Crack or powder, it's still cocaine; but the sentences have had unintended effects

Two significant steps occurred this week to correct the draconian and racially suspect sentences mandated for crack cocaine offenders.

In a 7-2 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 15-year sentence of Derrick Kimbrough, convicted of selling both powder and crack cocaine. The Justice Department argued his sentence violated federal guidelines because it was less than the mandated 19 to 22.5 years and flouted the will of Congress requiring harsher penalties for crack dealers.

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The U.S. Supreme Court showed good sense - and uncommon courage - in giving judges more sway in sentencing drug dealers to prison.

In two cases, the court ruled that a judge could veer from hard-line drug sentencing guidelines that have drawn criticism as racist and unthinking. A trial judge, the high court found, should have the discretion to mete out sentences that vary from harsh sentences set by federal sentencing guidelines.

The major case involved crack cocaine, which can draw 100 times the prison time compared with convictions related to powder cocaine. By one count, 82 percent of the defendants sentenced in federal court for dealing crack are African American while only 27 percent of those selling the white powder.

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The rhetoric surrounding marijuana, or cannabis sativa, as medicine ranges from calling it everything from "the killer weed" to "the miracle drug." Each side in the debate pulls snippets from scientific studies to confirm or rebut their point of view. One need only review information provided by groups like the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws or the White House policy room to see this effect.

The most comprehensive look at the issue to date is Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base, conducted by the U.S. Institute of Medicine and published in 1999. With minimal research being conducted in the U.S. on marijuana as medicine, in 2000, the California Legislature created the University of California's Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research in San Diego. The center was tasked to assess the use of cannabis as an alternative for treating specific medical conditions.

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I am a neighborhood watch block captain and one of the organizers of North Park's protest of smoke shops selling illegal drug paraphernalia ["The Front Lines," Nov. 28]. Within a one-block radius of a cluster of three smoke shops in North Park, our neighborhood watch group has witnessed with their own eyes drug use, drug deals and drug holdups. On many nights in this area, one can find drug users getting high, often hiding behind dumpsters, and drug dealers walking around with drug laden knapsacks. That's why we have been protesting these shops. We appreciate the work of the Drug Abatement Response Team and the city attorney to enforce the law and to protect our children from this criminal element.

Jeff Stebbins, North Park Neighborhood Watch

[end]

Letters Warn Of Penalties For Leasing To Marijuana Dispensaries.

The Sacramento office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is turning to a new strategy against medical marijuana dispensaries: warning landlords they could be imprisoned or forced to forfeit their buildings if their tenants continue to peddle medical pot.

Sacramento-based DEA agents have sent letters to dispensaries' landlords in recent weeks, viewing the mailings as a simple way to cut down on what federal officials consider illicit activity.

However, medical marijuana advocates - who saw about 200 DEA letters go out in the Los Angeles area this summer - say federal officials are being too heavy-handed against such dispensaries, which California voters approved as legal more than a decade ago.

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To the Editor:

Why does cultivating tomatoes not create cleanup problems while cannabis (marijuana) does (article, "Pot garden cleanup a heavy load for authorities," Nov. 30)? Since backwards thinking dominates America's cannabis laws, there isn't a regulated cultivation system in place for the extremely popular plant which will be grown one way or the other.

America's foolish cannabis laws also mean "free" American farmers may not grow hemp (without THC) while communist Chinese farmers can and cannabis is a Schedule I substance along with heroin while meth is only a Schedule II substance.

Unmistakably, cannabis laws and those who support them are un-American and ignorant.

Stan White

Dillon, Colo.

[end]

On a 3-2 vote, supervisors Tuesday approved an ordinance limiting the number of medical marijuana plants that can be grown in unincorporated areas of Mendocino County to 25 plants per assessor's parcel.

Supervisors Jim Wattenburger, Kendall Smith and David Colfax voted for the measure; while supervisors John Pinches and Michael Delbar opposed it.

Pinches voted against it because he thought the measure too restrictive; Delbar voted against it because he thought it was not restrictive enough.

Before the vote, Ross Liberty, who lives on Highway 253 southwest of Ukiah, warned supervisors the decision they were about to make would be historical.

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A Judge's Order Targets 24 People And Requires Them To Stay Away From A Park

Marcell Toliver thinks the court order barring him and 23 other alleged drug dealers and users from James McClatchy Park in the Oak Park neighborhood is unfair. "I'm homeless. I live in the park," Toliver told The Bee's Christina Jewett. "They're trying to say we're a nuisance and we're not."

Residents think otherwise. They are tired of calling the police to report drug dealing in McClatchy Park -- 15 acres of green lawn, trees, ball fields and meandering foot paths that families feel are off limits. Joggers, picnickers, people who want to play tennis or hoops or send their kids to the playground avoid the Oak Park neighborhood's signature park because drug dealers make it unsafe.

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An Open Letter to Mike Agguirre and the Morality Police

"We made a decision we're going after every single shop that sells drug paraphernalia." -City Attorney Mike Aguirre, CityBeat, Nov. 28, 2007

Dear Mike Aguirre: Are you nuts? Do you really believe that anybody will stop doing drugs if you shut down the paraphernalia suppliers? We druggies are highly resourceful. Pot smokers can carve apples into elaborate smoking devices with a nail file they fabricate from possum bones when necessary. Your typical tweaker can comb an eight-ball out of the carpet with a pair of chopsticks. These are imaginative people, sir-they will not be forestalled.

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Proposition 215, the California Compassionate Use Act, was enacted by the voters and took effect on November 6, 1996. This law fundamentally changed who can be arrested for possessing marijuana in this state.

Some people, even though they are patients who possess marijuana, can be arrested. There is nothing in Proposition 215 to compel police to accept a patient's medical claim as being valid. Many legal patients have been raided or arrested for having dubious or outdated recommendations, for growing amounts that cops deem excessive, or on account of neighbors' complaints. An essential aim of the state ID card system will be to help avoid undue arrests. Once patients have been charged, it is up to the courts to determine the validity of their medical claim.

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I'm writing about the on-target letter "Time to legalize pot" in the Oct. 25 edition of The Union.

It seems to me that in order to properly evaluate our nation's drug policies, we need to compare and contrast our drug policies with those of another nation with substantially different drug policies. I suggest that we use the Czech Republic for our comparison.

In the Czech Republic, citizens can legally use, possess, grow, or purchase small quantities of marijuana. In the United States, many otherwise law-abiding citizens are locked in prison cages for possessing, growing or selling various amounts of marijuana.

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For all you stoners out there, we all took a hit a couple of weeks ago (and I'm not talking about the kind that makes you all happy and giddy). The hit I'm talking about is when the feds raided a Long Beach medical marijuana dispensary.

Long Beach Compassionate Caregivers (as the joint was officially called), located on 342 E. Fourth St., has now been "closed indefinitely" after the feds served a search warrant "on the basis of probable cause."

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Marijuana Advocates Circulate Petitions Despite Apparent Backlash

Lake County marijuana advocates are circulating petitions to create a statewide ballot initiative to legalize marijuana, despite an apparent public backlash against the abuses associated with growing it for medicinal uses.

The proposed initiative, which won state approval for circulation late last week, would prohibit marijuana's use for anyone under the age of 21 unless it was for medical reasons.

It also would bar anyone from being subjected to state criminal or civil penalties for the possession, cultivation, transportation, distribution or recreational use of marijuana.

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As a Christian, it's encouraging to see sick citizens allowed to use cannabis ("Medicinal pot on Yuba agenda," Dec. 1) without being persecuted. I'm reminded of "but whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (1 John 3:17). Jesus Christ risked jail to heal the sick.

Further, cannabis (marijuana) is believed to be the tree of life, and the very last page of the Bible tells us the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations.

Stan White

Dillon, Colo.

[end]

THEY didn't look like multimillion-dollar homes -- just two new tract houses in northwest and southeast Fresno. But inside both, police found millions of dollars in potent marijuana -- and indications that a new way of growing it is catching on in the central San Joaquin Valley.

Indoor marijuana farms allow organized criminal groups to grow powerful new strains of the drug faster, more profitably and with less risk than an outdoor garden.

"You can harvest a crop every three months, and after a year, walk away with $1.5 million," said Robert Pennal of the state's Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement.

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A Family Searches for Answers in the Strange Death of a DEA Agent Known As 'Rubberneck' And 'Buckles'

The grieving father crushes a cigarette into a crowded ashtray on the kitchen counter and stares blankly at a tiny TV screen next to the sink. It's 11 a.m. on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, exactly one year since he last saw his son, Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Jeffrey T. Bockelkamp, alive. Today the father, thin and expressionless, is drinking in the family home in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, a blue-collar suburb of Scranton.

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Last May, Tim Chapman was sitting in his car on the edge of a cliff, weeping. If he took his foot off the brake, he would go over the edge - - to silence, to peace, and to death.

"It was a truck stop in Truckee," Chapman said. "I was driving to Reno. I was literally going to kill myself. I kept thinking: I should have stayed in Iraq. I should have died over there."

The 23-year-old National Guardsman, just six months back from a tour in the combat zone, sat on the brink for two hours. Even today, he isn't sure why he didn't launch himself over the side.

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The main purpose of the criminal justice system is to reduce crime and all of the harm and misery that accompany it.

Although there simply must be negative consequences for criminal acts, as a practical matter this goal cannot be maximized by punishment alone. We also must employ the concept of "Restorative Justice." That means we must also concentrate upon rehabilitation and treatment of the offenders, as well as community healing.

There is no doubt that we need prisons in our society. Unfortunately, for whatever reason some offenders see the rest of us as their natural prey, and these people present an unacceptable threat to public safety and well being. Accordingly, there can be good cause to lock up people like this for the protection of the community. In that regard, I have taken a tour of San Quentin State Prison in the San Francisco area, and I have never seen so many men that had "ball bearings for eyes." The bottom line is that I was quite happy that they were where they were.

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Along with the Christmas trees and family gatherings, there's another end-of-the-year ritual in Oakland - a candlelight vigil for the murdered.

The body count is woven into the civic consciousness here - a number chased by homicide inspectors, studied by criminologists, lamented in churches, reported by journalists. Every mayor leaves City Hall on broken promises to quell the violence, and the killings continue. An additional 115 have been killed this year, putting Oakland on pace for another gruesome record.

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'It's Only Beginning'

As the child of a drug addict, Angela Coronado couldn't trust her mother to show up at school events or take her shopping.

"Our relationship was really nothing," said Angela, 17.

Her mom, Tina Benavente, began smoking methamphetamine heavily in the beginning of the decade and by 2002 was drifting on the streets trying desperately to score more of the drug. She took Angela and her two younger brothers to live in a motel room with their grandmother so they wouldn't be homeless with her. "I was so far gone into drug use, that's where most of my check was going," Benavente said.

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