Pubdate: Tue, 03 Dec 2013
Source: Hawaii Tribune Herald (Hilo, HI)
Copyright: 2013 Stephens Media
Contact: http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/share/letters/
Website: http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/185
Note: This editorial appeared Dec. 2 in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

NO DRUGS OR GUNS? YOU'RE STILL BUSTED

The costly, counterproductive war on drugs has turned the United 
States into incarceration nation. According to the International 
Centre for Prison Studies, 716 of every 100,000 people in this 
country are locked up, by far the highest rate in the world, well 
ahead of such beacons of freedom as Rwanda, Cuba and Russia.

Yet as more and more Americans come to realize the failures of 
America's prohibitionist drug policy - this fall, for the first time, 
Gallup found a clear majority of people favor complete legalization 
of marijuana - our elected officials and police forces seem more 
determined than ever to lock up citizens for nonviolent offenses - or 
for nothing at all.

The arrest of Norman Gurley two weeks ago by the Ohio Highway Patrol 
perfectly illustrates the tyranny of the drug war and the threat it 
poses to the rights of law-abiding citizens.

As reported by reason.com, Mr. Gurley was charged with having a 
secret compartment in his vehicle - even though the compartment was empty.

Ohio lawmakers made having a secret compartment in a vehicle a felony 
if - and it's a big if - authorities suspect that compartment is used 
to transport drugs.

The wording of the statute gives police carte blanche to search 
vehicles without legitimate probable cause.

Indeed, troopers claimed they searched Mr. Gurley's car because they 
smelled raw marijuana, according to the Morning Journal of Lorain, Ohio.

They found no drugs, but they did find a hidden compartment. That 
must have been some strong invisible marijuana, considering troopers 
smelled it from outside the car. So Mr. Gurley faces prosecution only 
under the secret compartment law, which could send him to prison for 18 months.

Someone might add a storage compartment to a car for any number of 
security reasons. Given the frequency of vehicle burglaries, a hidden 
space could be used to conceal anything from tools to sunglasses. 
Making the creation of such a space a crime is insane. But it's par 
for the course in the four-decade, $1 trillion-plus drug war, which 
results in more than 1.6 million arrests per year.

More than half of federal inmates are imprisoned on drug convictions. 
Drug laws give police broad powers to seize assets from people before 
they've been convicted of a crime, then use those assets to acquire 
paramilitary gear to execute nighttime raids on the homes of 
suspected drug offenders.

Time and again, across the country, police serve warrants on the 
wrong homes, or needlessly escalate searches to the point that 
innocents are killed, costing taxpayers millions of dollars more in 
lawsuit settlements.

Recall that earlier this year, Deming, N.M., police stopped and 
arrested David Eckert, then detained him and searched his anal cavity 
repeatedly based on nothing more than subjective officer judgments 
that he might have been hiding drugs. No drugs were found.

And now police can arrest you for having an empty, concealed 
compartment in your car? Here's hoping civil libertarians use Mr. 
Gurley's case to have the Ohio statute thrown out and perhaps create 
some momentum for a reboot of this country's devastating drug 
policies, which have done absolutely nothing to limit supplies or use.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom