Birds Eye View Contest I - View 11 of 25

Last week's contest was won by wstanton. It was Athens, GA. Here are the standings after 10:

Milwhcky - 7
wstanton - 3

View 11 below, good luck!

Another SWAT Disaster

This time, they shot and killed the dogs of a dangerous criminal the town's mayor.



[via Pete]

UDPATE: Radley has more.

Celebrating Incompetence

After reading this article about eight Minneapolis police officers who are receiving medals for a botched raid where they traded gunfire with an innocent man who thought he was being robbed, I thought I'd try to come up with ways that it would translate into other professions:

- Computer programming: "That feature you coded caused so many calls into tech support that even the developers had to man the phones for a bit, so I think you deserve a promotion."

- Accountant: "That auditing error you made caused federal regulators to hound us for months. Here's a bonus for enduring all that hassle."

- Pro Football player: "From now on, Pro-Bowl quarterbacks will be selected based upon which ones make the most tackles after interceptions throughout the season."

I could do this all day, but alas, I have a job that doesn't reward me for incompetence, so I can't...

Progress

Allen St. Pierre writes about the press conference today in support of Barney Frank's marijuana decriminalization bill.

The DEA Steps In

The Drug Enforcement Administration has taken the medical marijuana seized by Seattle Police in the Lifevine raid from two weeks ago.

Connelly's Contradictions

Joel Connelly fires another shot at I-1000, and I fire right back.

Winds of Change

Another great video from the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, which is at the leading edge of what's changing in international drug policy:



[via the Speakeasy]

Stevens Indicted

I bet he's already planning how he'll escape from jail through the internet tubes.

Rush vs Rock Band

RUSH vs. GUITAR HERO | Funny Jokes at JibJab

A Milestone

Pete Guither's Drug WarRant turned 5 years young yesterday.

Stolen Property

Seattle Police continue to hold on to 12 ounces of legal medical marijuana taken from the Lifevine offices in the University District.

Silence!

I haven't been keeping up with the Rachel Hoffman case, where a female 23-year-old recent college graduate was killed after being pressured by Tallahassee police into becoming an informant. According to this report, there may be concerns that local authorities are using the upcoming trial against the murderers as an excuse to keep her parents quiet.

Frosty the Snowjobbed Man

Recently, a local icon started blogging. Frosty Hardison, the man who was the subject of this legendary Daily Show expose has joined the equally legendary Jonathan Gardner at the Federal Way Conservative blog. And Carl and I couldn't be happier.

Drug Warrior Meltdown of the Week

Thomas Schweich, the man who's been in charge of the State Department's anti-drug efforts in Afghanistan for the past few years, wrote in the New York Times Magazine this week about how everyone from the Pentagon to the Swedes are responsible for the opium problem in Afghanistan. Schweich was originally sent to Afghanistan to work as a deputy under Anne Patterson, who herself was sent to Afghanistan after working for years in counter-narcotics in Colombia. The two of them were tasked with eliminating opium production in a country where it was the single largest industry.

On March 1, 2006, I met Hamid Karzai for the first time. It was a clear, crisp day in Kabul. The Afghan president joined President and Mrs. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Ambassador Ronald Neumann to dedicate the new United States Embassy. He thanked the American people for all they had done for Afghanistan. I was a senior counternarcotics official recently arrived in a country that supplied 90 percent of the world’s heroin. I took to heart Karzai’s strong statements against the Afghan drug trade. That was my first mistake.

It would be one of many for Schweich. Some of them are documented fairly well by Schweich himself within this piece, others have already been pointed out very well by others. Barnett Rubin, for instance, identified what is probably the biggest mistake with the way Schweich approached this issue; he assumed that the Afghan government had the power to do things it was clearly not capable of doing:

To his credit, Tom tried to introduce more incentives and more enforcement. It is very good that he compiled a list of corrupt officials with data that would hold up in a US court (and he is a law professor, not, I think of the Yoo/Addington variety, so he should know). But just who did he think was going to arrest or fire these people?

It's simple: assume the existence of a state.

What does this mean? Tom Schweich says that Afghanistan's Attorney-General, Abdul Jabbar Sabit, says he wanted to arrest 20 corrupt officials and that Karzai stopped him. Unlike Tom, I have known Sabit for 20 years. He helped me in my research by introducing me to some of his colleagues in Hizb-i Islami. But I would not necessarily take everything he says literally.

Actually Sabit did try to arrest a corrupt official one time, General Din Muhammad Jurat, one of the most powerful Northern Alliance commanders in the Ministry of the Interior. The upshot was that Jurat detained Sabit and disarmed and beat his men. This was not in a remote area on the Pakistan border but less than an hour's drive north of Kabul in an area considered to be under "government" control. What does that mean? It means that Jurat and people like him are the government. There is no state that operates independently of power holders like Jurat. The project is to build such a state, not assume its existence and use it based on that false assumption.

Throughout the piece, Schweich accuses the Pentagon of malfeasance when it comes to the opium issue. The Pentagon did not consider the opium issue to be something they needed to deal with. They saw their job as one of defeating the Taliban, not stopping drug trafficking. Eventually, as it became more and more obvious that the Taliban was strengthening itself through the opium industry, the internal battles between the Pentagon and the State Department over what to do about Afghanistan began to shift more in favor of the State Department's view.

In February 2007, Condoleezza Rice went before the House Foreign Affairs Committee for a meeting that drew absolutely no attention from the media, and discussed in very vague terms that there needed to be a new strategy which would "help the Afghan government improve the quality of life for its people by extending security, providing good governance and opening up new economic opportunity". Despite my own foolish optimism at the time, Schweich reveals that they were intent on going even more full speed in the wrong direction:

By late 2006, however, we had startling new information: despite some successes, poppy cultivation over all would grow by about 17 percent in 2007 and would be increasingly concentrated in the south of the country, where the insurgency was the strongest and the farmers were the wealthiest. The poorest farmers of Afghanistan — those who lived in the north, east and center of the country — were taking advantage of antidrug programs and turning away from poppy cultivation in large numbers. The south was going in the opposite direction, and the Taliban were now financing the insurgency there with drug money — just as Patterson predicted.

In late January 2007, there was an urgent U.S. cabinet meeting to discuss the situation. The attendees agreed that the deputy secretary of state John Negroponte and John Walters, the drug czar, would oversee the development of the first interagency counternarcotics strategy for Afghanistan. They asked me to coordinate the effort, and, after Patterson’s intervention, I was promoted to ambassadorial rank. We began the effort with a briefing for Negroponte, Walters, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and several senior Pentagon officials. We displayed a map showing how poppy cultivation was becoming limited to the south, more associated with the insurgency and disassociated from poverty. The Pentagon chafed at the briefing because it reflected a new reality: narcotics were becoming less a problem of humanitarian assistance and more a problem of insurgency and war.

I can't say exactly what the Pentagon was thinking, but they had a reason to be upset that something that wasn't a problem of humanitarian assistance in the first place was undermining the war effort because of the people who kept mistakenly insisting that it was. And in fact, just before this passage, Schweich talked about being irate over the fact that the British military was openly trying to disassociate itself with the anti-poppy effort:

A nearly equal challenge in 2006 was the lack of resolve in the international community. Although Britain’s foreign office strongly backed antinarcotics efforts (with the exception of aerial eradication), the British military were even more hostile to the antidrug mission than the U.S. military. British forces — centered in Helmand — actually issued leaflets and bought radio advertisements telling the local criminals that the British military was not part of the anti-poppy effort. I had to fly to Brussels and show one of these leaflets to the supreme allied commander in Europe, who oversees Afghan operations for NATO, to have this counterproductive information campaign stopped. It was a small victory; the truth was that many of our allies in the International Security Assistance Force were lukewarm on antidrug operations, and most were openly hostile to aerial eradication.

The arrogance of this paragraph is just stunning. Not only was Schweich promoting policies that were guaranteed to put coalition troops in harms way without fixing anything, but he then tattled to Brussels when British troops started taking measures to protect themselves from the fallout. What an incredible prick.

But it actually gets worse. At the same time that Secretary Rice was misleading Congress about the nature of the State Department's counter-narcotics goals, the State Department was busy sending former Colombian Ambassador William Wood to Afghanistan and trying to find ways to push for aerial drug eradication. Karzai, along with a number of foreign governments, pushed back hard, knowing that it would cause a real humanitarian disaster, not like the pretend one that Schweich, Patterson, and the band of fools thought they were combatting.

Back to the New York Times article, Schweich downplays the seriousness of spraying glysophate across the Afghan terrain, falsely claiming that there haven't been problems in Colombia. He amazingly tries to claim that eradication does not affect poor farmers, as if a farmer whose entire opium harvest is destroyed because he couldn't afford to bribe the government eradication team can just pull some money out of his retirement fund to feed his family for the next year. One could speculate that Schweich believes such transparent nonsense because if he questioned it, he'd see the grimmer reality that opium eradication doesn't just help the Taliban by giving them access to expensive weaponry, it also gives them more recruits. Why both Karzai and the Pentagon are reluctant to go along with his plans should not be a mystery to anyone.

As Jacob Sullum points out here, Afghanistan really is a narco-state. Schweich talks about times in the past where heroin production has been eliminated from a country, but none of those places compare to the size and scope of the drug trade in Afghanistan. In addition, anti-drug operations like the ones he cited didn't create any permanent reduction in the global heroin markets, as the production just moved elsewhere. It's conceivable that with enough money, enough troops and enough disregard for the health and safety of ordinary Afghans, you could move some of the opium production elsewhere, perhaps to Iraq. But just as with our efforts within Colombia, this strategy provides no overall high level benefit to combatting drug addiction in the world, which is ostensibly the goal of doing this in the first place.

Schweich complains about Karzai in much the same way that other anti-drug officials do, as if he's a symbol of some moral failure rather than the expected by-product of having to lead a nation where a criminal class has far more power. Schweich thinks that Afghan farmers can be shamed out of growing the most expensive crop simply because people in European cities that they've never heard of and will never see are willing to spend hundreds of Euros on what's made from their plants. He's a man who's so far entrenched into the delusion of the drug war that he can write something like this and not have the vaguest clue how retarded he sounds. As evidence of this, he even provides some suggestions for going forward at the end. Here's the first one:

1. Inform President Karzai that he must stop protecting drug lords and narco-farmers or he will lose U.S. support. Karzai should issue a new decree of zero tolerance for poppy cultivation during the coming growing season. He should order farmers to plant wheat, and guarantee today’s high wheat prices. Karzai must simultaneously authorize aggressive force-protected manual and aerial eradication of poppies in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces for those farmers who do not plant legal crops.

Schweich actually believes that Karzai is capable of doing this, but refuses not to, either out of laziness or corruption. In reality, Karzai would be assassinated within the hour if he tried to do this. Maybe now that Schweich's time in Afghanistan is up, he can visit reality next.

Will Trans-Fats Be History or a Black Market?

Now that California has banned trans fats, the question I have now is: will this lead to black markets for foods containing trans fats?

I think the answer to this question will come down to one factor - are trans fats used from a taste quality standpoint, or from a business operations standpoint. If the difference between trans fat foods and non-trans fat foods is noticeable from a consumer standpoint, it's very likely that we'll see illegal markets develop for it. If the difference is something that only affects the bottom lines of the food manufacturers and restaurants who use them, we won't. I think the outcome of these bans will highlight what government is and isn't capable of doing. It can effectively modify behaviors in pursuit of profit, but not in pursuit of pleasure.

I-1000 Qualifies for the Ballot

Birds Eye View Contest I - View 10 of 25

Last week's contest was won my Milwhcky. It was Indianapolis.

Standings after 9:
Milwhcky - 7
Wstanton - 2

Rules are here. Here's this week's contest, good luck!

A Man of Many Talents

Jimmy at McCranium is apparently writing sports columns for the Boston Globe now.

Fisking of the Day

Can be read at Newsvine.

[via Pete]

Menace To Society

I wonder if this means that one is statistically more likely to get killed by an arrogant right-wing columnist himself than by the people they're constantly telling us to be afraid of.

The Public Defender

Bruce Ramsey writes an excellent profile of Douglas Hiatt, the local attorney who represents many of the state's persecuted medical marijuana patients.

UPDATE: Goldy also has some props for Ramsey.

Nobel Prize in Marketing Nomination

I think we've got one right here...

Hangups Across the World

Apparently, in Russia, even discussing methadone treatment for addicts puts you in potential legal trouble.

Voice of the Sounders

Here's another reason to be excited about the new MLS team in Seattle - Kevin Calabro will be doing the play-by-play.

It's Real Science

Lou Guzzo writing about pot is a mandatory posting situation for me.

Stolen Property

After last week's raid, the most serious error in judgment by our local cops and prosecutors was remedied as the medical files of hundreds of patients were returned to the Lifevine office in the University District. The police, however, still have the 12 ounces of medical marijuana that they seized from Martin Martinez and they don't plan to give it back. Even the Seattle Times editorial board, who don't even believe that recreational use should be legal, argues today that the police should return it.

There's plenty of precedence within the United States for police being forced to return medical marijuana to patients, and hopefully SPD will figure out that they don't have the law - or even common sense - on their side before they waste even more of our taxpayer dollars trying to defend that blunder in court.

UPDATE: Steve at Reality Catcher has more.

Mothers Against the Drug War

The Dallas-area CEO of Mothers Against Teen Violence speaks out against the drug war.

Misplaced Blame

One of the tangential problems that stems from our drug war in South America is that, in order to escape arrest, drug lords are moving their cocaine production operations further into the Amazon jungle. This is now doing noticeable damage to the environment in this part of the world. Now, there's an organization that is targeting (oops) the drug users:

Ana Maria Caballero believes that many recreational cocaine users are well-educated professionals who also recycle, drive hybrid vehicles, and buy fair-trade products, but that they just don’t understand what cocaine is doing to Colombia’s environment.

Ms. Caballero works for Shared Responsibility, the Colombian government’s effort to raise consumer awareness of cocaine’s impact on one of the world’s most biodiverse nations. The project is led by Vice President Francisco Santos Calderón, who has more than a passing interest in narco-traficking – he was once kidnapped and held for months by Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel.

Colombia’s decades-old, drug-funded, armed conflict is complicated, says Caballero, but environmental devastation is apolitical. “When you talk about deforestation, when you talk about a specific species being threatened because coca is encroaching upon its sole habitat, there’s no political argument there,” she says. “It’s absolutely black and white. You are destroying natural treasures that belong to the world.”

I don't doubt that many American cocaine consumers do care about the environment, but they're not the ones to blame in this situation. Cocaine production does not destroy the jungle because of some unique aspect of growing coca plants. Cocaine production happens in the jungle because it's illegal. If cocaine were legalized and tightly controlled (I think that cocaine and heroin should be available through pharmacies if you sign a registry and pay a fee that goes towards treatment centers), you could easily prevent its production from destroying the environment.

If Ms. Caballero has any interest in protecting the environment, she should stop concern trolling the people who aren't the cause of the problem and start standing up to the people who fight against real solutions to it.

Send Karl Rove to Jail

No Comment...

[via The General]

Ten Years of Change

The Drug War Chronicle looks at how much things have changed in international drug policy since 1998, when the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) declared its commitment to a drug free world in ten years - to 2008, when American prohibitionists find themselves marginalized in Vienna.

More on Tuesday's Raid

At HorsesAss. The patient files are being returned, but SPD is trying to keep the medicine, even though they were within legal limits and no charges were filed.

UPDATE: Dominic has another follow-up.

Birds Eye View Contest I - View 9 of 25

Last week's contest was won by Milwhcky. It was Gothenberg, Sweden. Here are the standings after 8...

Milwhcky - 6
Wstanton - 2

Contest 9 below, good luck!

Possessed

Scott Morgan links to a good series of posts from a drug policy conference in Vienna that shows how deranged U.S. anti-drug officials will become when it comes to preventing rational discussion on drug policy.

Follow-up to the Seattle Raid

The Times and PI both release stories on Tuesday's raid at the Lifevine medical marijuana offices. The full picture is coming into view, as a neighboring business is claiming that the smell of marijuana from the office (officers seized 12 ounces, well within the draft limits by the Department of Health) was driving away customers. That still does not explain why legal medicine and medical records were taken. I'll continue to follow-up on what I hear as the day goes on.

UPDATE: I'm hearing from several sources that King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg is now trying to get the medical records returned. There's been nothing official yet to confirm that and no word on whether or not the medicine might be returned as well.

Medical Marijuana Raid in Seattle

I've received word over email that there was a police raid of an office in the University District of Seattle that does work supporting medical marijuana patients. The office is used by Cascadia NORML and Lifevine. No one was arrested, but files and medicine were allegedly taken by the police. This is the first King County raid on medical marijuana patients that I've seen recently, and people are being encouraged to call King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg's office at 206-296-9000. Satterberg has been known to be an ally of medical marijuana patients, so this comes as a bit of a surprise. I'll be updating this throughout the day Wednesday as I learn more.

UPDATE: Satterberg's office does not open until 8:30. According to a follow-up email, 600 patient files and twelve ounces of medicine were allegedly taken.

UPDATE 2: The raid was conducted by the Seattle Police Department, which means that they were likely in violation of I-75, which requires that adult marijuana use be the lowest priority of law enforcement. This is particularly relevant considering that after the murder of James Paroline in South Seattle, residents have been complaining that their neighborhood doesn't have enough police.

UPDATE 3: I spoke with someone in Dan Satterberg's office and they said they've been getting calls about this, but haven't heard anything else from police.

UPDATE 4: Another person from Satterberg's office called me. I asked how the raid could have been in compliance with I-75 and whether or not the raided office should have been shielded by our state's existing medical marijuana laws. He said he will get back to me.

UPDATE 5: I'll be attempting to contact Leo Poort to see if he can provide any more information about this incident.

UDPATE 6: The following email was sent to Mr. Poort:

I wanted to contact you about the raid that took place yesterday on a medical marijuana facility in the University District yesterday. I know several of the people involved with the facility, and I'm baffled as to how they could have been targeted. They are individuals who I've known to be very earnest in their efforts to remain within the framework of the state's medical marijuana regulations. Can you tell me why they were targeted, how they were able to obtain a warrant, and why officers felt that it was necessary for them to remove files and medicine? Also, can you please shed some light on how this action comports with Seattle's law requiring that adult marijuana use (even non-medicinal) be considered the lowest priority for law enforcement?

UPDATE 7: One of the people who at the raid claims the cops notified him that they were sent by the King County Prosecuting Attorney's office. I still can't confirm that this is true.

UPDATE 8: KUOW will be discussing the raid at 1PM.

UPDATE 9: Dominic Holden has more information at Slog and also wonders if this violates I-75.

UPDATE 10: Gene Johnson at the AP files a report:

The patient files were at the office because the group issues identity cards to authorized patients, but requires their records for verification.

Medical marijuana attorney Douglas Hiatt said the records are protected under federal privacy laws and the police shouldn't have them. The police department did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

The police aren't talking to Dominic either.

Unexplainable

I hope someone looks into this:

A man who was found with his head severed by a chainsaw was fighting to stay in a block of 70 flats in Hampshire cleared for redevelopment.

David Phyall, 50, was the last tenant at the Atlantic Housing Ltd housing association flats in Eastleigh.

His body was found by police on 5 July, who said his death was not suspicious. Post-mortem tests showed he died of a "complete transection of the neck".

An inquest was opened and adjourned at Winchester Coroner's Court on Friday.

A spokesman for the coroner said: "As far as we know nobody else was involved.

"There's nothing suspicious about the death. It was in his flat on Bodmin Road.

David Horsey - Awesome Again

Czars

Here's a quick and simple rule to American government: Whenever a particular problem or situation can't be fixed by the current approach and there's no political will to try a different approach, the more likely a "Czar" will be put in charge of it.

Out With the Old

The Spectrum - the old home of the Flyers and Sixers - is going to be demolished next year.

That Goes For Politicians Too

I fully understand that Obama has to say things like this to stay out ahead of McCain:

Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama on Monday urged blacks to take more responsibility for improving their own lives, standing firm on a tough message that has been criticized by some African Americans.

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, was accused by civil rights leader Jesse Jackson last week of "talking down to blacks."

"Now, I know there's some who've been saying I've been too tough, talking about responsibility," Obama told the NAACP, the nation's oldest civil rights organization. "I'm here to report, I'm not going to stop talking about it."

But the problems with the black community is this country aren't going to be solved simply by people in the black community being more responsible. They'll be solved when politicians who rely on bullshit "tough on crime" rhetoric to keep fighting an unwinnable drug war most heavily in black communities start being more responsible. Black communities will continue to be at a disadvantage as long as the disparities in drug law enforcement mean that more black fathers and mothers end up in jail while many white fathers and mothers get away with the same crimes.

The Myth of Big Pharma

Paul Armentano wrote this week about why he doesn't believe that Big Pharma is the main force behind keeping medical marijuana illegal. While I agree with the conclusions he reaches (the entities that enforce the drug laws are the main forces behind keeping it illegal), I think it's wrong to think that all pharmaceutical companies themselves are even on the same page when it comes to medical marijuana.

For instance, we know that Rudy Giuliani has lobbied against medical marijuana while being paid by Purdue Pharmaceuticals. But we also know that other pharmaceuticals (as Paul points out) have been ahead of the curve in recognizing the need for cannabis-based medicines. Big Pharma may be a commonly-used term, but it's not a real thing.

The actions taken by various pharmaceutical companies are not always going to be in line with each other, even when it comes to politics or science. The particular product lines for different pharmaceutical firms might lead some of them to be more concerned about potential competition from cannabis-based medicines and feeding the anti-pot hysteria (as it appears that Purdue has done). Others who are developing cannabis-based medicines will be working in the other direction. Some may choose sides over pure political outlook.

When we look at the pharmaceutical industry as a whole, we're going to get a mixed picture, and it might benefit reformers to identify which companies are fighting on the side of science and better patient care and which ones are fighting alongside those who seek to continue the war on medical marijuana.

"There is no Medical Marijuana law in Pierce County"

I wrote about the case of Kristie Choate over at HorsesAss.

Generation Kill

From the creators of The Wire, I'll be setting the DVR for this one...

Who's Against I-1000?

The opposition to Washington's Death with Dignity Act is coming from more than just intellectually dishonest members of the media, it's also being bankrolled by organizations who are trying very hard to remain secret. Thankfully, a judge ruled that they have to reveal where the money is coming from.

Birds Eye View Contest I - View 8 of 25

Last week's contest was won by Milwhcky. It was the intersection of Hampden and Broadway in Englewood, Colorado. Here are the standings after 7:

Milwhcky - 5
Wstanton - 2

Here's this week's, good luck!

Half-Baked Journalism

In November, Massachusetts voters will get to vote on one of the most progressive drug policy reform initiatives in the country this year. It will decriminalize marijuana possession of up to one ounce, making it a civil infraction punishable by a maximum $100 fine. The change would save the state millions of dollars each year in processing useless marijuana arrests.

While most people are well-aware of why these initiatives are being promoted and why they're polling so well, some members of the media have clearly missed the boat. And while I've seen my share of misinformed editorials on drug policy before, it's been a while since I've seen one as over-the-top as this one from Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr. It's truly breathtaking in its ignorance:

Marijuana makes you stupid. It’s as simple as that.

Actually, it's not as simple as that. Numerous studies have shown that moderate marijuana use does not affect long-term cognitive abilities. But Carr has little interest in the truth. He was told long ago that pot makes you stupid, and it's just not his job to make sure that it's correct. He's a journalist, not a fact-checker.

And now in Massachusetts, we are going to have a ballot question that asks the following: Do you really want to make it even easier than it already is to get stupid, and stay stupid?

They could do that much more effectively by adding Howie Carr's columns to the required reading list in schools.

Yes, the Bong Brigade is on the march again. They want to put the high back into high school, the truckin’ back in truck stops, the joint back in all those joint legislative committees.

Actually, they want to put all the wasted taxpayer money going to prosecuting people for possessing a largely harmless plant back into their own pockets.

Stand by to see stoners at the Stone Zoo, potheads in Marblehead. The grass is always greener in Greenfield, dude.

What? Is Howie Carr really stupid enough to think that our marijuana laws are holding back marijuana use? Is he not aware of the fact that marijuana use in the United States is considerably higher than it is in Holland, where it can be bought in coffeeshops and there isn't even a $100 fine for possessing it? Even the idiots in the Drug Czar's office have figured out that enforcement policies have no effect on use rates.

If you liked HempFest on the Boston Common every September, you’re going to love legalized marijuana.

Ummm, Howie, this initiative doesn't legalize it. It just treats it like a speeding ticket.

This one’s, like, totally for Jerry Garcia!

Is this moron still trying to be funny? I hope he's done now.

This year, the front group is something called the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy, and it’s pushing a Sensible State Marijuana Policy.

Front group for what? What eeeeeevil forces are trying to save the taxpayers of Massachusetts money, Howie?

Its flacks are available for media interviews to discuss their “sensible policy.”

I'm glad they now know that an interview with you would be a complete waste of time.

Organizers include the usual “concerned citizens,” with a few token “former law enforcement professionals” thrown in.

I love how he puts "former law enforcement professionals" in quotes as if he somehow thinks it's a scam that there's an organization of thousands of current and former law enforcement professionals trying to end the drug war.

Their goal is to use the initiative to abolish criminal penalties for less than an ounce of marijuana or, to use their preferred word, hemp, as in, “Dude, did you know, like, George Washington’s army used hemp when it was fighting in, uh, like, was it the Civil War, man?”

Hahahahaha! Let's recap this line. In a sentence where he ridicules his "stoner strawman" for not knowing the difference between the Civil War and the Revolutionary War (so clever!), he reveals that he doesn't realize the difference between marijuana (psycho-active drug) and hemp (non psycho-active non-drug). Well done!

The sensible group’s press release sounds like it was written after watching a “Dragnet 1967” marathon on TVLand.

And this column appears to be written by someone who might not recognize that those episodes are reruns.

Harmless people, we are told, “are arrested, booked, entered into the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) system, resulting in a possible sentence of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine.”

Key word: possible.

No. Key word: harmless.

Do you know how difficult it is to actually be thrown in jail around here?

It's so hard that Massachusetts has a prison overcrowding crisis. What an unbelievable retard.

You can lie under oath and obstruct justice, and you don’t have to do a day in the can - am I right Tom Finneran?

Wow, what amazing logic! That's like saying that, just because Scooter Libby avoided jail-time, we don't send people to prison in this country often enough. Dear god...

Pot charges are usually meaningless add-ons, like piling a driving-to-endanger on top on an OUI, or like Neil Entwistle being charged with possession of an unregistered handgun.

OK, so if they're meaningless add-ons, then why are the taxpayers of Massachusetts paying so much in court and administrative costs for them?

The potheads say 7,500 marijuana citations make it onto the CORI system every year.

And your taxpayers dollars are being used to maintain that "meaningless" information.

But how many of those Class B controlled-substance convictions are added to someone’s CORI record along with more serious raps like, say, for possession of Class D controlled substances (cocaine) with intent to distribute?

Well, you work for the Boston Herald, so why don't you use the resources at your disposal and look it up? Or are you just lazy?

The ganja-guys then cite the alleged “collateral damage” of this CORI indignity: “inability to find employment, obtain housing and receive a college loan.”

Fasten your seat belts, folks. Howie is about to take this to an even more intense level of stupid.

Please. The reason stoners can’t find employment is because they’re too wasted.

Actually, someone with a past marijuana conviction, even if they've long given up smoking pot, could easily have problems finding employment throughout the country. Whether or not this is a particularly bad problem in Massachusetts, I don't know for sure since I don't live there.

They forgot to turn on the alarm clock.

I think the people who forgot to set their alarm clocks were the editors at the Herald.

They went out for a smoke break and never returned.

Can you do that too, Howie?

They missed the bus, man.

Shouldn't people in the media have to know more about pot than just what they've seen from Cheech & Chong movies before they can write columns about it? I guess not.

They can’t “obtain housing” because they can’t get it together to ever leave mom’s rent-free basement.

Actually, Howie, much of the software that's used to allow people from all over the world to read your hackneyed horseshit was written by people who smoke pot. They left mom's rent-free basement a long time ago and will one day be laying you off when the last of the senior citizens who actually listens to your mindless dribble dies off.

Unless you’re in the cop’s face when you light up - like they do at HempFest - you face almost zero chance of getting arrested.

Uh, no.

Decriminalizing pot doesn’t seem like a big deal, I’ll grant you.

That's because it's not.

After the courts decreed Adam and Eve are going to be Adam and Steve, bringing Cheech & Chong along for the ride amounts to little more than a footnote.

Oh my god! He's afraid of pot leafs AND gays. I'm guessing atheists make him dirty his diaper too.

But the problem with this ballot question is, it will lead to more pot smoking, which this society needs like . . . like, fill in the blank, dude.

How about this, like another journalist who has no idea what the fuck he's talking about? As I pointed out earlier, in Holland (where marijuana is completely decriminalized and can be bought at coffeeshops), fewer people use it than in even the countries surrounding it.

And even by your own fuzzy logic, where you've been saying that people already aren't at risk from arrest, how would this change anything?

How can the same health pests who loathe tobacco not care a whit about a different debilitating drug that you have to ingest into your lungs in the form of smoke?

Because marijuana doesn't give you lung cancer, jackass.

The fact is, once you make something legal, even if it’s just de facto, it’s easier to get.

That's irrelevant to this initiative since it's not making it legal. The penalties for possessing over an ounce of it don't change. People will still have to obtain marijuana from people who are committing serious crimes. So even if your formulation were correct, it's still completely irrelevant to this issue. Seriously, folks, does the Boston Herald actually have editors?

Pot does fry your brain. On my radio show, I can tell a stoner within 10 seconds.

How about this? I'll play you in any game of mental skill of your choosing any time. There are a lot of games we can play over the internet - chess, Scrabble, whatever. You can see how well you do and then try to figure out how much pot I smoke.

They . . . talk . . . slow.

You . . . write . . . stupid . . . shit.

They mention “hemp.”

And you didn't even know that that's different than marijuana.

They talk about “thousands” of political prisoners locked up for pot.

There are thousands of prisoners locked up for pot.

And since their vocabulary is so stunted, because their memories are shot, they keep repeating the same words over and over again.

Primarily because idiots like you continually fail to comprehend them.

Sensible . . . sensible . . . sensible.

Embarrassing . . . embarrassing . . . embarrassing.

Help the Patients This Year

Gregory Carter and Allison Bigelow write about why Congress should pass the Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment.

Will Oregon Beat Us To It Too?

An initiative is in the works in Oregon to have pot sold in stores.

Neglected Heroes

Greg Mitchell writes about an Army medic who went from being a pictured hero in the early days of the war to a PTSD case to a drug overdose victim.

Looking to Oregon - Part III

After the 60-day limits for medical marijuana patients were released last week (they were identical to Oregon's limits), I noted that it would be a good idea to look at what's happened in Oregon in order to determine whether or not the regulations would be workable here, or if we should expect problems. Here's what I've been able to find, with thanks to Russ Belville, Paul Stanford, and Martin Martinez for providing me with good information.

For the most part, patients in Oregon have been happy with the law. The 24 ounce limit works for nearly all patients, although as several doctors testified in the workshops, some patients do need more. The more problematic part of the regulations are the plant counts and how the regulations define "immature" plants. The law states that a single patient (or their designated grower) can have up to 6 fully grown "mature" plants, and eighteen "immature" plants. The definition for "immature" plants however, is the following:

Immature is defined as a non-flowering plants and less than 12" tall and 12" in diameter.

The size regulations make it very difficult for growers to maintain a steady harvest cycle without violating the six "mature" plant limit. It's possible that once these regulations are in effect in Washington, people who are in violation of this loophole will be ignored, as appears to be the case in Oregon. But considering how much more aggressively our law enforcement has gone after medical marijuana patients, that may not be the case. In addition, growers and patients who have been arrested and are awaiting trial will find that this unrealistic plant count limit could make it harder for them to win in court, even if they've done nothing wrong.

In the end, this is the true test of the limits up here. There are a number of cases around the state where registered medical marijuana patients have been arrested. If this law sorts out the patients from those who are growing for profit, the limits are effective. Obviously, I think that no one should be arrested for growing marijuana, but that's a battle for another day, and one that won't be won in 2008. But for now, a single registered patient going to jail should be considered a failure for the State Department of Health.

A second issue involves cases where a doctor specifically prescribes an amount greater than 24 ounces for 60 days. This is allowed, however it's unclear how this would affect the plant count. If the plant count limits are not affected, it will make it extremely difficult for the patient to have the extra supply allowed by their doctor.

Beyond these issues, there are several differences between Oregon law and Washington law that will require some rethink in the DOH to make sure patients are protected as well as they are in Oregon.

First, we do not allow for a single grow location to provide for multiple patients. Oregon has a system where people can be designated as a "person responsible for a marijuana grow site" or "PRMGS." A single card-carrying PRMGS can provide for up to 4 patients. Here, I've already spoken to one person who essentially functions as a PRMGS who is worried that he will now have to choose one of his patients and tell the others to find another person to grow for them.

Second, Oregon allows for outdoor growing as long as it is not in plain view of the public. Indoor growing can be much more expensive than outdoor growing, but I'm definitely not an expert on the pros and cons of different growing techniques. Either way, Oregon's law does provide people with more options.

Finally, if a patient is in violation of the 24 ounces or 24 plant limits in Oregon, law enforcement is only allowed to seize the plants over the limit, but must leave the rest. This doesn't appear to be codified anywhere in Washington.

A follow-up hearing will be occurring on Monday, August 25 in Tumwater for the Department of Health to receive more feedback on the draft guidelines. Even before that point, several trials may be taking place across the state where these draft limits could be used either for or against patients who've been arrested in recent months. The Cannabis Defense Coalition hopes to have a calendar of court dates online soon to track when these trials will be taking place. In addition, I'm hearing word that a press conference will be happening on Tuesday morning and that a lawsuit against the State Department of Health will be filed. Hopefully, we'll be able to get these issues resolved without lawsuits, but that will require the Governor to finally stand up to the law enforcement union, who have continued to stand in the way of sound policy on this issue from the very beginning.

No Idea

I have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on with this case of the woman who jumped handcuffed into the Wenatchee River after tricking cops into letting her set up a completely fabricated drug deal. All I know is that rural Washington can really produce some bizarre stories involving drug informants.

Independence Day

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
- Thomas Jefferson

Yesterday, the Seattle Times printed an op-ed from Booth Gardner, the former Governor and supporter of the Death with Dignity Initiative. Curiously, though, this was the picture that ran alongside it online:



I don't think I really need to describe the image any more than what's obvious about it. It shows a doctor preparing a needle with an elderly woman (with a concerned look on her face) next to it. There's one obvious problems with this - with I-1000, the medication is orally self-administered. Right within the column, Gardner lists out the safeguards:

The basic provisions of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act that have been included in Washington's Initiative 1000 include:

• The patient must be diagnosed by two physicians as being terminally ill with less than six months to live

• The patient must repeat the request in writing twice with at least two weeks between requests

• If either physician suspects the person is not mentally competent to make the decision, a mental-health evaluation is required.

• The patient must be provided with information about and access to palliative (hospice) care.

• A prescription may not be written if there is any indication of coercion. Coercion is punishable as a felony.

• The patient must self-administer the medication.

All of these rules are meant to make it impossible for the slippery slope scenarios of this initiative's opponents to come true. This is copied from Oregon, where the law has worked just fine, allowing for only a few hundred patients to make this choice about the end of their life, and with no stories of doctors forcing elderly patients to end their lives against their will.

The Seattle Times has long been the beacon of nanny statism within Washington. It's probably not as bad today as it was back when Lou Guzzo was there, but it still carries the torch for just about any cause that is meant to protect the citizens of this state from themselves and their own decision-making ability. And if you're not clear on whether or not the Times is carrying water for I-1000 opposition, check out the title they put on this article.

The ideals of liberty that people like Thomas Jefferson fought for are illustrated quite well by the quote above. He knew that the risks of having too much liberty were far more appealing that the risks of having too little. But the Seattle Times reminds us again that they seem to always arrive at the opposite formulation, that any time people are demanding greater liberty to make choices about their own lives, it's equated with an unforeseen (and in this case, unfounded) danger. It's the nanny state mindset, one that constantly seeks to equate choice with peril and freedom with disaster.

Birds Eye View Contest I - View 7 of 25

It's quickly becoming a two-man race here. Wstanton was last week's winner, getting the correct location in Sydney, Australia.

Standings after 6:

Milwhcky - 4
Wstanton - 2

Still plenty of contests left. Here's this week's:



For some reason, my collection of past contests got deleted, so I'll hopefully have that recreated for next week.

An Addition to the Local Blogosphere

My friend Lynn Allen has started up a new blog for the Institute for Washington's Future

Looking to Oregon - Follow-up

I've been able to get a good amount of information over the past day or so regarding the differences between Washington's proposed medical marijuana limits and Oregon's existing limits, as well as the major issues with Oregon's system. Hopefully, by the end of this weekend, I'll have a full breakdown posted.

OK, OKC

I no longer live in an NBA city. And hopefully, if the Sonics are reborn one day, it's not to a refurbished Key Arena, but to a multi-sport complex on the eastside that can house an NHL team too (with light rail going to it - ok, now I'm sounding desperate).

Looking to Oregon

Carol Ostrom of the Seattle Times, who has been doing a great job of reporting on the events leading up to yesterday's release of the 60-day limits for medical marijuana patients, writes about the aftermath:

A proposal by state health officials to limit medical-marijuana patients to a pound and a half of pot plus a scattering of plants drew heat from both advocates and law enforcement — but for different reasons.

Advocates had argued for more than 70 ounces of harvested marijuana and a 100-square-foot growing area; law-enforcement officials pushed for a limit of three ounces of harvested pot, three mature plants and six immature plants.

This essentially confirms what we've known for a while, that the public statements from law enforcement officials that they "just want a number - any number" were lies. They have their own idea of what's reasonable, and this idea is colored by their desire to arrest people (not by a desire to protect the citizens they serve).

By selecting the same exact limits as Oregon, the Governor achieved a compromise of sorts here (although one could easily point out that we're not dealing with parties acting equally in good faith). And by doing so, she also sets up a good way to evaluate the merits of these particular limits.

The I-1000 Death with Dignity campaign will be holding a press conference this afternoon. One of the strongest arguments in support of that initiative is that the Oregon law that it's patterned after has worked well for ten years. What we should be doing now is looking to Oregon's experience with their medical marijuana limits to determine whether or not a similar law would be effective here. I have some emails out to people who could shine some light on this. I'll keep you posted.

Embarrassing

TPM has a good video up now that shows just how much of a national embarrassment our cable news networks have become. This is in relation to Wesley Clark making the very bland and obvious observation that getting shot down in a war is not a qualification to be President.

60 Day Limits Released

The preliminary 60-day supply limits for medical marijuana patients in Washington have been released:

Patients authorized to possess or grow marijuana for medical reasons under Washington law would be limited to 24 ounces of harvested marijuana, plus six mature plants and 18 immature plants, according to an official draft rule filed by the state Department of Health today.

The filing of the draft rule starts a rule-making process and a public-comment period. A hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 25 in Tumwater, Thurston County.

As I mentioned earlier today at HorsesAss, this is lower than earlier numbers proposed by the DOH, but it's also higher than the 3 ounces that law enforcement considered "reasonable." Why these numbers? Probably because they're exactly the same as what Oregon allows.

Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, the prime sponsor of the bill tasking the State Department of Health to set the limits, has released a statement:

We have a responsibility to stay true to the values of compassion and empathy that are at the basis of this law, which was passed by voters in 1998. While I appreciate the Department of Health’s efforts to address this complex issue, I am concerned that today’s proposed rule is more restrictive than what had been previously discussed and may be unclear regarding a physician’s role in making a recommendation for a patient’s use of medical marijuana. Since the rule is not yet final, I encourage all stakeholders to continue providing written input and participate in the upcoming public hearing on August 25 to ensure a full consideration of their concerns.

Devastating

Darcy Burner's house was destroyed by a fire this morning, but thankfully she and her family are all ok.

That's Not Pot Smoke

Peter Schrag at the Sacramento Bee is wondering why so many law enforcement officials are looking for pot in Mendocino County while the state's forests are burning out of control.

Also from California, an initiative to legalize may be heading towards the ballot this November.