Drug War Chronicle, Issue #520 -(urls+editorial)- 1/25/08

A Publication of Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
David Borden, Executive Director,
http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/borden
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

Enough is Enough: Petition to Stop the Reckless Drug Raids
http://stopthedrugwar.org/raidpetition

Students: Intern at DRCNet to help stop the drug war now!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/drcnet_internships_to_stop_the_drug_war

Table of Contents:

1. EDITORIAL: POVERTY AND THE DRUG LAWS
While we take on the drug war's many different currents, it's
important to remember our moral and intellectual roots. One of
those is the role prohibition plays in fueling poverty.
Understanding of this will one day dawn, and legalization will
be seen as the wiser course.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/poverty_and_the_drug_laws

2. FEATURE: FACED WITH SLASHED FEDERAL GRANTS, DRUG TASK FORCES
HOWL... AND PLOT TO GET THEIR FUNDING BACK
When Congress passed the omnibus appropriations bill a few weeks
ago, it slashed funding for the federal grant program that funds
local anti-drug task forces. Now the task forces are howling,
and they and their allies are plotting a bid to get that money
back.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/drug_task_force_federal_grant_cuts

3. IN MEMORIAM: JUDGE ELEANOR SCHOCKETT OF LEAP
Jack Cole of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition wrote the
following memorial for one of LEAP's most active leaders, Judge
Eleanor Schockett. We reprint it from the LEAP web site.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/in_memoriam_leaps_judge_eleanor_schockett

4. APPEAL: DRCNET MADE AMAZING PROGRESS IN 2007 AND WE NEED YOUR
HELP FOR 2008
An outline of DRCNet's plans and recent accomplishments and an
appeal for your support to make it all happen.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/drcnets_amazing_progress_in_2007

5. WEEKLY: BLOGGING @ THE SPEAKEASY
"It's Really Easy to Put Innocent People in Jail for Drugs,"
"Idiot Steals Two Crocodiles and a Monkey, Blames Marijuana,"
"The Drug Czar's Awesome Plan to Blame Hugo Chavez for
Everything," "Our Drug Laws Literally Allow Police to Steal From
Innocent People," "Obama Pledges to Continue the Drug War."
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/blogging_at_the_speakeasy

6. 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/520/drcnet_internships_to_stop_the_drug_war

7. LAW ENFORCEMENT: VIRGINIA NARCOTICS OFFICER KILLED BUSTING
DOWN DOOR IN MARIJUANA GROW RAID
A Chesapeake, Virginia, narcotics officer was killed last week
as he attempted to break down a door during a raid on a
suspected marijuana grow operation. His alleged killer now faces
first degree murder charges.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/chesapeake_virginia_narcotics_officer_jarrod_shivers_killed_marijuana_raid

8. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
Scandal broadens in Brooklyn South, a cop working for a federal
drug task force goes bad in California, and a pair of private
prison guards in Texas get in trouble.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/police_drug_corruption

9. LAW ENFORCEMENT: SNITCH CULTURE GONE BAD IN OHIO -- 15
PRISONERS TO GO FREE BECAUSE OF INFORMANT'S TAINTED TESTIMONY
In the latest installment of an ongoing snitch scandal in
northeast Ohio, a federal judge has freed 15 men sentenced to
prison on crack conspiracy charges based on perjured testimony
from a DEA informant. Now, the informant is in prison, and the
DEA agent is in the crosshairs.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/federal_judge_frees_15_ohio_bray_lucas_DEA

10. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: EMPLOYERS CAN FIRE USERS, CALIFORNIA
SUPREME COURT RULES
The California Supreme Court has ruled that employers may fire
medical marijuana users. The backlash is just getting underway.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/california_supreme_court_medical_marijuana_employers

11. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: NEW MEXICO PARAPLEGIC SUES OVER SEIZURE
OF PLANTS, GROW EQUIPMENT
Leonard French followed New Mexico's medical marijuana law to
the letter, but that didn't stop the Pecos Valley Drug Task
Force from seizing his plants and grow equipment and giving it
to the DEA. Now he's suing.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/new_mexico_medical_marijuana_patient_lawsuit_leonard_french

12. DRUG PENALTIES: NEW YORK GOVERNOR PROPOSES TAX STAMPS --
$200 A GRAM FOR COCAINE
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) has proposed a tax on illegal
drugs as part of his budget proposal. $3.50 a gram for
marijuana might be -- if it were legal, at least -- but $200 a
gram for cocaine!?
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/new_york_governor_spitzer_proposes_drug_stamp_tax

13. MARIJUANA: NEW HAMPSHIRE DECRIMINALIZATION BILL WINS SUPPORT
AT HEARING
A bill that would decriminalize the possession of up to 1.25
ounces of marijuana got a first hearing in the New Hampshire
legislature this week. Two law enforcement officials spoke out
in favor of it.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/new_hampshire_marijuana_decriminalization_bill_hearing

14. MARIJUANA: BURLINGTON, VERMONT CITY COUNCIL REJECTS
DECRIMINALIZATION MEASURE
The city council in Burlington, Vermont, has rejected putting a
marijuana decriminalization proposal before the voters. But a
council committee will study the idea.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520.burlington_vermont_city_council_no_marijuana_decriminalization_vote

15. HARM REDUCTION: SAN ANTONIO POLICE ARREST NEEDLE EXCHANGERS,
DA UPS THE ANTE
Last year, the Texas legislature approved a pilot needle
exchange program in Bexar County (San Antonio), but a
recalcitrant District Attorney has blocked it. Now, after San
Antonio police arrested needle exchangers this week, the same DA
is trying to hammer them.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/san_antonio_needle_exchange_arrests

16. LATIN AMERICA: MEXICAN SOLDIERS RAID POLICE IN DRUG FIGHT IN
RIO GRANDE VALLEY BORDER CITIES
The Mexican army has moved into a number of Rio Grande Valley
border towns in Tamaulipas state and taken over from local
police, whom it is investigating for links to the drug traffic.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/mexico_army_police_tamaulipas_takeover

17. LATIN AMERICA: US ACCUSES VENEZUELA OF "COLLUDING" WITH
COCAINE TRADE
US drug czar John Walters accused Venezuela of "colluding" in
the cocaine traffic, an accusation Venezuela did not take lying
down. Meanwhile, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez says he chews
coca, much to the dismay of the Miami Herald.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/venezuela_accused_of_cocaine_collusion_by_US_drug_czar

18. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of
years past.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/drug_war_history

19. 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/520/do_you_read_drug_war_chronicle

20. INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITY: AMERICANS FOR SAFE ACCESS,
WASHINGTON, DC
Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a national medical marijuana
advocacy group, is currently seeking graduate and undergraduate
interns for their Washington DC office.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/asa_internship_opportunity

21. ERRATA
Source credit for Virginia salvia ban article.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/errata_source_for_salvia_ban_article

22. 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/520/drug_policy_content_syndication_feeds_now_available

23. 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/520/drug_policy_RSS_feeds_now_available

24. 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/520/drug_reform_calendar

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

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

1. Editorial: Poverty and the Drug Laws
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/poverty_and_the_drug_laws

David Borden, Executive Director,
http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/borden

Any given week in the drug war, scanning the news about it will
reveal a veritable snowstorm of drug war outrages and
calamities. Most of them we don't even report about here in Drug
War Chronicle, because they're just too commonplace, and we'd
need an army of reporters instead just the one we have. But even
just looking here, in any given week, it is vividly clear just
how many different directions and in how many different ways the
drug laws howl against us:

* no-knock raids
* lying snitches
* stolen medical marijuana
* firing over medical marijuana
* drug taxes
* harassment of AIDS prevention workers
* corruption of police forces, with civil conflict
* nonsensical diplomacy
* many, many more.

As we fight against the drug war's many currents, it's also
important to look to our roots, the basic wrongs, the awful
tragedies, that are inherent in drug prohibition itself. One of
those tragedies, one which played significantly in my own choice
of cause, is the worsening and the sustaining of urban poverty.

The drug laws keep urban neighborhoods in poverty in two
particular ways. One is the violence and the disorder that
prohibition causes. As alcohol prohibition last century fed the
Mafia, today's drug prohibition laws create a large and
ever-present underground market. Because people who are breaking
the law can't go to the police to complain when other
lawbreakers violate their rights, disputes instead are governed
by violence or the threat of it. And because they are already
criminals, drug selling organizations, instead of advertising,
may willingly resort to violence to increase their share of the
market instead. Hence the drive-by shootings, the assassinations
from deals gone bad, etc. Even when outright violence doesn't
break out, illegal drug transactions, whether on the open
street, in a hallway or a schoolyard, affect the climate of life
and create a sense of disorder. This creates danger for
bystanders, drives away legitimate business, and generally makes
life hard.

The second most serious way in which our drug laws contribute to
poverty, at least in their current form of enforcement, is the
mass criminalization -- arrest, incarceration, criminal records
-- that has been thrust through intensive policing upon certain
groups of people. Research by the Sentencing Project, for
example, has found that on any given day, as many as one in
three young black males are under some form of correctional
control -- prison, jail, probation or parole. This number is not
entirely for drug offenses, of course, but as the Sentencing
Project has made the case for, the "war on drugs" has been the
driving force in a growth in incarceration in this country going
far beyond any historical precedent.

The simplistic "if you break the law, you should be punished"
argument pales when set beside the massive shredding of
community and family ties produced by this malignantly careening
government program; or the training for crime these young people
get when imprisoned; or the temptation for so many to take the
opportunity when offered to make money now and be part of
something that sounds more interesting than the typical legal
job that's available to them. Plus what happens, even to those
who didn't have to do jail time, when their criminal records
show up on a potential employer's computer screen? We hear from
people facing this situation all the time, and it is a major
national problem. Even mere arrest records can show up and
thwart someone's best efforts to go the straight and narrow
route. What are some of them going to do then? We know the
program doesn't work either -- the drugs are still here, after
all, and in force.

In a realistic worldview, substance abuse would be viewed as an
expected part of the human condition for some people, an issue
with which society would seek the best ways to live with, rather
than suppress and "fight" through the criminal justice system.
Unfortunately, the visible agonies of those struggling with
addiction, and of those whose actions they most deeply affect,
have prevented a widespread understanding from dawning of the
vice grip the drug laws exert in fueling poverty, and the
obstacles they place in the way of efforts to address it.

By looking back to our intellectual roots, it is clear that this
message is one that must be repeated over and over until it is
heard by the many and sinks in. When that happens, legalization
will be seen as the wiser course, and new hopes built upon solid
foundations will emerge.

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

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, 25 Jan 2008 09:10:07 -0800 author: bobbie sellers