Drug War Chronicle, Issue #511 -(urls + editorial)- 11/23/07

A Publication of Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

Students: Intern at DRCNet to help stop the drug war!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/drcnet_internships_to_stop_the_drug_war

Table of Contents:

1. FEATURE: ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF KATHRYN JOHNSTON'S DEATH, POLL
FINDS MOST AMERICANS OPPOSE USE OF SWAT-STYLE TACTICS IN ROUTINE
DRUG RAIDS
A Zogby poll commissioned by StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet) has
found that nearly two-thirds of likely voters oppose SWAT-style
raids to deal with routine drug offenders. The results are
released as we mark the one-year anniversary of the death of
92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, the Atlanta woman gunned down by
rogue police conducting a forced entry drug raid.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/two_thirds_oppose_SWAT_raids_kathryn_johnston_zobgy_poll

2. FEATURE: HIGHER EDUCATION ACT DRUG CONVICTION PENALTY REPEAL
STYMIED AS DEMOCRATS CHOKE -- AGAIN
The movement to repeal the Higher Education Act's drug provision
hit a major roadblock last week when House Democrats reneged on
pushing an amendment to undo it. But the provision's author,
Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), keeps scaling it back in self-defense.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/hea_repeal_stymied_democrats_choke_again

3. SENTENCING: US PRISON POPULATION COULD BE CUT IN HALF WITH
FOUR HUMANE REFORMS, INCLUDING DRUG DECRIMINALIZATION, REPORT
SAYS
A smarter and more humane approach to crime and imprisonment,
including drug decriminalization, could save billions of dollars
and greatly reduce the need to put millions of people behind
bars, a new report says.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/prison_reform_drug_decriminalization_cut_population_save_billions

4. WEEKLY: BLOGGING @ THE SPEAKEASY
Mitt Romney says lie to the kids about drugs, Mark Souder cries
"legalizer!" again, drug warrior Howard losing Australian
election, anniversary of Kathryn Johnson tragedy and related
poll finding, "People Are Licking Toads Again," marijuana
compound might cure breast cancer.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/blogging_at_the_speakeasy

5. STUDENTS: INTERN AT DRCNET AND HELP STOP THE DRUG WAR!
Apply for an internship at DRCNet for this fall (or spring), and
you could spend the semester fighting the good fight!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/drcnet_internships_to_stop_the_drug_war

6. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
Two Atlanta cops are headed to prison in the Kathryn Johnston
killing, an NYPD narc goes down for drug running, and a
strung-out Pennsylvania cop heads to jail for peddling pills.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/police_drug_corruption

7. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: MICHIGAN INITIATIVE ORGANIZERS HAND IN
HALF A MILLION SIGNATURES
It looks like medical marijuana will be on the 2008 ballot in
Michigan. Organizers of a signature-gathering campaign for an
initiative turned in nearly 500,000 signatures this week, almost
200,000 more than needed.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/michigan_medical_marijuana_signatures_handed_in

8. CANADA: FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INTRODUCES ANTI-DRUG LEGISLATION
Canada's Conservative government this week unveiled its
repressive new approach to drugs. It wants mandatory minimum
sentences for some drug offenses, including marijuana growing,
and it wants to double the maximum sentence for pot growing.
Look for a battle royal in the West's most pot-friendly country.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/canada_harper_drug_laws_mandatory_minimum_marijuana_grow

9. SOUTHEAST ASIA: REPORTS COMING ON THAILAND'S 2003 DRUG WAR
KILLINGS
Four and a half years ago, then Thai Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra vowed to wipe out drug use in Thailand. Within three
months, 2,500 people were dead. Now, a new government is about
to release a series of reports on the killings.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/thailand_thaksin_reports_coming_2003_drug_war_killings

10. EUROPE: BRITISH HEROIN MAINTENANCE TRIALS A SUCCESS,
RESEARCHERS SAY
A pilot heroin maintenance program in three British locations
has been successful in cutting crime and street drug use,
according to preliminary results.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/british_heroin_maintenance_trials_successful_researchers_say

11. AUSTRALIA: IN DESPERATE PRE-ELECTION MOVE, PRIME MINISTER
HOWARD SAYS HE WILL TAKE CONTROL OF DRUG USERS' WELFARE PAYMENTS
With elections looming on Saturday and his party trailing,
Australian Prime Minister has announced a "zero tolerance" plan
to take control of welfare payments for drug offenders.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/australia_prime_minister_drug_user_welfare_payments

12. EUROPE: IRISH LABOR PARTY DEBATES CANNABIS LEGALIZATION,
DEFERS DECISION
The Irish Labor Party debated whether to make cannabis
legalization or decrim part of the party platform at its annual
conference last Friday, but deferred a decision on whether to do
so.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/irish_labor_party_discusses_cannabis_legalization

13. WEB SCAN
Balko-Paey interview, Europe drug report, NORML podcast of
Kucinich interview, One Hitters parodied (!), DrugTruth network.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/drug_policy_links

14. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of
years past.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/drug_war_history

15. JOB OPPORTUNITY: OUTREACH DIRECTOR, STUDENTS FOR SENSIBLE
DRUG POLICY
SSDP is hiring an Outreach Director. The position is staffed
from the organization's Washington, DC office.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/ssdp_outreach_director_position

16. JOB OPPORTUNITIES: TWO OPENINGS AT PREVENTIONWORKS,
WASHINGTON, DC
PreventionWorks is hiring a SEP Arranged Delivery Coordinator
and a Community Liaison.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/prevention_works_needle_exchange_job_openings

17. FEEDBACK: DO YOU READ DRUG WAR CHRONICLE?
Do you read Drug War Chronicle? If so, we need your feedback to
evaluate our work and make the case for Drug War Chronicle to
funders. We need donations too.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/do_you_read_drug_war_chronicle

18. WEBMASTERS: HELP THE MOVEMENT BY RUNNING DRCNET SYNDICATION
FEEDS ON YOUR WEB SITE!
Support the cause by featuring automatically-updating Drug War
Chronicle and other DRCNet content links on your web site!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/drug_policy_content_syndication_feeds_now_available

19. RESOURCE: DRCNET WEB SITE OFFERS WIDE ARRAY OF RSS FEEDS FOR
YOUR READER
A new way for you to receive DRCNet articles -- Drug War
Chronicle and more -- is now available.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/drug_policy_RSS_feeds_now_available

20. RESOURCE: REFORMER'S CALENDAR ACCESSIBLE THROUGH DRCNET WEB
SITE
Visit our new web site each day to see a running countdown to
the events coming up the soonest, and more.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/drug_reform_calendar

(Not subscribed? Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org to sign up
today!)

================

1. Feature: On the Anniversary of Kathryn Johnston's Death, Poll
Finds Most Americans Oppose Use of SWAT-Style Tactics in Routine
Drug Raids
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/two_thirds_oppose_SWAT_raids_kathryn_johnston_zobgy_poll

A year ago this week, 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston was gunned
down by Atlanta narcotics officers when she opened fire on them
as they kicked down her door in a "no-knock" drug raid. The
killing has had immense reverberations in the Atlanta area,
especially since it opened a window on corrupt and questionable
police practices in the drug squad.

While the Johnston killing rocked the Atlanta area, it also
brought the issue of aggressive drug war police tactics to the
forefront. Each year, SWAT teams across the country conduct some
40,000 raids, according to estimates, many of them directed at
drug offenders. The tactic, where heavily armed police in
military-style attire break down doors, toss flash-bang
grenades, and generally behave as if they are searching for
insurgents in Baghdad, has become routine, and is the stuff of
various TV reality shows.

But if the raids are popular with the viewers of the likes of
DALLAS SWAT, they are not necessarily as popular with the
American public. According to a poll of 1,028 likely voters
commissioned by StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet) and conducted by
Zogby International in October, a solid majority of respondents
said such tactics were not justified for routine drug raids.

Here is the exact question asked: "Last year 92-year old Kathryn
Johnston was killed by Atlanta police serving a drug search
warrant at an incorrect address supplied by an informant.
Reports show that police use SWAT teams to conduct raids as
often as 40,000 times per year, often for low-level drug
enforcement. Do you agree or disagree that police doing routine
drug investigations in non-emergency situations should make use
of aggressive entry tactics such as battering down doors,
setting off flash-bang grenades, or conducting searches in the
middle of the night?"

Nearly two-thirds -- 65.8% -- said police should not routinely
use such tactics. With minor variations, that sentiment held
across geographic, demographic, religious, ideological, and
partisan lines.

Opposition to the routine use of SWAT tactics for drug law
enforcement ranged from 70.7% in the West to 60.5% in the East.
Residents of large cities (60.7%), small cities (71.2%), the
suburbs (66.7%), and rural areas (65.0%), all opposed the
routine use of SWAT tactics.

Among Democrats, 75.1% opposed the raids; among independents the
figure was 65.5%. Even in the Republican ranks, a majority --
56% -- opposed the raids. Across ideological lines, 85.3% of
self-identified progressives opposed the raids, as did 80.8% of
liberals, 62.9% of moderates, and 68.9% of libertarians. Even
people describing themselves as conservative or very
conservative narrowly opposed the routine use of SWAT tactics,
with 51.5% of the former and 52.5% of the latter saying no.
Among African Americans, 83% oppose the practice.

"These findings don't surprise me," said University of
Nebraska-Omaha criminologist Samuel Walker, a leading policing
expert. "When you ask global questions about crime, people say
one thing, but when the question is framed so as to clarify the
practice, as this one was, people have a sense of what sort of
emergency situations might call for special methods and what
sort of situations are routine and could be handled without
SWAT-style tactics. I find it hopeful that people seem to have
such a clear sense of what is and is not appropriate," he said.

"We're please but also not surprised to get such a good response
on this," said DRCNet executive director David Borden, who
authored the question. "It's just not a hard sell to say that
people shouldn't get shot, burned or traumatized in their homes
when there's any other viable way of handling a situation." The
organization is planning to do more, he says, and has posted an
information page on the issue at
http://stopthedrugwar.org/policeraids on DRCNet's web site.

"If you believe that the criminal justice system is 100%
perfect, you tend to support the system, but with these drug
raids, there have been just too many mistakes made, too many
wrong doors kicked in, too many innocent people killed," said
Peter Christ, a former New York police captain who spent 20
years in policing before retiring and becoming a founding member
of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (http://www.leap.cc).
"People understand that, and they realize that grandma down in
Atlanta could have been them."

The real question, Walker said, was how to translate public
opinion into policy changes. "I only wish this could be
translated into the political realm," he said.

For Christ, changing police practices and drug policies is a
slow, even generational process of education. The movement to
reform the drug laws, he said, is akin to the movement for
women's rights. "None of the people who started that movement in
the 1830s lived to cast a vote," he said, "but in the end, they
triumphed."

In Atlanta, the outrageous conduct of the narcotics officers
involved in the Johnston case has led to changes, at least for
now. They told a judge they had an informant who had bought
crack cocaine at Johnston's home. That was a lie. They shot at
the elderly woman protecting her home 39 times after she managed
to squeeze off one shot from an old pistol. They handcuffed her
as she lay dying. They planted marijuana in her basement after
the fact. They tried, also after the fact, to get one of their
informants to say he had supplied the information, but that
informant instead went to the FBI.

Two of the officers involved in the killing were ordered to
prison this week pending sentencing on involuntary manslaughter
and civil rights violations. A third has an April trial date.

The Johnston killing has also rocked the Atlanta Police
Department. The police chief disbanded the entire drug squad for
months, tightened up the rules for seeking search warrants,
especially "no-knock" warrants, and instituted new policies
forcing narcotics officers to rotate out on a regular basis. A
year-long FBI investigation into the department continues.

But across the country, the Johnston case was little more than a
blip on the radar, and the SWAT-style raids continue. "I haven't
noticed any real change anywhere outside of Atlanta," said
Radley Balko, an editor at Reason magazine
(http://www.reason.com/staff/show/143.html) and a policy analyst
specializing in civil liberties issues who authored the
definitive report on the rise of the contemporary SWAT
phenomenon, Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Policing in
America (www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476). "The pace of
these raids has been about the same this year as last."

And, as Balko noted in a FoxNews.com commentary this week
(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312240,00.html), not only
the raids, but the mistakes, some of them fatal, continue:

* In February of this year, 16-year-old Daniel Castillo, Jr.
was killed in a police raid on his family's home in Texas.
Castillo had no criminal record. A SWAT officer broke open the
door to the bedroom as Castillo, his sister, and her infant son
were sleeping. When Castillo rose from the bed after being
awoken to his sister's screams, the SWAT officer shot him in the
face.

* In March, police in Spring Lake, Minn., acting on an
informant's tip, raided the home of Brad and Nicole Thompson.
The couple was forced on the ground at gun point and warned by
an officer, "If you move, I'll shoot you in the f___ing head."
Police had the wrong house.

* In June, a 72-year-old woman on oxygen was thrown to the
ground at gunpoint in a mistaken drug raid near Durango, Colo.

Balko also pointed to errant drug raids on innocent people in
Temecula, CA.; Annapolis, MD.; several incidents in Chicago,
Philadelphia, and New York City; Galliano, LA.; Hendersonville,
NC.; Ponderay, ID; Stockton, CA.; Pullman, WA.; Baltimore;
Wilmington, DE.; Jacksonville, FL; Alton, KS; Merced County, CA;
and Atlanta, GA. And that's just this year.

Turning the juggernaut around is a daunting task. It would
require changes to the policies and practices of hundreds of
separate law enforcement agencies around the country, and that
is going to require work at the state and local level.

But there are some limited prospects for change at the federal
level. In June, the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on
Terrorism and Homeland Security held hearings on police
militarization, and, thanks in part to Balko's testimony
(http://reason.com/news/show/121169.html), this year's crime
bill currently contains some language reflecting reforms
recommended in Overkill that would limit the circumstances in
which high levels of force can be used. Still, Balko said, it is
unclear if that language will make it into the final bill.

At the least, Balko was able to inform committee Chair Rep.
Bobby Scott (D-VA) that some of the money allocated for Bill
Clinton's community policing COPS program had gone to establish
SWAT teams. When a woman in the gallery asked for renewed
funding for COPS, Balko pointed out that fact
(http://www.theagitator.com/archives/027902.php).

"Are you telling me that the COPs grants we handed out in the
90s were actually used to start SWAT teams?" Scott asked in
surprise.

Balko confirmed that was indeed the case.

"Well that's certainly not what we had in mind," Scott replied.

According to Balko, at least 40 innocent people have been killed
in forced entry drug raids in recent years. No one knows how
many more innocents have been injured by testosterone-crazed
police or had their property wantonly destroyed in such raids.
And no one is even counting how many people -- innocent, guilty,
family members -- have been needlessly traumatized by the
jackboot kicking the door in at 4:00am and all that follows. And
most of the "guilty" parties are mere low-level offenders, and
by law presumed innocent until proven guilty.

If the politicians and law enforcement listen to the public,
such tactics will become a thing of the past.

================
Drug War Chronicle, Issue #511 -- 11/23/07
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith@drcnet.org
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511

A Publication of Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

Students: Intern at DRCNet to help stop the drug war!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/drcnet_internships_to_stop_the_drug_war

Table of Contents:

13. WEB SCAN
Balko-Paey interview, Europe drug report, NORML podcast of
Kucinich interview, One Hitters parodied (!), DrugTruth network.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/drug_policy_links

14. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of
years past.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/511/drug_war_history

(Not subscribed? Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org to sign up
today!)

================

Nearly two-thirds -- 65.8% -- said police should not routinely
use such tactics. With minor variations, that sentiment held
across geographic, demographic, religious, ideological, and
partisan lines.

The real question, Walker said, was how to translate public
opinion into policy changes. "I only wish this could be
translated into the political realm," he said.

Two of the officers involved in the killing were ordered to
prison this week pending sentencing on involuntary manslaughter
and civil rights violations. A third has an April trial date.

And, as Balko noted in a FoxNews.com commentary this week
(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312240,00.html), not only
the raids, but the mistakes, some of them fatal, continue:

* In June, a 72-year-old woman on oxygen was thrown to the
ground at gunpoint in a mistaken drug raid near Durango, Colo.

"Are you telling me that the COPs grants we handed out in the
90s were actually used to start SWAT teams?" Scott asked in
surprise.

Balko confirmed that was indeed the case.

"Well that's certainly not what we had in mind," Scott replied.

If the politicians and law enforcement listen to the public,
such tactics will become a thing of the past.

================

later
bliss -- C O C O A Powered... (at california dot com)

--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cocoa that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.

date: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:14:26 -0800 author: bobbie sellers