Momentum Builds for Lone Star Legalization of Marijuana For more than a decade, Austin Democratic state Rep. Elliott Naishtat has brought to his Capitol colleagues a modest proposal: Create an affirmative defense to prosecution on pot possession charges for seriously ill Texans. For seven sessions now - that's every other year since 2001 - he's either authored or sponsored a measure that would give bona fide patients - those suffering, for example, from AIDS, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, cancer - the ability to have a judge decide if a criminal charge for pot possession should be dismissed. [continues 2160 words]
During a panel discussion last week at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Gov. Rick Perry made national headlines by saying not only that Washington and Colorado had every right to legalize pot, but also that he's long been a supporter of drug decriminalization policies in Texas. Oh, if it were only that simple. Perry's comments, made on a panel with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and former United Nations Secretary Gen-eral Kofi Annan, reiterated his traditional "states' rights" stance. [continues 804 words]
Attorney General Declines to Act Against States Legalizing Marijuana In an Aug. 29 letter to all U.S. attorneys, Deputy U.S. Attorney General James M. Cole said that the federal government will not - for now, at least - take legal action to challenge laws in Colorado and Washington passed by voters last year that legalize and regulate the use and sale of marijuana by adults. As long as those states "have also implemented strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems" that keep dope, and funds associated with its trade, from diverting to the black market or to kids, he wrote, the feds are happy to have state and local law enforcement police the system. [continues 602 words]
In Two States Where Pot Is Now Legal, Feds Take Back Seat Approach In a letter sent yesterday to all U.S. attorneys, Attorney General Eric Holder said that the federal government will not - for now, at least -s take legal action to challenge laws in Colorado and Washington passed by voters last year that legalize and regulate the use and sale of marijuana by adults. As long as those states "implement strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems" that keep dope, and funds associated with its trade, from diverting to the black market or to kids, the Department of Justice is happy to have state and local law enforcement police the system, he wrote. [continues 605 words]
A Wave of Marijuana Laws Surges Toward a National Consensus Three weeks ago, Allen St. Pierre ducked out of his Washington, D.C., office for a midday dentist appointment. For 22 years, St. Pierre has worked for the National Organ-ization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, the granddaddy of pot-law reform advocacy groups; he came on board in 1991 and rose through the ranks to become executive director a job that in recent years has become increasingly busy. And since the historic November 2012 votes in Colorado and Washington state to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana for casual use by adults, things have been downright hectic. [continues 2391 words]
Austin Homicides Up; Everything Else Down Tracking the national average, violent crimes reported to Austin police in 2010 decreased by 6% from the previous year. It was the fourth year in a row that violent crime has decreased nationally. Property crimes in Austin - burglary, larceny, and auto theft - also decreased last year, by roughly 4.6%, outpacing the national decline of 2.7%. That said, Austin saw a big spike in murder in 2010 - from 22 in 2009 to 38 in 2010, a 72% increase. [continues 186 words]
This week we've got lots of news from the feds (none of it particularly good), new drug laws on the books in Texas, and the connection between Facebook and crack. Lets get to it. Among the hundreds of new Texas laws that went into effect Sept. 1 are the state's new drug crackdowns. Specifically, the ban of both not-pot - - the synthetic marijuana mimicker known as "K2" or "Spice" - and the powdery stimulant known as a "bath salts." Possession - or manufacture or sale - of either can now net you a hefty prison term: Indeed, possession of less than a gram can earn up to two years in a state jail; possession of up to four grams can turn up to 10 years in the pen; possession of between four and 400 grams can get you up to 20 years; more than 400 grams can net you life in the clink. [continues 1253 words]
Border Patrol Agent Loses Job After Stating the Obvious In April 2009, El Paso native and rookie Border Patrol Agent Bryan Gonzalez was working a stretch of the Mexican border near Deming, N.M. It was a relatively slow day, so when Gonzalez saw fellow Agent Shawn Montoya patrolling in the same area, the two men took a break, pulled their vehicles up next to each other, rolled down their windows, and began talking. When the conversation turned to the drug-related violence that was plaguing the border, Gonzalez "mentioned that he thought that legalization of marijuana would save a lot of lives across the border and over here," New Mexico ACLU spokesman Micah McCoy said during a recent interview. Gonzalez also mentioned that there's an organization of law enforcement officers and officials Law Enforce-ment Against Prohibition - that stands in opposition to the drug war. "The other guy didn't agree" with Gonzalez's views, McCoy said, but regardless, "it was a friendly conversation" between the two men. [continues 949 words]
Time To Throw Tomatoes? Obama's Drug Program Highlights President Barack Obama's fiscal year 2011 national drug control budget seeks $15.5 billion - a 3.5% increase over the 2010 budget - to combat drug use and its consequences. The funding would go toward the five major functions listed above. In announcing the release of the proposed federal drug control budget for 2011, Pres-id-ent Barack Obama's drug czar, former Seat-tle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, declared that the new budget "demonstrates the ... Administration's commitment to a balanced and comprehensive drug strategy." The budget is Obama's first with Kerlikowske at the head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "In a time of tight budgets and fiscal restraint," continued Kerlikow-ske, "these new investments are targeted at reducing Americans' drug use and the substantial costs associated with the health and social consequences of drug abuse." [continues 885 words]
1) Patients Free to Inhale Keeping a presidential campaign promise, President Barack Obama's Department of Justice sent out an official memo to federal prosecutors in October advising them to end raids on patients using medi-pot in compliance with state law. 2) Some Like it Pot A home movie of Marilyn Monroe that purports to show the blond bombshell toking a joint while lounging on the couch hit the Internet this fall. Suffice to say, the sleepy-eyed actress can even make sniffing an armpit look sexy. [continues 663 words]
In the wake of July's controversial arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., President Barack Obama sought to take the rhetoric down a notch via an informal White House meeting between Gates and Sgt. James Crowley, the officer who arrested him. The two, joined by Obama, would sit down and talk things out, adultlike, over beer. It sounded folksy and practical, something that many, many Americans could get behind - a so-called "beer summit." No one really batted an eye at the idea of adult men sitting around hashing out their differences with the help of a little social lubricant. And that's fine. But here's the truth: They were using drugs - on the president's urging. [continues 1005 words]
Back in March 2002, retired New Jersey State Police Lt. Jack Cole made headlines when he and four other former cops teamed up to form the drug policy reform group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. The group's message is simple: The Drug War is a lie that ruins lives and damages the reputation of and respect for police. If you want to control the market for illicit drugs, LEAP asserts, legalize them - it's the only way to regulate their distribution and use. In just five years, LEAP has grown from five founding members to about 10,000 members, including former cops, Drug Enforcement Agency agents, judges, and prosecutors. And in that time, Cole has delivered more than 600 talks to groups around the country, talking to community groups (he's big on the Rotary club circuit), academics, and public officials, and has consistently transformed skeptics into believers. Cole's intensity and passion are palpable, and his argument is unassailably logical: LEAP wants the Drug War to end - now. In town last month to speak at UT, Cole sat down with Reefer Madness to discuss the War on Drugs and the inevitability of legalization. [continues 2381 words]
Thank you for The Union's excellent coverage of the recent marijuana raids on what were purportedly Mexican cartel plantations on state and federal lands in Nevada County. The fact, as reported by The Union, that only seized marijuana in California - and not the total crop we didn't stop - now has a greater economic value than the state's most lucrative agricultural commodity, milk, should be a signpost to what we must now do. My brother and sisters in law enforcement have risked their skins and our tax payer dollars for too long to stop the supply of marijuana. And to what end? The fact that foreign nationals are growing weed in our own county, after four decades of marijuana interdiction, attests to the monumental failure of this effort. It's time we turned our attention to the real drug threats - methamphetamine, for one. Now that needs stopping. [continues 74 words]
ONDCP Goes Old School When in doubt, go old-school or, at least, why not give it a shot, especially if you don't have anything and I mean anything else going for you? But remember: Retro isn't always hip and when it comes to the sad, sad (and ever more sad) White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, "retro" is just plainass embarrassing. Case in point: Now that summer is here, so is the ONDCP's latest attempt at scaring you into believing that drugs no, rather, marijuana, is bad, bad, bad. According to the new ONDCP youth anti-drug media campaign report released by the feds this month, kids (that is youth, ages 12-17) who smoke pot are "at least" four times as likely to join a gang as their nontoking brethren. [continues 902 words]
For the second legislative session in a row, Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, has offered a modest proposal to downgrade the criminal penalties associated with possession of small amounts of pot. Currently, possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana is a class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to 180 days in jail, meaning getting popped with even a single joint - or, worse, mere seeds and stems - could net a six-month stay in the county lockup. With criminal justice costs spiraling and the jail and prison population bulging, this possible punishment seems, even on its face, a tad crazy. [continues 694 words]
According to North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson, his meeting with Drug Enforcement Administration officials last month wasn't exactly encouraging. Johnson traveled to Washington, D.C., in February (his second trip to the Capitol to meet with the DEA) to hand-deliver the North Dakota industrial hemp-farming licenses he's signed off on for two farmers -- the first two farmers to be licensed to grow the environmentally friendly crop since the state codified rules for the plant's cultivation last fall. Although the state has licensed the farmers, they still need the nod from the DEA in order to sow their seeds -- and whether the DEA will actually allow the agricultural endeavor to go forward is still unclear. "They made it clear that they continue to believe that industrial hemp and marijuana are the same thing," he said. "So we had a discussion about how I, and the rest of the world, have come to the opinion that they are not the same thing. [continues 1270 words]
Question: What does a Texas small-business owner have in common with a former associate attorney general, friend of Bill -- and convicted, then pardoned, felon - -- Webster Hubbell? Answer: The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and life insurance. To hear NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre tell it, the story of Hubbell, NORML, and one of its Texas members goes like this: About a year ago, a Texas NORML member called up the organization's Washington, D.C., office with a problem. [continues 776 words]
Despite hysterical claims that the legalization of medicinal marijuana for use by the seriously ill would somehow kick-start a juggernaut of seemingly state-sanctioned drug use and abuse - a tired-ass hand-wringing worry brought, primarily, by your drug war pals at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, starting with Nineties czar Barry McCaffrey - it appears that, a decade after California voters passed the nation's first medi-pot law, the sky has not fallen. [continues 399 words]
While election night saw voters call for sweeping changes in Congress, drug-law reformers were handed a more mixed bag: Three statewide marijuana-law reform initiatives tanked at the polls, while local initiatives in 10 cities across the country sailed through to passage. Notably, in Eureka Springs, Ark.; Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Santa Monica, Calif.; and Missoula, Mont., voters approved municipal initiatives to decriminalize and/or classify minor pot possession and use by adults as the lowest priority for local police. [continues 862 words]
According to federal Drug War czarina Bertha Madras, deputy director for demand reduction at the White House Office of the National Drug Control Policy, there's both good and bad news about teen drug use. First, the good news: For the fourth year in a row, the government's annual teen drug-use survey reveals that drug use among adolescents is, overall, on the decline. Now, the bad news: While drug use may be on the decline, statistics also show that "everyday in our nation, 3,000 young people start using marijuana," Madras told a smattering of people at a press conference at Austin's Phoenix House rehab center last month. [continues 761 words]
'Hemp for Farming' Despite California Gov. Terminator's decision to veto a bipartisan measure reauthorizing the cultivation of industrial hemp by the state's farmers, the broader movement to restore industrial cannabis farming to the American agricultural economy continues to barrel forward. Indeed, North Carolina legislators have passed a bill appropriating $30K to fund a statewide commission charged with studying the "economic opportunities industrial hemp provides to the state and to consider the desirability and feasibility of authorizing industrial hemp cultivation and production as a farm product in North Carolina," according to the Beneficial Uses of Industrial Hemp Act, which became law July 1. The commission -- made up of state agricultural and commerce officials and academics from several universities -- is expected to present its findings (including any legislative proposals) to the State Assembly by Dec. 1. [continues 617 words]
It's election season again, and, in the world of drug-law reform, that can mean only one thing: Time for federal narcos at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy - home to the nation's "drug czar," John Walters - and their buddies in the Drug Enforcement Administration to get busy spending your hard-earned tax dollars - and using their official titles, offices, and government e-mail addresses - - to get out on the campaign trail in an attempt to thwart citizen-driven - and thus, also taxpayer-supported - ballot initiatives that seek to reform marijuana-related laws. Revising his 2002 role as drugs-are-scary stump speaker extraordinaire, czar Walters headed back to Nevada last week to campaign against an ambitious ballot measure that would legalize possession of and tax and regulate sale of marijuana to adults. This is the second time the initiative has been on the ballot (it failed in 2002) and thus the second time Walters has jetted to the Silver State to try to quash the measure. Walters was roundly criticized for his actions last time, which state-initiative supporters at the Marijuana Policy Project argued were not only a violation of Nevada state election law, but also a violation of the 1939 Hatch Act, the federal law regulating the political activities of government officials. In the end, Walters didn't even get a knuckle rapping for his actions, and now, he's baaaack, swooping into Reno to offer a doomsday vision of a world where pot is taxed and regulated. [continues 697 words]
Nearly three years after police in the Charleston, S.C., suburb of Goose Creek made an early-morning, guns-drawn raid at Stratford High School on an ultimately futile hunt for student marijuana, cash, and weapons stashes, the ACLU announced last week that a federal court had at last approved a "landmark" settlement with students who sued school officials and police that, in part, incorporates a federal consent decree reinforcing the students' Fourth Amendment rights. Former Stratford principal George McCracken (who resigned shortly after the raid debacle) precipitated the raid by calling police to ask for their help with the school's "drug problem." Unfortunately, police created a far bigger problem for local officials when they stormed into the high school at 6:40am on Nov. 5, 2003 -- recorded by school surveillance and police cameras -- forcing students to the ground, handcuffing them, and holding guns to their heads while police searched backpacks and lockers in for contraband; they found nothing. [continues 454 words]
Cracking under pressure -- mainly applied by American Drug War soldiers -- Mexican President Vicente Fox earlier this month withdrew his support for a bill that would have legalized possession of small amounts of drugs -- everything from marijuana to cocaine and heroin - -- sending the bill back to Mexican legislators for some (pardon the pun) "tweaking." Praised by drug policy reformers, the thinking behind the bill was that decriminalizing low-level possession would free up law enforcement resources, both manpower and money, to combat the threat posed by the ever-strengthening Mexican drug cartels (whose power has been boosted in the wake of several high-profile arrests of Colombian cartel honchos) that have been implicated in the increased violence in Mexican border towns like Nuevo Laredo. [continues 318 words]
Drug Enforcement Administration narcos picked up where they left off just before Christmas, descending upon the small medi-pot growers collective run by Palm Desert, Calif., medi-mari patient Gary Silva in a March 14, early morning raid, seizing 80 pot plants and a cache of patient records, and sending Silva to the hospital with a dislocated shoulder. The feds reportedly burst through the door before Silva could get it open, knocking the medi-pot patient, who suffers from a degenerative disc disorder, tumbling to the ground. [continues 574 words]
DEA agents have been doing their very best impression of the Grinch this month by carrying out a string of raids at medi-pot dispensaries in San Diego and San Francisco, Calif. On Dec. 12, a contingent of agents simultaneously executed 13 warrants in San Diego County, seizing dozens of pounds of marijuana, computer equipment, and patient files from the store front operations that provide sick and dying medi-mari patients who use the drug in accordance with the state's Compassionate Use Act. Then, on Dec. 20, agents struck again, in an early-morning raid at the San Francisco home of Steve and Cathy Smith who run the HopeNet medi-pot dispensary, which, in part, subsidizes the cost of medi-pot for low-income patients. [continues 1119 words]
The federal war on medi-pot patients hit a new low last month when Royal Canadian Mounted Police nabbed 38-year-old Steven W. Tuck from his Vancouver, B.C., hospital bed, whisked him to the border, and relinquished him to the custody of U.S. officials, who wanted him on charges related to a 2001 marijuana bust in California. Tuck, an Army vet, uses marijuana to help treat chronic pain associated with injuries he received in a parachuting accident back in the 1980s (reportedly his parachute failed to open during a jump). In 2001, after his marijuana-growing operation in California was busted, Tuck fled to Canada in an effort to avoid prosecution, reports The Washington Post. For four years, he had been navigating the Canadian system, seeking asylum, but was abruptly, and surprisingly, denied that safe harbor last month, says Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML. [continues 405 words]
Jackson County's DA Has Convicted 28 Black People on Drug Charges Via Manufactured Evidence and Railroaded Trials. Now a Small-Town Exile, Her Family, and a Few Neighbors Are Fighting Back Frederick "Rick" Patterson was born in the small Southeast Texas city of Edna, seat of Jackson Co. and just north of Port Lavaca, in 1954, the same year the rural community earned its first moment in the national spotlight. That January, the U.S. Supreme Court heard an appeal brought by convicted murderer Pete Hernandez, an agricultural worker in Edna, who argued that Jackson Co. prosecutors denied his right to equal protection under the law by excluding Mexican-Americans from the jury pool. Hernandez's attorneys had discovered that from 1929 to 1954, not a single Mexican-American had ever served on a Jackson Co. jury - nor, for that matter, had any black juror. The state Court of Criminal Appeals had rejected Hernandez's argument - ruling that Hispanics were a subset of whites and therefore could not be considered a "special class" under the 14th Amendment. But on May 3, 1954, in a precedent-setting opinion authored by Chief Justice Earl Warren, a unanimous Supreme Court disagreed. Hernandez had "the right to be indicted and tried by juries from which all members of his class [were] not systematically excluded," Warren wrote. Indeed, Warren noted that courthouse practice itself belied Jackson Co. officials' assertion that Mexicans were considered equal to whites, for the courthouse had two separate men's restrooms - one for whites, and the other labeled for "Colored Men" and "Hombres Aqui." [continues 6734 words]
The mother of a quadriplegic man who died last year while in the custody of the Washington, D.C., Department of Corrections filed suit on Sept. 20 against individuals working for the jail and a local hospital for failing to provide adequate medical care in violation of federal laws -- including the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Still, medi-pot advocates argue that there's at least one party -- the U.S. Congress -- notably absent from the lawsuit, even though federal lawmakers share equal responsibility for 27-year-old Jonathan Magbie's death. [continues 656 words]
There's more trouble and confusion in the Daniel Rocha police homicide case. Travis Co. Medical Examiner Robert Bayardo originally reported that Rocha was drug-free the night he was killed during a June 9 encounter with Austin police. On Monday, July 18, Bayardo reversed that assessment, reporting that a subsequent toxicology screen revealed the 18-year-old had marijuana in his system the night he was shot by Austin police. The abrupt about-face has raised questions not only about the handling of the Rocha case, but also about the general reliability of evidence coming from the ME's office. "The Medical Examiner's office apologizes for the confusion caused by the reporting of a false negative result in the initial toxicology report," Bayardo wrote in an open letter. "The probability of a false negative occurring is very low, unfortunately it did occur in this case." The reversal prompted APD Chief Stan Knee to request that the blood and urine samples be submitted to outside, third-party analysts for additional testing. [continues 1174 words]
So far, May has not been a good month for federal drug czar John Walters. During a May 3 press conference, Walters, head of the White House Office of the National Drug Control Policy, once again trotted out his tired-ass lines about the scourge of marijuana, claiming that the July suicide of 15-year-old Christopher Skaggs in Colorado is an example of the "growing body of evidence" that "smoking marijuana can increase the risk of serious mental health problems," including depression, suicidal thoughts, and schizophrenia. Walters was backed up by Skaggs' mother, who told the Rocky Mountain News that her son's counselor said that marijuana use contributed to her son's depression. "This press conference," Walters told reporters, "is a public health warning." Marijuana, he repeated, is a "very dangerous drug." [continues 410 words]
Medi-Pot Wars - Busting Quadriplegics Medical marijuana supporters converged on the Capitol Feb. 17 for the Texans for Medical Marijuana lobby day. Medi-pot patients were joined by members of the medical and religious communities to urge lawmakers to pass HB 658 - authored by Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, and joined by Reps. Terry Keel, R-Austin, and Suzanna Gratia Hupp, R-Lampasas - which would create an affirmative defense to prosecution for marijuana possession and forbid any law enforcement from investigating licensed doctors for discussing marijuana as a treatment option with their patients. Patients and others support medi-mari "not because they want to have a party, not because they want to do something deviant, but because they want to stay alive," TMM Executive Director Noelle Davis said during a noon press conference on the Capitol steps. "This is not about partying, it is about health care." [continues 819 words]
On Jan. 12, in a rare split ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the federal sentencing guideline scheme enacted by Congress in the mid-Eighties in response to an increase in drug crimes, ruling that as currently applied the guidelines violate the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, and opining that the most advisable remedy is to transform the guidelines from a mandatory to an advisory tool for use by judges. Last summer the Supremes agreed to accept and expedite two appeals brought to them by the federal government, which asked the judges to determine whether the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, written into the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, would be affected by the court's June 24 decision to toss similar guidelines at use in Washington State. In that case, styled Blakely v. Washington, the court ruled 5-4 (with the court's conservative and liberal judges joining together against the middle) that the Washington sentencing guidelines were unconstitutional because they forced judges to increase jail time for a defendant based on a bench finding of facts never presented to a jury, a violation of the Sixth Amendment. On its face, the Blakely ruling only affected state sentencing schemes, but it threw the feds into confusion because federal courts routinely decide sentences based on evidence never presented to a jury. [continues 598 words]
At their annual meeting in Philadelphia in December, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators passed a resolution condemning the war on drugs and supporting legislation repealing mandatory minimums and diverting nonviolent drug offenders into treatment programs. The resolution calls for legislation that includes "quantifiable and measurable goals" and "a drug policy agenda that prioritizes a public health, not a criminal justice approach, to drug policy. ... The war on drugs has failed, and while states have continually increased their expenditures to wage the war on drugs, policies which rely heavily on arrest and incarceration, have proven costly and ineffective at addressing these issues." [continues 561 words]
Federal drug warriors took a hit on Dec. 8 when the full U.S. Supreme Court voted to lift a temporary stay that Justice Stephen Breyer had granted against the U.S. branch of the Brazilian Union of the Vegetable Beneficent Spiritist Center (or, in Portuguese, the Uniao do Vegetal or UDV) congregation based in Santa Fe, N.M. The court relief means that for the first time in six years UDV church members will be able to use ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic substance derived from the Amazonian vine Banisteriopsis caapi, which church members take as sacrament. [continues 175 words]
The Federalist Smoke From Medical Marijuana Reaches The Supreme Court. Can They Clear The Air On States' Rights, Pot, And The Constitution? Does the federal government have the power to regulate - or, more ominously, to prohibit - the cultivation, possession, and consumption of marijuana by seriously ill patients who use the drug in compliance with state medical marijuana laws? Does the wholly intrastate cultivation and distribution of medicinal marijuana have any effect on interstate commerce of the otherwise illegal drug? If you ask California medi-pot patients Angel Raich and Diane Monson, the answer to each question is a simple and emphatic "no." [continues 3294 words]
In recent weeks, federal drug warrior John Walters has turned his attention to the latest and apparently, in his esteemed opinion, greatest threat: Canadian marijuana. Walters, head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy -- the "drug czar" -- in recent months has bemoaned the increase in availability of the allegedly superpotent Canadian bud. Canada has less strict marijuana laws than the U.S., and our northern neighbors have allegedly been cultivating strains that contain about 7% THC, more than triple the amount commonly found in U.S. pot in the Seventies. [continues 323 words]
As the election draws ever closer, federal drug czar John Walters is kicking it into high gear, taking his drugs-are-the-devil stump speeches to Oregon in an attempt to squash the state's second medical marijuana-related ballot measure, which seeks to augment the medi-pot law passed there in 1998. Walters' stumping was successful in Nevada in 2002, where the czar preached against a voter decriminalization initiative -- while skirting Silver State election law, which requires the filing of campaign expenditure reports. [continues 374 words]
In recent weeks, federal drug warrior John Walters has turned his attention to the latest and apparently, in his esteemed opinion, greatest threat: Canadian marijuana. Walters, head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy -- the "drug czar" -- in recent months has bemoaned the increase in availability of the allegedly superpotent Canadian bud. Canada has less strict marijuana laws than the U.S., and our northern neighbors have allegedly been cultivating strains that contain about 7% THC, more than triple the amount commonly found in U.S. pot in the Seventies. [continues 324 words]
Under the fearless leadership of Attorney General John Ashcroft, the U.S. Department of Justice has taken to churning out prewritten op-ed pieces in support of mandatory minimum sentencing requirements, which are being pitched to local newspapers bearing the signatures of local U.S. attorneys, reports the Drug Reform Coordination Network. Ashcroft's full-throttle "AstroTurfing" campaign -- i.e., a pseudo-grassroots campaign -- comes in response to a growing discontent with the man-min sentencing structure, voiced by several federal judges, including Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy -- and, more recently, a June 24 Supreme Court decision (Blakley v. Washington), in which the court opined that juries, and not judges, must decide the facts of a case if those facts may result in a longer sentence. [continues 222 words]
The U.S. attorney in Seattle has charged 15 people with "bulk-cash smuggling" under the USA PATRIOT Act for moving more than $3 million to Canada as part of a cross-border marijuana operation. Moving more than $10,000 from the country without reporting the transfer is illegal, reports The Seattle Times. But the cash-smuggling provision of the PATRIOT Act has strengthened that law -- taking it "out of being just a reporting violation to be a ... trafficking-type offense," Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg told the newspaper. [continues 405 words]
The latest assault on drug reformers has landed in Congress, courtesy of U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, whose new bill would beef up mandatory minimum sentences for folks convicted of selling marijuana to minors -- a measure that rebuffs recent challenges to the infamous federal sentencing scheme. Sensenbrenner's HR 4547, titled "Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2004," would amend the Controlled Substances Act to provide a minimum 10-year federal sentence for adults convicted of selling, or conspiring to sell, or attempting to sell or offer any quantity of marijuana to anyone under 18. Any subsequent conviction would net a life sentence -- an extreme measure apparently needed to protect "children from drug traffickers," according to Sensenbrenner's charmingly draconian offering. [continues 746 words]
The Nevada Supreme Court has accepted a case filed by the Marijuana Policy Project and has ordered Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller and federal drug czar John Walters to file an official response to the MPP's complaint. At issue is Walters' failure to file expenditure reports detailing his use of taxpayer money to travel to Nevada and campaign against a 2002 state ballot initiative to decriminalize marijuana. The MPP says Walters' stumping was a clear violation of the 1939 Hatch Act, which regulates the political activities of government officials. While in Nevada, the group charges, Walters was on taxpayer time and used his official title -- director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy -- to campaign against legalization. The group appealed to Heller's office to force Walters to comply with Nevada's campaign finance reporting laws; Walters refused, and Heller let the matter drop, which is when the MPP cried foul and took their case to the state Supreme Court. The court has given Heller and Walters until early June to file a response. [end]
On May 14, during its annual state convention, the Texas Medical Association unanimously - and without discussion - adopted a new policy recommendation supporting the right of doctors and patients to discuss medical marijuana as a viable treatment option, without fear of recrimination by authorities. The TMA delegates also reaffirmed the association's call for further research on medicinal marijuana, "including well-controlled studies in patients who have serious pain-related conditions," according to the report of the TMA's Council on Scientific Affairs, which was approved by the TMA delegates. "Paramount is support for physicians to discuss with patients any treatment option available and to do so without recrimination for the physician and/or patient." [continues 163 words]
Do your children, friends, or other loved ones own "colorful, beaded bracelets and necklaces?" Do they use nasal inhalers or have trouble concentrating? Are they depressed? Do they own a "princess" costume? If so, your loved one just might be an illegal-drug-taking Raver. "A pattern of this behavior or ownership of several of these items may indicate that your child is involved in the rave scene," warns the Texas Department of Public Safety. But don't panic (at least not yet), because the DPS on April 28 kicked off a statewide program to put an end to illegal drug use at "organized rave parties." (Okay, now you can panic.) [continues 501 words]
After lobbying delegates, fielding questions, and asking for a floor vote, the Texas League of Women Voters during their annual convention April 16-18 voted to conduct a two-year study of the state's drug policies. Two Texas LWV members and drug reform advocates - Austinite Noelle Davis, executive director of the newly formed Texans for Medical Marijuana, and Dallas chapter member Suzanne Wills, also with the Drug Policy Forum of Texas - successfully championed the motion, which calls on the LWV to evaluate the state's current drug laws and the effects the laws might have on "young people, communities of color, and medical care and public health." The study also calls for an evaluation of the "social and economic costs of relying on prohibition, law enforcement, and imprisonment to solve problems related to drugs." According to the Drug Reform Coordination Network, Wills said that she and Davis argued that a drug policy study could help the graying LWV attract younger members. "[T]his could be an issue that does that," Wills said. [continues 353 words]
Four drug-policy reform advocacy groups on Feb. 18 filed suit in federal court in Washington, D.C., against the federal government, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, claiming that an amendment to a recently enacted federal appropriations bill violates constitutionally protected free speech. At issue is an amendment to the Consolidated Appropriations Act (HR 2673) offered by Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., which forbids local transit authorities from accepting and displaying advertisements that advocate for marijuana (and other drug) policy reform on buses, trains, or at depots or shelters. [continues 430 words]
During his State of the Union address on Jan. 20, President George W. Bush announced a proposal to allocate $23 million for schools to implement drug testing programs. Bush happily noted that drug use among high school students has dropped 11% in the past two years, a decline he credited in part to the effectiveness of in-school drug testing - a claim that drug reformers and civil libertarians say is specious, at best. "Drug testing is not the magic solution to our kids' safety in schools. It does not reduce drug use among students," said Drug Policy Alliance attorney Judy Appel in the DPA's weekly newsletter. "If the president wants to address teenage drug use, he should allocate that [money] to the after-school programs that have been cut, to drug prevention programs, and to full-time substance abuse counselors in schools." A study published last April by the Journal of School Health found that drug testing had no effect on reducing drug use among middle and high school students. The DPA notes that only 5% of schools have drug-testing policies, making it highly unlikely that testing could've played any substantial role in the decline of drug use among teens. (For more on drug testing, see www.drugpolicy.org.) [continues 369 words]
On Jan. 6, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Marijuana Policy Project issued its final report cards for each of the major presidential candidates, grading them based on their support for medical marijuana. In just eight months of campaigning and lobbying the candidates, the MPP reports success in persuading six of the nine major candidates to adopt various positive positions on medical marijuana. Topping the list is Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who earned an A+. The MPP notes that Kucinich told the San Francisco Chronicle that he supports medical marijuana "without reservation" and that as president he would be willing to sign an executive order permitting its use. Also at the top of the class: former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, who earned an A and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, with an A-. Both pledged to end Drug Enforcement Administration-led raids on medical marijuana patients, as did retired Gen. Wesley Clark, whom the MPP awarded a B+. The Rev. Al Sharpton earned a B. [continues 240 words]
Things keep getting worse for officials in Goose Creek, S.C.; so far two separate lawsuits have been filed against the city's police department and against administrators at the city's Stratford High School in connection with a November drug raid there. On Nov. 5, cops in the Charleston suburb burst into Stratford High at 6:40am with guns drawn, and ordered students to get down on the floor while cops searched lockers and book bags for marijuana; students who didn't move fast enough were handcuffed. No drugs were found, but the raid has stirred up trouble for local police and for Stratford principal George McCracken, who reportedly called for the raid to help take care of the school's "drug problem." [continues 289 words]
