| June 23, 2006 #454 | ||||||||||||||
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Table of Contents
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THIS JUST IN (Top) | ||||||||||||||
(1) DRUG USERS FIND METH LOOPHOLES (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Determined drug users are finding loopholes in new laws that were
designed to combat methamphetamine production, a government official
told senators on Wednesday. | ||||||||||||||
Congress and 39 states have passed laws restricting the sale of cold medications containing pseudoephedrine, a meth ingredient. They limit the amount of medicines that individuals can buy, move the products behind pharmacy counters and require identification for purchase. | ||||||||||||||
But Karen Tandy, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said she doesn't think the law "will combat 'smurfing.'" | ||||||||||||||
"Smurfing" involves going to multiple stores to purchase enough
pseudoephedrine or ephedrine to cook up a batch of meth. The federal
law only requires that drug stores keep a logbook of how much of the
medication they sell to each individual. Drugstores are not required to
keep the records on computers, and there is no way to check an
individual's purchases across state lines, Tandy said. | ||||||||||||||
"The ability to adopt false IDs equally frustrates our ability to track
that," she said at a hearing of two Senate Foreign Relations
subcommittees. | ||||||||||||||
John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, differed in his view. | ||||||||||||||
Walters, the White House "drug czar," said there have been "dramatic
declines" in domestic meth production, and they should be credited in
part to the laws. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
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(2) CAN FREEDOM AND OPIUM COEXIST? (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Winning Afghan hearts and minds one poppy farmer at a time. | ||||||||||||||
KABUL, Afghanistan--A military aide at NATO's headquarters in
Afghanistan told me a story that explains how hard it will be to win
the war here: | ||||||||||||||
An Afghan farmer stops growing poppies and shifts to wheat. But the
Soviets destroyed the irrigation system 30 years ago, so he can't grow
much. There are no good roads, so he can't deliver what he has grown to
market. There's no money for silos, so he can't store the crop for
another season. His drug dealer pays a visit, says he doesn't want
wheat, and tells the farmer to pay him $3,000--the sum he would have
made by selling opium from the poppies--or he'll kidnap the farmer's
daughter. The farmer goes to the chief of police, who reminds him that
the drug dealer is the regional governor's brother-in-law, and asks
him, "Where's the $500 you owe me for protecting your property this
year?" | ||||||||||||||
It's the story, the aide said, of hundreds of farmers all over
Afghanistan, and it's a story that is corrupting everything about
Afghan life. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
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(3) BOY, 3, HOSPITALIZED AFTER EATING LSD-LACED CANDY (Top) | ||||||||||||||
CEDAR PARK - The mother of a 3-year-old boy was arrested after her son
ate candies laced with the hallucinogenic drug LSD during a weekend
party. | ||||||||||||||
Ashli Rene Freas, 22, was charged with child endangerment on Monday
after taking her son to the hospital. She posted $10,000 bond and was
released Tuesday. | ||||||||||||||
According to a police affidavit, Freas and her boyfriend took her son
to a party at an apartment. They went outside, leaving the boy inside
with another adult. | ||||||||||||||
The man who leased the apartment noticed that his roll of SweeTarts,
which had been laced with the drug, was open and that nine pieces were
missing. | ||||||||||||||
Freas took her son home and called friends to come over. Police said a
friend, not Freas, called 911 after the boy had been hallucinating for
more than an hour. | ||||||||||||||
Chris Van Deusen, spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and
Protective Services, said the state has been granted temporary custody
of the boy, who will be placed in a foster home when released from the
hospital. | ||||||||||||||
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(4) A CRUSADING DA AND DRUG REFORM (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Rather than focus on the whipping that Congressional Democrats took on
the pro-war resolution in Washington, let us go instead upstate to
Albany and look at a Democrat who fought back when set upon by the
right-wing attack dogs. | ||||||||||||||
David Soares, the Albany district attorney, attracted attention when he
became the first law enforcement official in decades to win an election
by charging that his opponent was too tough on crime. He ran against
the Rockefeller drug laws. The incumbent, an old-line Albany Democrat,
Paul Clyne, had a reputation as a tough DA. But he lost in the primary
to a coalition of blacks, gays, reformers, and the Working Families
Party. At 35, Soares, a former junior member of the DA's office, was
given no chance of winning, but he carried the primary with a whooping
62 percent of the vote. | ||||||||||||||
Since he was elected in 2004, he's had run-ins with the police over
investigations of excessive force and raised anxiety levels when he
started an official corruption unit, but these brouhahas were minor
compared to the one that started after his a speech at a harm reduction
conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. Harm reduction is the name
for the public health approach to drug control. It's most famous
programs in New York City are needle exchanges which increase the
supply of sterile needles and reduced needle sharing to stanch the
spread of the AIDS virus. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
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WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Domestic News- Policy | ||||||||||||||
COMMENT: (5-9) (Top) | ||||||||||||||
A story trickled out of Bridgeport, Connecticut this week ending
with the mayor, John Fabrizi, tearfully confessing to violating the
very ethics policy he had signed into law. Even though others
involved in the FBI investigation have been criminally charged, the
mayor has only received an apology from an U.S. Attorney for
inadvertently leaking the information. | ||||||||||||||
A Sentencing Project study dispelled our alleged "meth epidemic" by revealing "two-10ths of 1 percent of the U.S. population" actually use the substance. It's a shame that so many cold and sinus sufferers will continue to be given the third degree when buying their meds. | ||||||||||||||
One of the reasons urine testing doesn't increase safety in the workplace is that it does not detect current cannabis 'intoxication' levels - it merely shows prior use. The Michigan state Supreme Court has ruled that this faulty method can now be used to determine drugged-driving! | ||||||||||||||
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(5) CELL PHONES LINK FABRIZI TO SUSPECT (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Mayor's Phone Records Show 13 Calls To Accused Cocaine Dealer In 04 | ||||||||||||||
BRIDGEPORT -- Though Mayor John M. Fabrizi said last month that he
didn't know Shawn Fardy "personally," his cell phone records show he
called the accused cocaine dealer at least 13 times between October
and December 2004. It's also the same time that Fardy is caught on a
FBI wiretap placing a cocaine order "in code" to his accused drug
connection, Juan Marrero, saying it's urgent that he get back to him
because Fardy has a lot of anxious customers. Marrero, who was
arrested on Feb. 19, 2005, for narcotics trafficking, "regularly
provided cocaine to Fardy who would in turn distribute cocaine to
his own customers," Juan Gonzalez Jr., a member of the FBI Safe
Streets Task Force, states in Fardy's arrest affidavit. | ||||||||||||||
Fabrizi also failed to mention that as a justice of the peace he
performed Fardy's marriage to Lori Lasorso in July 6, 2001,
according to city records. | ||||||||||||||
Another alleged link between Fabrizi and Fardy surfaced in documents filed in U.S. District Court on Thursday in connection with a sweeping federal investigation into drug dealing in southwestern Connecticut. Accused drug kingpin Juan Marrero told the FBI that Fardy, a Democratic Town Committee member, said he had a video showing Fabrizi using cocaine, according to the documents. | ||||||||||||||
Marrero also said that he once provided Fardy with 15.5 grams of
cocaine after Fardy told him that "Fabrizi was coming over" and
"needed a hit," the documents said. | ||||||||||||||
"I've made some poor choices in my personal life. It's human. I've never claimed to be a choir boy," Fabrizi said last week, responding to the allegations. Pressed on what the choices were, Fabrizi would only say: "They were poor choices on a social level & They were random poor decisions that were of a personal nature to me." | ||||||||||||||
Fabrizi has not been charged with any crime. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
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(6) MAYOR ADMITS COCAINE USE IN SPEECH TO CITY EMPLOYEES (Top) | ||||||||||||||
BRIDGEPORT -- Amid a few boos and much stronger applause, Mayor John
M. Fabrizi on Tuesday stood before more than 200 city employees and
residents and admitted he used cocaine in the past. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
Referring specifically to his past drug use, Fabrizi said flatly,
"Over the course of a number of years I abused alcohol and used
cocaine occasionally." | ||||||||||||||
Admitting he used cocaine during his time in office as both City
Council president and later as mayor, he said he has not used drugs
in 18 months. | ||||||||||||||
Tears running down his cheeks, Fabrizi said he sought help for a drug addiction and had hoped that he could handle it privately. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
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(7) PROSECUTORS APOLOGIZE TO MAYOR IN CONNECTICUT (Top) | ||||||||||||||
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- Federal prosecutors inadvertently filed a court
document saying the mayor of Connecticut's largest city had used
cocaine, but after a newspaper reported it Friday, they took the
unusual step of apologizing to the mayor and had the document
sealed. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
Fabrizi was named in a summary of an FBI interview with Juan Marrero, who faces cocaine-trafficking charges. Marrero said an associate told him of a videotape of Fabrizi using cocaine, according to the Connecticut Post, which reviewed the document. | ||||||||||||||
U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor said Friday that Fabrizi was not a
target of the drug investigation. He said FBI reports, which
summarize statements made by witnesses but are not always
corroborated, are typically filed under seal. | ||||||||||||||
"We made a mistake here, and I apologize to the mayor and anybody else named there," O'Connor said in a telephone interview. "That information should not have come out in that form and that manner." | ||||||||||||||
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(8) NATIONALLY, METH USE IS RARE, REPORT ASSERTS (Top) | ||||||||||||||
WASHINGTON- Methamphetamine use is rare in most of the United
States, not the raging epidemic described by politicians and the
news media, says a study by an advocacy group. | ||||||||||||||
Meth is a dangerous drug but is among the least commonly used, Ryan
King,= policy analyst for The Sentencing Project, wrote in a report
issued Wednesday. Rates of use have been stable since 1999, and
among teenagers meth use has dropped, King said. | ||||||||||||||
"The portrayal of methamphetamine in the United States as an
epidemic spreading across the country has been grossly overstated,"
King said. The Sentencing Project is a not-for-profit group that
supports alternatives t o prison terms for convicted drug users and
other criminals. | ||||||||||||||
The report cites statistics compiled by the government to make its
case, including a 2004 survey that estimated 583,000 people used
meth in the past month, or 0.2 percent of the U.S. population. Four
times as many people use cocaine regularly, and 30 times as many use
marijuana, King said. | ||||||||||||||
A separate survey of high school students showed a 36 percent drop
in met h use between 2001 and 2005. | ||||||||||||||
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(9) COURT: TRACE OF POT IS ENOUGH (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Motorists Can Be Charged Even If Not Intoxicated | ||||||||||||||
TRAVERSE CITY -- Any trace of marijuana in a driver's blood could
mean stiff penalties after a crash if someone is injured and killed,
even if the driver was not impaired, a sharply divided state Supreme
Court ruled. | ||||||||||||||
The decision came after the court considered two cases, including a
Grand Traverse County case of a woman who lost control of her sport
utility vehicle in snowy conditions on M-72 and crashed into a car.
The crash killed a passenger in the car and left two girls, then 10
and 11 years old, paralyzed. | ||||||||||||||
Delores Marie Derror faces charges of operating a vehicle under the
influence of drugs causing death and three charges of causing
serious injury. | ||||||||||||||
In a reversal of a Court of Appeals decision that came last year,
the Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision found that a metabolite of THC
-- the psychoactive substance in marijuana -- found in a driver's
blood is enough to support the charges, even though the THC
metabolite does not indicate intoxication. | ||||||||||||||
In a decision written by Justice Maura D. Corrigan and signed by
justices Clifford W. Taylor, Robert P. Young, Jr., and Stephen J.
Markman, the court found that the Legislature's intent was to
criminalize driving with any amount of a schedule 1 controlled
substance in a person's body. | ||||||||||||||
"It is irrelevant that a person who is no longer 'under the
influence' of marijuana could be prosecuted under the statute,"
Corrigan wrote. "If the Legislature had intended to prosecute only
people who were under the influence while driving, it could have
written the statute accordingly." | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
The dissenting opinion, written by Justice Michael F. Cavanagh and
signed by justices Elizabeth A. Weaver and Marilyn Kelly, called the
majority's interpretation unconstitutional. | ||||||||||||||
"This means that weeks, months, and even years after marijuana was
ingested, and long after any risk of impairment has passed, a person
cannot drive a car without breaking the law if a test can detect the
presence of 11-carboxy-THC," Cavanagh wrote. | ||||||||||||||
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Law Enforcement & Prisons | ||||||||||||||
COMMENT: (10-14) (Top) | ||||||||||||||
As usual there are plenty of tarnished badge stories this week from
both inside and out of our penal systems. It is difficult to
understand how people continue to believe in prohibition when it
is not achieved in even the most controlled environments or by those
who are in control. | ||||||||||||||
An LA Times OPED describes how difficult it is for an x-felon to gain
employment due to the prior-conviction question on most applications. A
few cities are trying to make the transition into society more likely
by removing the question and giving applicants a chance to fully
explain their past mistakes and present rehabilitation during
interviews. | ||||||||||||||
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(10) BOOTY BEHIND BARS (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Inmates Bag Weapons, Drugs, Booze, Even Classified Government
Material | ||||||||||||||
FEDERAL PRISONS are brimming with a cornucopia of lethal weapons,
hard-core drugs and homemade booze, and Corrections Canada brass are
vowing to step up efforts to curb the contraband. | ||||||||||||||
Documents obtained by Sun Media through Access to Information reveal
that inmates have got their hands on everything from crack cocaine
and heroin to explosives, hacksaws, pornography and classified
government material. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
CSC spokeswoman Michele Pilon-Santilli says much contraband is
seized at the door, but it's hard to detect because thousands of
visitors, volunteers and contractors pass through each day. Inmates
also devise innovative ways to get drugs, from hiding them in body
cavities to stuffing them inside tennis balls or dead birds tossed
over the fence. | ||||||||||||||
Pilon-Santilli says CSC is exploring improved technology to detect
contraband and is encouraging inmates to take part in education,
drug rehabilitation and harm-reduction programs. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
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(11) TWO DIE IN SHOOTOUT AT FEDERAL PRISON (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Third Person Hurt; FBI To Open Its Inquiry Today | ||||||||||||||
A team of agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in
Washington D.C., will begin an investigation today of a shootout
Wednesday that left two people dead and one seriously injured at the
Federal Correctional Institution. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
At 7:42 a.m. Wednesday, shots rang out at the prison after agents with the FBI and the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General arrived to arrest six correctional officers. The officers were indicted Tuesday on multiple charges. The allegations against them include giving contraband to inmates in exchange for sex and intimidating inmates in an effort to cover up the scandal. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
It wasn't the first time guards at the facility have been accused of
having sex with an inmate. In 2000, K.P. Price was sentenced to
probation in connection with charges that he had sex with and
impregnated an inmate. The inmate later sued Price. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
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(12) WESTCHESTER CORRECTIONS OFFICER PLEADS GUILTY TO DRUG POSSESSION (Top) | ||||||||||||||
A Westchester County corrections officer pleaded guilty yesterday to
narcotics possession and could face up to four years in state
prison, authorities said. | ||||||||||||||
Timothy Connolly of Yonkers was charged with one count of second-degree
hindering prosecution, a felony, and one count of seventh-degree
criminal possession of a controlled substance, a misdemeanor, for
interfering with a narcotics investigation. | ||||||||||||||
As part of his plea bargain, Connolly must resign from the Westchester
County Department of Correction on June 28, according to Westchester
County District Attorney Janet DiFiore. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
In December, another Westchester corrections officer was arrested
for his involvement in a drug raid. Michael Gray of Hawthorne was
charged with first-degree promoting prison contraband and
third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, officials
said. | ||||||||||||||
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(13) EX-DEPUTIES DENIED BAIL IN THEFTS (Top) | ||||||||||||||
A federal judge ordered two former Robeson County deputies detained
until they are tried on charges of stealing money seized in drug
operations, threatening suspects and committing arson. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
Strickland, 39, and Taylor, 36, are accused of wrongdoing while
working as sheriff's deputies from 1995 until they left the
department -- for different reasons -- in 2003. They were indicted
by a grand jury after a 3 1/2-year state and federal investigation
called Operation Tarnished Badge. In arguing for their detention,
Assistant U.S. Attorney Wes Camden said hundreds of witnesses came
forward with evidence against the deputies. He said one witness
received three threatening telephone calls shortly after the
deputies were arrested: "Bang, bang, you're dead," "You can run but
you can't hide," and, "You won't never make it to trial to testify."
Camden said the caller used a voice-altering device when making the
calls. Before Gates ordered the men detained, Camden outlined the
government's case against them. | ||||||||||||||
In 1997, Camden said, Strickland and Taylor were among deputies who used violence to remove people from the home of Hubert Ray Locklear, who is now a convicted drug dealer, and then burned the home to the ground. Lovin also participated in the arson, the indictment says. | ||||||||||||||
The next year, Camden said, Taylor conspired with others to burn
Lewis Vernon's home and pawnshop. The home was occupied at the time.
Camden said Taylor paid someone $1,600 for helping to burn the home
and used about 25 pounds of marijuana as payment for burning the
pawnshop. The 29-page indictment shows that Taylor faces six counts
of distributing cocaine or marijuana. | ||||||||||||||
Strickland, Taylor and Lovin are accused of stealing tens of
thousands of dollars from drug-operation seizures along Interstate
95. The three are accused of falsifying vouchers to steal the money. | ||||||||||||||
Strickland, who headed the sheriff's drug enforcement division, is
accused of stealing $11,000 from Daniel Watts in a common-law
robbery at Watts' home. The indictment says that Strickland
threatened to harm Watts. Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Bradsher
said Strickland and Taylor could face life in prison if convicted.
But Strickland's lawyer, James Parish, said Strickland faces a
maximum of 20 years. Strickland is named in far fewer counts than
Taylor. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
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(14) OPED: EX-CONS NEED NOT APPLY (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Why should a prison past keep someone from punching a time card? | ||||||||||||||
BELIEVE IN the American credo, do you? Second chances, bootstraps,
clean slate, all that? Good for you. I do too. Let's see whether you
still do after reading this. | ||||||||||||||
A vast class of men and women -- maybe 13 million of them -- live
under an unbreakable glass ceiling. They committed a crime, and they
helped to put that ceiling in place themselves. But isn't there a
statute of limitations on punishment? Can't someone help them turn
that glass ceiling into a sunroof? | ||||||||||||||
These people, ex-felons mostly, are out of the cell, but they're still in "the box" -- the little square on almost every job application that asks, "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?" Most of us breeze by it. For those millions -- and another 650,000 who are paroled or released every year -- that box is the end of the line. Check that box, and check off your chance for a job. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
Boston, Chicago and San Francisco officials are "blocking the box"
-- taking the prior-conviction question off applications for city
and county jobs and leaving it to be asked in a face-to-face
interview, where the full story can be told. Los Angeles city and
county are thinking of doing the same thing. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
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Cannabis & Hemp- | ||||||||||||||
COMMENT: (15-18) (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Our first two stories this week illustrate the power of
community-based activism and direct democracy. First an L.A. Times
article about West Hollywood, where the local city council has just
passed a resolution making cannabis possession by adults a "low
police priority," further suggesting that cannabis use should be
largely ignored in order to allow police to focus on more pressing
matters. Next, news that the LaCrosse (MI) County Board has passed
a cannabis possession ordinance allowing offenders to receive a $250
fine and citation rather than criminal charges. The ordinance will
be applicable to first time adult offenders found to be in
possession of 25 grams or less of cannabis. | ||||||||||||||
Next, a story from D.C.'s "The Hill" announcing the arrival of a new
lobbying group in Washington: Americans for Safe Access. Just a few
months after opening up a Washington, D.C. office, California-based ASA
was hard at work lobbying conservative members of the House to support
the upcoming Hinchey-Rohrbacher amendment that would stop the flow of
federal funding for medical cannabis arrests and prosecutions in
states that allow its use. | ||||||||||||||
And lastly this week, news that Greg Williams - one of the co-
defendants involved in the extradition hearings stemming from the DEA
raid of Marc Emery Seeds - can't afford a lawyer for his case. The
Globe and Mail reports that Williams has been denied legal aid
funding, and yet is scheduled to appear before the B.C. Supreme Court
on August 21st along with Michelle Rainey and Marc Emery in order to
set a date for the extradition hearing. And so goes the see-saw that
is North American cannabis prohibition. | ||||||||||||||
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(15) WEST HOLLYWOOD WANTS TO LEGALIZE POT USE (Top) | ||||||||||||||
First West Hollywood officials required that pet owners be known as
"pet guardians." Then they banned cat declawing and even considered
outlawing pet cosmetic surgery. | ||||||||||||||
On Monday, the Westside town famous for its novel municipal lawmaking
took a stab at legalizing the recreational use of small amounts of
marijuana. | ||||||||||||||
But achieving that goal might prove difficult. | ||||||||||||||
The City Council approved a resolution that urges the Los Angeles
County Sheriff's Department to make marijuana-related offenses a
"low priority" that deputies should largely ignore. | ||||||||||||||
In doing so, it became the first city in Southern California to request that its law enforcement agency look the other way at recreational pot us e and target only the sale of marijuana. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
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(16) NEW COUNTY MARIJUANA ORDINANCE RAISES ENFORCEMENT QUESTIONS (Top) | ||||||||||||||
The La Crosse County Board last week passed a marijuana ordinance
that would allow some low-risk, first-time offenders to be issued a
citation and fine instead of facing criminal charges for possession
of 25 grams or less of the drug. | ||||||||||||||
The new ordinance raised many questions. Here are some answers: | ||||||||||||||
Q. How many people are cited for first-time minor marijuana
possession in La Crosse County courts each year? | ||||||||||||||
A. 348 in 2005 and 307 in 2004, said Scott Horne, La Crosse County
District Attorney. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
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(17) NEW LOBBYING GROUP PRESSES FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA USE (Top) | ||||||||||||||
On the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark decision
allowing the federal government to overrule state medical-marijuana
laws,= a new lobbying group is trying to persuade some of the
House's most conservative members to protect the terminally ill's
right to use the drug. | ||||||||||||||
Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a nonprofit group funded by patients, doctors and researchers who support exploring marijuana's therapeutic potential, opened its Washington office last month and completed its firs t grassroots lobbying visits yesterday. | ||||||||||||||
ASA's two lobbyists and seven members, dubbed "citizen experts," met
Rep.= Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), who will offer his traditional
medical-marijuan a amendment to the Justice Department | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
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(18) POT ACTIVISTS' HEARING HITS LEGAL-AID SNAG (Top) | ||||||||||||||
The possible extradition of Marc Emery to the United States to face charg es of distributing marijuana seeds is stalled because of a dispute about leg al funding for one of his two co-defendants. | ||||||||||||||
Mr. Emery, Michelle Rainey and Gregory Williams were arrested in
July of 2005 at the request of the U.S. government after an
investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. | ||||||||||||||
They are accused of illegally selling marijuana seeds over the
Internet a nd money laundering; if extradited and convicted, they
face minimum sentence s of 10 years in prison. | ||||||||||||||
A date for the extradition hearing has not yet been set because Mr.
Williams, who is the manager of a website known as Pot TV, has
indicated he cannot afford to hire a lawyer. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
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International News | ||||||||||||||
COMMENT: (19-22) (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Prohibition continually fails to make things better, but
prohibitionists forever think if they tinker with the formula, then
it will work. It isn't that prohibition is fundamentally flawed,
unworkable, and contrary to human nature. Oh no. Just a few 'bad
apples' need to be removed, then the system will work, promise
prohibitionists. This week in Colombia, the proverbial bad apples in
the Colombian Army slaughtered a unit of U.S.-trained elite
anti-narcotics police, in what chief federal prosecutor-general
Mario Iguaran described as "a crime -- a deliberate, criminal
decision... The army was doing the bidding of drug traffickers." The
incident, which claimed the lives of ten police, comes at a time
prohibitionists are under pressure for failing to stem the tide of
Colombian cocaine. The massacre, has according to the San Jose
Mercury News, "has reinvigorated allegations that troops were
involved in a wave of killings of civilians who the army claimed
were rebels killed in combat." | ||||||||||||||
Australians are upset at the double standards shown over the the
twenty-year sentence of Schapelle Corby for allegedly smuggling
cannabis into Indonesia, compared to the two year sentence served by
Abu Bakir Bashir, mastermind of a Bali nightclub in 2002 which
killed over 200 people. Bakir's sentence was recently even further
cut, leading the New Zealand's Daily News to opine this week that,
"Schapelle Corby's 20-year term was not affected by the Indonesian
spirit of forgiveness to its leading fomenter of terrorism and
hatred against the infidel 'kaffirs'." | ||||||||||||||
Drug czars and tsars are creatures of public relations, serving at
the pleasure of the administrations and regimes who appoint them.
They exist to "show" subjects of the regime that the regime means
business, it means to "fight" those errant drugs. So when Scotland's
"drug tsar" Tom Wood last week came out and publicly admitted the
drug war was "long lost", then other, more politically correct
officials, rushed to the press stating that Wood (chairman of the
Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams) was just all
wrong. "We can never as a nation be drug-free," noted Wood, "No
nation can, so we must accept that. So the message has to be more
sophisticated than 'just say no' because that simple message doesn't
work." Such is a "a very dangerous message to go out," cried
Margaret Mitchell, Scottish Conservative justice spokeswoman. Wood's
message was made all the more dangerous as Wood ("a former deputy
chief constable") comes from an unassailable law enforcement
background. | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
(19) MILITARY'S ROLE IN MASSACRE STUNS COLOMBIANS, LEADER (Top) | ||||||||||||||
JAMUNDI, Colombia - On a dirt road dotted with country homes near
the western city of Cali, three trucks carrying an elite squad of
anti-narcotics police pulled up to the gates of a psychiatric center
for a planned raid about an hour before dusk. | ||||||||||||||
Within minutes, all 10 officers in the U.S.-trained unit were dead
in a ferocious attack that stunned Colombians and severely
embarrassed President Alvaro Uribe Velez just as he was savoring a
crushing re-election victory. | ||||||||||||||
The killers allegedly were no typical outlaws. The gunmen firing
from roadside ditches and from behind bushes were a platoon of 28
soldiers who unleashed a barrage of some 150 bullets and seven
grenades, according to a ballistics investigator. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
In the hours after the May 22 ambush, the head of the army stood by
his men, calling the massacre a tragic case of "friendly fire," with
the soldiers probably having mistaken the armed police for leftist
rebels known to operate in the area. | ||||||||||||||
But the nation's chief criminal investigator quickly produced a more
chilling motive. | ||||||||||||||
"This was not a mistake, it was a crime -- a deliberate, criminal
decision," chief federal prosecutor-general Mario Iguaran told a
shocked nation June 1. "The army was doing the bidding of drug
traffickers." | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
The allegation of a premeditated massacre follows findings by the
United Nations and human rights groups that Colombia's military is
behind a recent wave of disappearances and killings of unarmed
civilians. | ||||||||||||||
Together, the charges have badly damaged the credibility of an army
on which Uribe has leaned heavily in a remarkably successful effort
to reduce rebel attacks and kidnappings for ransom. The ambush also
drew a rare rebuke from Colombia's backers in the U.S. Congress,
which has approved $4 billion in mostly military and anti-narcotics
aid since 2000. | ||||||||||||||
"What took place in Jamundi changes your thought process," Iguaran, the chief federal prosecutor, said in an interview with the Associated Press. "Previously I had the impression that the human rights abuses, if inevitable in every army throughout the world, wasn't a real problem in Colombia. Now I have my doubts." | ||||||||||||||
The scandal has reinvigorated allegations that troops were involved
in a wave of killings of civilians who the army claimed were rebels
killed in combat. | ||||||||||||||
Just this month an army captain and three subalterns were arrested in Antioquia state on suspicion of masterminding the June 1 abduction of salesman Saul Manco Jaramillo, who was snatched from a taxi while with his girlfriend. He hasn't been seen since. | ||||||||||||||
In Washington, Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., proposed cutting U.S.
aid to Colombia's military and police next year by $30 million, a
symbolic 5 percent. | ||||||||||||||
His proposal failed, although 174 members of Congress supported it.
The vote coincided with the State Department's certification that
the Colombian army is making progress in rooting out abuses within
its ranks, despite a spotty record and a long history of abetting
illegal, right-wing paramilitary groups. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
(20) COCAINE PLANTS (Top) | ||||||||||||||
BOGOTA, Colombia - A key component of the U.S.-backed war on drugs
appears to be failing. | ||||||||||||||
Despite record drug seizures and spraying of herbicides, production
of the plant used to make cocaine increased by 8 percent in
Colombia, to 330 square miles, the United Nations said Tuesday -
even as authorities sprayed coca fields totaling 25 times the size
of Manhattan. | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
(21) AUSTRALIA RIGHTLY OFFENDED BY WHIFF OF DOUBLE STANDARDS (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Australians have every right to feel cheated about the blatant
double standards of the Indonesian system of justice, says the
Taranaki Daily News. Even if Brisbane beauty therapist Schapelle
Corby had willingly and audaciously tried to smuggle a boogie-board
bag of marijuana through Customs on the Indonesian island of Bali,
her 20-year jail sentence is massively out of kilter against the
treatment of Abu Bakir Bashir. He is the founder and director of
Jemaah Islamiah, an Islamist school and terrorist training base,
identified as such by the United Nations and thus targeted for
global attention. Its graduates were the bombers at Bali's Kuta
Beach nightclubs in 2002, which killed 202 people, including 88
Australians and three New Zealanders. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
For his active support in this tally of bloodshed, Bashir was last year jailed for 30 months - a derisive term by Western standards. | ||||||||||||||
This insult to those killed and wounded in the attacks was aggravated by its almost immediate reduction to 26 months. | ||||||||||||||
Then this week he was freed for good behaviour and as part of an amnesty to commemorate Indonesia's 60th anniversary of independence. | ||||||||||||||
In all, he served 14 months. | ||||||||||||||
Schapelle Corby's 20-year term was not affected by the Indonesian
spirit of forgiveness to its leading fomenter of terrorism and
hatred against the infidel "kaffirs". | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
(22) TSAR ADMITS: WE'VE LOST THE WAR ON DRUGS (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Scotland's drugs tsar has sparked a furious row by openly declaring
that the war on drugs is "long lost". | ||||||||||||||
Tom Wood, a former deputy chief constable, is the first senior law
enforcement figure publicly to admit drug traffickers will never be
defeated. | ||||||||||||||
Wood said no nation could ever eradicate illegal drugs and added
that it was time for enforcement to lose its number one priority and
be placed behind education and deterrence. | ||||||||||||||
But his remarks have been condemned by Graeme Pearson, director of
the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA), who said he
"strongly disagreed" with Wood. | ||||||||||||||
The row has erupted as concern mounts about the apparent inability
of police, Customs and other agencies to stem the flow of illegal
drugs. It was reported yesterday that an eight-year-old Scottish
school pupil had received treatment for drug addiction. | ||||||||||||||
And despite decades of drug enforcement costing millions of pounds,
Scotland has one of the worst drug problems in Europe, with an
estimated 50,000 addicts. At least half a million Scots are believed
to have smoked cannabis and 200,000 are believed to have taken
cocaine. | ||||||||||||||
Wood holds the influential post of chairman of the Scottish
Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams, a body which advises
the Executive on future policy. The fact that Wood and Pearson are
at loggerheads over the war on drugs is severely embarrassing for
ministers. | ||||||||||||||
Wood said: "I spent much of my police career fighting the drugs war and there was no one keener than me to fight it. But latterly I have become more and more convinced that it was never a war we could win. | ||||||||||||||
"We can never as a nation be drug-free. No nation can, so we must
accept that. So the message has to be more sophisticated than 'just
say no' because that simple message doesn't work. | ||||||||||||||
"For young people who have already said 'yes', who live in families
and communities where everybody says 'yes', we have to recognise
that the battle is long lost." | ||||||||||||||
He added: "Throughout the last three decades, enforcement has been
given top priority, followed by treatment and rehabilitation, with
education and deterrence a distant third. | ||||||||||||||
"In order to make a difference in the long term, education and
deterrence have to go to the top of the pile. We have to have the
courage and commitment to admit that we have not tackled the problem
successfully in the past. We have to win the arguments and persuade
young people that drugs are best avoided." | ||||||||||||||
Wood said he "took his hat off" to the SCDEA and added that it was essential to carry on targeting dealers. He stressed he was not advocating the decriminalisation or legalisation of any drugs. | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
And Scottish Conservative justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell
said: "I accept Wood's sincerity, but this is a very dangerous
message to go out. I would never say that we have lost the war on
drugs. Things are dire, but we should never throw up the white
flag." | ||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
HOT OFF THE 'NET (Top) | ||||||||||||||
CULTURAL BAGGAGE RADIO SHOW | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
Listen Live Fridays 8:00 PM, ET, 7:00 CT, 6:00 MT & 5:00 PT at
www.KPFT.org | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
LOOK FOR MORE NO-KNOCK DRUG RAIDS | ||||||||||||||
More Collateral Damage in Wake of Supreme Court Ruling, Experts Warn | ||||||||||||||
6/23/06 | ||||||||||||||
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/441/collateraldamage.shtml | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
RESOLUTION ON THE MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA | ||||||||||||||
The Presbyterian Church USA passed a resolution in support of medical
marijuana at its national meeting in Alabama this week. | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
COMMANDOS AND COCAINE - THE FRONTLINE OF THE WAR ON DRUGS | ||||||||||||||
A Reporter's Notebook from the Coca Fields of Colombia | ||||||||||||||
By Jeffrey Kofman, ABC News, June 22, 2006 | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
WHAT YOU CAN DO THIS WEEK (Top) | ||||||||||||||
MAP MEDIA ACTIIVISM ROUNDTABLE | ||||||||||||||
Tue. June 27 /06, 09:00 p.m. ET | ||||||||||||||
Join leading hearts and minds from the drug policy reform movement as
we discuss ways to write Letters to the Editor that get printed. We'll
also discuss ways to get notable OPEDS printed in your local and
in-state newspapers. | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
LETTER OF THE WEEK (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Prohibition Helps Promote Deadly Heroin | ||||||||||||||
By Stephen Young | ||||||||||||||
This is regarding "Deadly heroin mix tightens grip on city; Across
Chicago, police and hospitals are racing to curb a surge in fatal
overdoses, many of them linked to a potent blend of the drug and a
powerful painkiller" ( Page 1, June 8). How many thousands of words
are going to be printed in the Tribune about overdose deaths from
heroin before someone finally dares to type out the one word at the
root of the whole problem? | ||||||||||||||
The word is "prohibition." | ||||||||||||||
Instead we get headlines like this one, which makes it sound like
inanimate powder is making decisions for society. | ||||||||||||||
In reality the problems are caused by market forces. | ||||||||||||||
Prohibition makes drug sales remarkably lucrative, making dealers
ruthless and often violent. | ||||||||||||||
Prohibition encourages drug sellers to push the most potent form of
a drug and to attempt to open markets with novel products ( even if
those products are quite dangerous ). | ||||||||||||||
A total lack of regulation means buyers never know exactly what they
are getting. | ||||||||||||||
Because they are breaking the law to feed their habits, many users
avoid interactions with authorities, including doctors and other
health-care workers; they may even be afraid to call an ambulance
when they see fellow users overdosing. | ||||||||||||||
The rising body count we see around the country is the fruit of
prohibitionist labors, as was the spike in deaths due to tainted
liquor during alcohol prohibition. | ||||||||||||||
There are other ways to deal with heroin. A program in Switzerland
that distributed free heroin to addicts and gave them a place to use
it nearly stopped overdose deaths completely, while many
participants reduced their drug intake and some willingly entered
treatment programs to get clean. | ||||||||||||||
U.S. officials like drug czar John Walters will protest that such
programs send the wrong message. | ||||||||||||||
The message Walters wants to send is that drug use leads to misery
and death. | ||||||||||||||
Thanks to the policies of prohibition, it's a self-fulfilling
prophecy. | ||||||||||||||
Stephen Young | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
FEATURE ARTICLE (Top) | ||||||||||||||
Zarqawi And The Drug War | ||||||||||||||
by Jacob G. Hornberger | ||||||||||||||
After several consecutive months of bad news for U.S. officials -
the Marine massacre at Haditha, the disclosure of secret CIA
renditions and torture camps in former Soviet-bloc countries, the
weekly deaths of American troops, and the daily kidnappings,
beheadings, and suicide bombs in Baghdad - U.S. officials and
pro-occupation supporters received a big morale booster with the
killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, or as Australian Prime Minister
John Howard put it, "a huge boost for anti-terrorist force s in
Iraq." | ||||||||||||||
But isn't this the same type of periodic morale booster that we've
seen i n the war on drugs for the past 30 years? How many times have
we seen feder al officials and the news networks over the years
hyping the arrest or killi ng of some big drug lord? | ||||||||||||||
Do you recall the capture of Manuel Noriega, the leader of Panama?
U.S. officials, as well as the mainstream news media, were totally
hyped up during the military invasion of Panama to capture someone
accused of bein g one of the primary drug dealers in the world -
someone who, by the way, h ad been on the payroll of the CIA. The
news briefings and press coverage of the Panamanian invasion and
capture of Noriega came close to matching tha t of the Zarqawi
killing. In fact, amidst all the hoopla, one could have ev en been
forgiven for concluding that Noriega's capture finally meant that th
e decades-long war on drugs would be finally over. | ||||||||||||||
Alas, it was not to be. There were always more drug dealers and drug
lord s to go after. There was also the perpetual need for
ever-increasing federa l budgets to finance the continuation of the
drug war. | ||||||||||||||
Do you recall the famous Medellin Cartel, which operated out of
Colombia in the 1970s and 1980s, and its leaders Pablo Escobar and
Carlos Lehder? For years, the feds focused the public's attention on
them, much as they do n ow with particular terrorists, suggesting
that busting them would bring a "major blow" to the illegal drug
trade. | ||||||||||||||
Ultimately Escobar was killed, Lehder was incarcerated, and the Medellin Cartel was destroyed. What happened? The feds simply moved on to new drug-war targets on which they focused the public's attention. Even today - after more than 30 years of drug warfare - hardly a week goes by without some law-enforcement agency, either at the national, state, or local leve l, striking a "major blow" in the long-running drug war by making another bi g drug bust, an event that is then inevitably hyped by the local or nationa l news media. | ||||||||||||||
No matter how many drug busts are made or drug lords arrested or
killed, the drug war continues onward with no sign of it ever
ending. | ||||||||||||||
The reason is simple: It is the federal government's drug war itself that gives rise to the drug dealers and drug lords that it then gets all hyped up about busting. Without the drug war, there would be no drug lords to bust because they'd all be out of business, much as booze lords went out of business with the end of Prohibition. | ||||||||||||||
It's no different with the government's war on terrorism, where the
killi ng of one terrorist simply produces more terrorists, which
means that the wa r on terrorism, like the war on drugs, continues
onward with no sign of its ever ending. | ||||||||||||||
The reason is simple: It is the federal government's own
interventionist foreign policy, including the death and destruction
that arise from such policies as sanctions, invasions, and
occupations, that give rise to the deep anger and hatred that then
produces the terrorist blowback. | ||||||||||||||
By dismantling America's overseas military empire, and restoring the noninterventionist foreign policy of a constitutional republic, the threa t of terrorism against the United States would disappear. | ||||||||||||||
Thus, the American people have a choice to make, with respect not
only to the war on drugs but also to the war on terrorism. If they
choose to continue such wars, they simply need to recognize that the
result will be an endless supply of drug lords and terrorists and,
therefore, perpetual war. And as we continue to learn, there are
enormous financial costs that come with such wars, to say nothing of
ever-growing infringements on civi l liberties. | ||||||||||||||
If, on the other hand, Americans want to eliminate the supply of
drug lor ds and the supply of terrorists and restore a stable,
prosperous, and free society to our land, there is but one way to
accomplish that: by ending t he war on drugs as well as the U.S.
government's interventionist foreign pol icy. | ||||||||||||||
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of the Future of Freedom
Foundation - http://www.fff.org | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
QUOTE OF THE WEEK (Top) | ||||||||||||||
"You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biti ng strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation." - Marian Wright Edelman | ||||||||||||||
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