States living behind bars.”
A 2007 report from the International Center for Prison Studies compared prison ratios by country. It found that, excluding the U.S., countries with the highest incarceration rates included Russia (629 per 100,000), Rwanda (604 per 100,000), and Cuba (531 per 100,000).
That report goes on to read,
“The world population in 2008 is estimated at 6,750 million; set against a world prison population of 9.8 million this produces a world prison population rate of 145 per 100,000.”
Recall that the comparative U.S. imprisonment rate is now 1,000 per 100,000.
These facts and others like them can be found in the Prisons, Jails & Probation chapter of Drug War Facts at http://www.drugwarfacts.org.
Questions concerning these or other facts concerning drug policy can be e-mailed to mjborden@drugwarfacts.org
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Deb
The Unheard Voices Project is a documentary archive of testimonies from offenders, ex-offenders, family members, and experts on the far-ranging consequences of the American criminal justice system. -
MaryJane
FBI Uniform Crime Report on Drug War Facts
With the recent release of the FBI’s 2009 Uniform Crime Report numbers, the Crime and Marijuana Chapters of Drug War Facts have been updated with these additions:
Fact 2. (2009, 2008, 2007, 1973 – drug arrests) “In 2009, arrests for drug law violations declined slightly (-2.3%) to 1,663,582. A small decrease also occurred in alcohol violations to 1,440,409 for Driving under the influence, 570,333 for liquor law violations, and 594,300 for drunkenness. Violent crime arrests in 2009 equaled 581,765, with 1,728,285 arrests for property crimes. Arrests for all offenses totaled 13,687,241, down -2.3% over 2008.”
Fact 3. (1980-2009 - total, marijuana and drug arrests by year) “Although the intent of a “War on Drugs” may have been to target drug smugglers and ‘King Pins,’ over half (51.6%) of the 1,663,582 total 2009 arrests for drug abuse violations were for marijuana — a calculated total of 858,408. Of those, an estimated 758,593 people (45.6%) were arrested for marijuana possession alone. By contrast in 2000, a total of 734,497 Americans were arrested for marijuana offenses, of which 646,042 were for possession alone.”
This aforementioned table lists Total Arrests, Total Drug Arrests, Total Marijuana Arrests, Marijuana Trafficking/Sale Arrests, Marijuana Possession Arrests, Total Violent Crime Arrests, and Total Property Crime Arrests by year since 1995 and including numbers for 1990 and 1980. All of these values have been validated against their source reports, with each of their URLs referenced in the citation … that’s with the exception of 1990 and 1980, which are only available by hard copy.
Fact 4. (1995-2009 – marijuana arrests percent share of total drug arrests by year) “The following table references the drug and marijuana arrests columns in the “US Arrests” table. It pairs “Total Marijuana Arrests,” “Marijuana Trafficking/Sale Arrests,” and “Marijuana Possession Arrests” against “Total Drug Arrests” to arrive at the percentage each has of the total for the respective years. This table shows the growing dominance of marijuana arrests among total drug arrests in the U.S., rising from a percentage of 39.9% of total drug arrests in 1995 to 52.6% of such arrests in 2009. Further, while arrests for sales and trafficking have wavered a few percentage points around 5-6% of total drug arrests, the numbers driving marijuana’s increased dominance of drug arrests are those for simple possession, jumping from 34.1% in 1995 to 45.6% in 2009. Arrests for marijuana possession have risen from about a third to about a half of all drug abuse violation arrests over the fifteen year 1995-2009 period.”
The referenced table lists percentages calculated form the aforementioned “U.S. Arrests” table.
Fact 5. (1996-2009 – drug and marijuana arrests percent change over prior year) “The following table references the total, drug, and marijuana arrest columns in the “US Arrests” table. It shows the percentage change over the prior year for “Total Arrests,” “Total Drug Arrests,” “Total Marijuana Arrests,” “Marijuana Trafficking & Sale Arrests,” and “Marijuana Possession Arrests.” Total Arrests in the United States have steadily hovered between 13.6 million and 15.3 million over the fourteen year period (1996-2009), with the annual percent change for that time span averaging -0.7%. Drug arrests have ranged between a low of 1.5 million in 1996 and a high of 1.9 million in 2006, with an average percent change over the fourteen year period of +0.9%. The percentage change values for marijuana arrests confirm their upward trend. Total marijuana arrests in 2009 (858,408) are +45.7% higher than those in 1995 (588,964). The year that the percentage growth in marijuana arrests peaked – 2003 – began a five-year upward trend largely driven by arrests for marijuana possession. For simple possession, the average annual percent change covering 1996-2009 equaled +3.1%; in contrast, that value for trafficking and sales was +1.3%.”
This table, too, references the “U.S. Arrests” table.
These FBI tables and reports document that marijuana has been THE target of the drug war. It is tragic to note that marijuana trafficking and sales arrests stood at their highest value ever of 99,815 for 2009, a +6% increase over 2008. The arrests for marijuana possession of 758,593 in 2009 represented the second highest value in their category.
Source: “Crime in the United States 2009,” FBI Uniform Crime Report (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, September 2010), Table 29, and Arrest Table: Arrests for Drug Abuse Violations, .
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MaryJane
The effectiveness of paramilitary drug law enforcement
Drug Policy Question of the Week – 5-25-10
As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 5-25-10. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/2912
Question of the Week: Is the use of paramilitary SWAT raids in drug enforcement effective?
First, let’s count the numbers. The Office of National Drug Control Policy noted in its fiscal year 2010 Budget Summary that,
“For FY 2007, … there were almost 620 HIDTA [High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas] initiatives.”
The ONDCP said that these
“HIDTA initiatives … seized $673 million in cash, and $203 million in noncash assets from drug traffickers.” And “These initiatives identified more than 7,300 DTOs [drug trafficking organizations] operating in their areas.”
SWAT units are often integrated into HIDTA initiatives.
Rodney Balko found in his 2006 Cato Institute analysis that
“these increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers.”
Further, Balko countered that the seizure of cash and assets, called forfeiture, cause
“police officials [to] feel increasing pressure to send SWAT teams out on drug assignments, where the assets seized come back to the department and can help offset the costs of having a SWAT team in the first place.”
So, despite disrupting drug traffickers and seizing of hundreds of millions of assets, often needed to fund the SWAT teams themselves, HIDTA still identified over seven thousand drug trafficking organizations. Sound effective?
Further, a new report by the International Center for Science in Drug Policy reviewed the scientific evidence concerning this approach to drug law enforcement and confirmed that it,
“contributes to gun violence and high homicide rates and that increasingly sophisticated methods of disrupting organizations involved in drug distribution could unintentionally increase violence.”
Possibly, violence begets violence?
These facts and others like them come from the Drug Interdiction Chapter of Drug War Facts.
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Stephen Young
New Zealand attempts to crush gardening industry
Police in New Zealand raided garden shops across the nation earlier this week, because some of the materials being sold may have been used to grow cannabis.
Some people arrested in Wellington are charged with selling drug-growing equipment, including 600-watt lightbulbs, bottles of Superior Potash, Guano Superbloom and Budzilla, pH test kits, mite and aphid sprays, and High Times cannabis magazines.
The two-year Operation Lime has resulted in more than 250 arrests on more than 700 charges and busted more than 100 commercial cannabis-growing operations.
Certainly, residents of the nation feel much safer today, but one wonders if the police time might have been better used elsewhere.
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Stephen Young
The dismal truth about “buy-bust” operations
The SF Weekly in San Francisco takes a look at the city’s “buy-bust” program, which is supposed to take drugs off the streets.
It would be more accurate to say the program takes police off the street who could be doing more important work:
Buy-busts – in which teams of five to 11 undercover officers solicit drugs on the street – are a prized success story for the SFPD and the district attorney’s office, according to DA spokesman Brian Buckelew. That’s one way of looking at it. The other is that buy-busts are expensive wastes of time that accomplish little other than clogging up the courts with low-level addicts while providing gobs of overtime to narcotics cops, according to senior public defender Rebecca Young. She figures that at least 150 cases like Mason’s go through the courts every month.
The buy-bust program rounds up some professional criminals who deal drugs for a living, but these comprise “maybe 1 percent” of the total, according to Young. Meanwhile, she says, this “dirty secret of the criminal justice system” accounts for 40 percent of the cases in San Francisco courts, and contributed to the fiasco at the SFPD crime lab, with overworked technicians forced to test dime bag after dime bag within 48 hours of seizure. These include cases like that of a 30-year-old homeless man who sold a $60 eighth of marijuana to a cop on Haight Street last May, who faces prison time for the pot and the small quantity of psilocybin mushrooms he had stashed in a pocket.
