This Is Also All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day: Daniel Chong, an innocent UC San Diego student, spent five days in a holding cell without food, water, or human contact after he was wrongfully detained during a raid of a friend’s house by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The 23-year-old wasn’t charged with a crime, but officers forgot to release him. He kicked, screamed, and cried, but no one came to his aid: “They never came back, ignored all my cries and I still don’t know what happened. I’m not sure how they could forget me.”
Chong was forced to drink his own urine for hydration and he carved the words “Sorry Mom” into his arm with glass in a fit of psychosis. “I had to do what I had to do to survive,” he said. “I was completely insane.”
On Chong’s fifth day in the small, windowless room, officers finally heard his pleas for help. Upon his release, he was incoherent and had to be hospitalized. He was found to have eaten glass and treated for a perforated lung.
Chong is considering filing a lawsuit against the DEA, which has apologized to him and promised a review of the incident.
[huffpo]
In a 2011 interview, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that legalization is “not likely to work” because “there is just too much money in it.” Clinton was talking about cartels, but the same holds true for the legal industries that owe their profit margins, market shares, and—in some cases—very existence to the war on drugs. Here are four industries you might not realize profit off the drug war.
“SAN DIEGO (AP) — The war on drugs is going to the classified sections of Mexican newspapers.
Smugglers have long advertised work as security guards, housecleaners and cashiers, telling applicants they must drive company cars to the United States. They aren’t told the cars are loaded with drugs.
Starting this week, U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement began buying ad space in Tijuana newspapers to warn jobseekers they might be unwitting pawns.
“Why don’t we do the same thing that (cartels are) doing? It’s successful for them. Why wouldn’t it be successful for us?” Lester Hayes, a group supervisor for ICE in San Diego, recalls his agents telling him.
There have been 39 arrests since February 2011 at San Diego’s two border crossings tied to the ads for seemingly legitimate jobs, according to ICE, which hadn’t seen such significant numbers before.
Those arrests have yielded 3,400 pounds of marijuana, 75 pounds of cocaine and 100 pounds of methamphetamine — a tiny fraction of total seizures but enough to convince U.S. authorities that smugglers are increasingly turning to the recruitment technique.
Drug smugglers always look to exploit weak links along the 1,954-mile border, even if the window of opportunity is brief. In the past several years, they have turned to makeshift boats on the Pacific Ocean and ultralight aircraft in the deserts of California and Arizona. In the San Diego area, there has been a spike in teenagers strapping drugs to their bodies to walk across the border from Tijuana.
Some suddenly popular techniques are limited to particular pockets of the border. ICE has not spotted significant spikes in newspaper ads outside of San Diego.
Ads that authorities connect to drug smugglers appear innocuous. They offer work in the United States — an invitation that only people who can cross the border legally need apply — with a phone number and sometimes a location to apply in person.
New hires are told to drive company cars across the border, typically to a fast-food restaurant or shopping center in San Diego, according to ICE. When they arrive, they are often told there will be no work after all that day and must leave the car and walk back to Mexico after being paid a small amount.
The drivers are typically paid $50 to $200 a trip — much less than the $1,500 to $5,000 that seasoned smugglers are typically paid for such trips, Hayes said.
For drug traffickers, the tactic lowers expenses and, they hope, makes drivers appear less nervous when questioned by border inspectors, said Millie Jones, an assistant special agent in charge of investigations for ICE in San Diego.”
(Source: ap.org)
HAVANA, Cuba — When heads of state meet this weekend at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, two contentious issues are expected to dominate the debate.
One will be Cuba’s exclusion from the meeting, since the Communist-ruled country isn’t a member of the Organization of…
The United States is giving $65 million a year to the Guatemalan government, including more than $1 million for the military to aid its role in the anti-drug effort. But, giving the Guatemalan army more weapons to fight marijuana growers is like giving the Mafia bazookas to combat jaywalking in New York City.
#Occupy420 chalk is appearing on UVM campus. We tracked down one of the people in charge of the operation and conducted this interview. The following interview has not been edited in any way.
BB: What is #Occupy420 and what are you hoping to accomplish by this?
420: #Occupy420 is a call to arms! For far too long has the use of cannabis been prohibited by law, for reasons which are not founded in truth. On April 20th, 2012, we ask all who are affiliated by these unjust policies to join us in demonstrating our support for legalization.
BB: How did you come to think of this? What was the inspiration?
420: UVM has long been known for its weed smoking student body. We believe this group out to stand in solidarity with #Occupy420 demonstrations all over the nation on the “infamous” stoner holiday – 4/20!
BB: How many people do you expect to participate as a direct result of your efforts? What would you be content with?
420: Any action taken to further the goals of the Marijuana Legalization movement would be satisfying! More than anything we wish to generate discussion of the topic.
BB: Obviously there is a connection inside our heads to the occupy movement. Are you affiliated with them? What is their involvement, if any?
420: Currently, the activist collective known as “Anonymous” is collaborating with Occupy groups to highlight the Marijuaa Issue on April 20th. We believe the Green Mountain State should be represented as a proponent regarding cannabis legalization.
BB: How do you think the administration will react/has reacted to this? The students?
420: We hope the reaction will be peaceful and positive! An amazing achievement in the wake of these actions would be the creation of a UVM chapter of NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), which does not currently exist. There are certainly enough anti-prohibitionists on campus with a willingness to make change that this goal is very plausible.
BB: What should we expect to see on April 20th at UVM?
420: It is our desire that individuals will publicly demonstrate their dissatisfaction for current Cannabis policy. This could be accomplished by making a sign, starting a conversation about weed, or by something as simple as wearing green. College students are highly creative, and we expect the UVM body to express itself in various ways.
BB: Do you have anything else you want to add?
420: As a closing note, we urge every person to inform themselves about Marijuana Laws and efforts to change them. If you need a place to start, search HR2306 on the internet.
-Big Bird, with a shoutout @_PaoloRossi for the top picture.
Twenty years ago Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize winner, the most influential economist of the 20th century, and an icon of the right, said: “If you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel.” It is only because the government makes the drugs illegal that the criminal cartel has a highly profitable monopoly on meeting the demand. Milton Friedman also said: “Government never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual’s own good. The case for prohibiting drugs is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from over-eating. We all know that over-eating causes more deaths than drugs do.” But there are a quarter-million Americans in jail for possessing or selling drugs. Nobody is in jail for producing, marketing or eating junk food.
This is amazing news!
The Committee will undertake a comprehensive review of drugs policy in the new year. The Committee will examine the effectiveness of the Government’s 2010 drugs strategy and the UK Government’s contribution to global efforts to reduce the supply and demand of illicit drugs. Specifically, the Committee will consider:
- The extent to which the Government’s 2010 drug strategy is a ‘fiscally responsible policy with strategies grounded in science, health, security and human rights’ in line with the recent recommendation by the Global Commission on Drug Policy
- The criteria used by the Government to measure the efficacy of its drug policies
- The independence and quality of expert advice which is being given to the government
- Whether drug-related policing and expenditure is likely to decrease in line with police budgets and what impact this may have
- The cost effectiveness of different policies to reduce drug usage
- The extent to which public health considerations should play a leading role in developing drugs policy
- The relationship between drug and alcohol abuse
- The comparative harm and cost of legal and illegal drugs
- The impact of the transfer of functions of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse to Public Health England and how this will affect the provision of treatment
- The availability of ‘legal highs’ and the challenges associated with adapting the legal framework to deal with new substances
- The links between drugs, organised crime and terrorism
- Whether the UK is supporting its global partners effectively and what changes may occur with the introduction of the national crime agency
- Whether detailed consideration ought to be given to alternative ways of tackling the drugs dilemma, as recommended by the Select Committee in 2002 (The Government’s Drugs Policy: Is It Working?, HC 318, 2001–02) and the Justice Committee’s 2010 Report on justice reinvestment (Cutting crime: the case for justice reinvestment, HC 94, 2009–10).”
Organisations and individuals interested in making written submissions are invited to do so by Tuesday 10 January 2012.
Under changes in Czech drug policy approved Wednesday by the Cabinet, growers of psychedelic cacti and fungi will no longer face criminal punishment. The hallucinogenic plants will be removed from the government’s drug “black list,” meaning that cultivation of more than “small” amounts will no longer be a crime.
(Source: suciomalvestido)
![fuckyeahdrugpolicy:
excerpt from Who We Are and Why We Fight: “People Who Do Drugs, and People Who Don’t, Will End the War on Drugs” - a speech delivered by Ethan Nadelmann at the 2011 International Drug Policy Reform Conference in November:
“[When] people ask, “Who is this movement? Who is this drug policy reform movement?” And some of them will say, “I know who all of you are. You’re just the people who want to get high, smoke your weed and don’t care.” You know what I say to them? “There’s a little truth to that.” Because many of us are the people that do want to get high. And we do enjoy marijuana and that marijuana’s been good to us, not bad to us. We are the people whose lives have been enriched by the psychedelic experiences of LSD and mushrooms. And we are the people who have even figured out how to play with the more dangerous drugs without being caught up by them. We are the people who say if this is my pleasure or this is my vice, then it’s no damn business of the government or my employer what I put in my body, and there is no basis for treating me like a common criminal. Get the government out of my face and my boss out of my face.
But do you know who else we are? We are also the people who hate drugs. We are the people who have seen the worst that drugs can do. We are the people living with addiction in our lives, in our own families and in our own communities. We are the people who have lost children to an overdose, and a brother or a sister to HIV, and a cousin to Hep C, and whose parents were alcoholics or drug addicts. We are the people who have seen the gateway theory manifest itself in our own lives and families. We are the people that wish we could have the drug-free society, the drug-free world, but who know that that is not possible, and who know that no matter how much we hate drugs, that the War on Drugs is not the way to deal with the reality.
And, you know what else we are? We’re the people who don’t give a damn about drugs. We’re the people who don’t consider ourselves drug-users. I mean, my kid may be on Ritalin, my wife’s on Prozac, my dad’s on Viagra, but we don’t see ourselves as drug users. What do you care about? We care about fundamental freedom and preserving the Bill of Rights in America. What do we care about? We care about ending the violence and degradation and corruption in Mexico and other countries that have been harmed immensely by the drug war. What do we care about? About ending the racial injustice and the class injustice of the War on Drugs in our society. What do we care about? About treating addiction as a health issue. What do we care about? Individual freedom and human rights and civil rights and all of the important values that we care about. And we target the War on Drugs because it is the single, most vicious thing undermining the values that we care about deeply.
— Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, pictured above at a DPF conference in 1992](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwbydw2hJv1qc1ca1o1_1280.jpg)
excerpt from Who We Are and Why We Fight: “People Who Do Drugs, and People Who Don’t, Will End the War on Drugs” - a speech delivered by Ethan Nadelmann at the 2011 International Drug Policy Reform Conference in November:
“[When] people ask, “Who is this movement? Who is this drug policy reform movement?” And some of them will say, “I know who all of you are. You’re just the people who want to get high, smoke your weed and don’t care.” You know what I say to them? “There’s a little truth to that.” Because many of us are the people that do want to get high. And we do enjoy marijuana and that marijuana’s been good to us, not bad to us. We are the people whose lives have been enriched by the psychedelic experiences of LSD and mushrooms. And we are the people who have even figured out how to play with the more dangerous drugs without being caught up by them. We are the people who say if this is my pleasure or this is my vice, then it’s no damn business of the government or my employer what I put in my body, and there is no basis for treating me like a common criminal. Get the government out of my face and my boss out of my face.
But do you know who else we are? We are also the people who hate drugs. We are the people who have seen the worst that drugs can do. We are the people living with addiction in our lives, in our own families and in our own communities. We are the people who have lost children to an overdose, and a brother or a sister to HIV, and a cousin to Hep C, and whose parents were alcoholics or drug addicts. We are the people who have seen the gateway theory manifest itself in our own lives and families. We are the people that wish we could have the drug-free society, the drug-free world, but who know that that is not possible, and who know that no matter how much we hate drugs, that the War on Drugs is not the way to deal with the reality.
And, you know what else we are? We’re the people who don’t give a damn about drugs. We’re the people who don’t consider ourselves drug-users. I mean, my kid may be on Ritalin, my wife’s on Prozac, my dad’s on Viagra, but we don’t see ourselves as drug users. What do you care about? We care about fundamental freedom and preserving the Bill of Rights in America. What do we care about? We care about ending the violence and degradation and corruption in Mexico and other countries that have been harmed immensely by the drug war. What do we care about? About ending the racial injustice and the class injustice of the War on Drugs in our society. What do we care about? About treating addiction as a health issue. What do we care about? Individual freedom and human rights and civil rights and all of the important values that we care about. And we target the War on Drugs because it is the single, most vicious thing undermining the values that we care about deeply.
— Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, pictured above at a DPF conference in 1992
This is an article written by Joseph McNamara, a retired police chief of San Jose, California.
Drug Laws Harm Teens More Than Pot Does | Room for Debate @ NYT
The appearance of any new study indicating an increase in marijuana use by youth is always a prelude to a renewed government surge in America’s war on drugs. But let’s be realistic about our options. It’s not as though tough enforcement keeps kids away from marijuana. Usage goes up and down no matter what we do. By keeping marijuana illegal, we nudge youngsters into contact with real criminals engaged in the drug trade. Then we bust kids, giving them a criminal record.
We shouldn’t, of course, recommend to kids that they get high on pot instead of drunk on booze or blasted on coke, but recognizing that they may not be the perfect children that we were, the following facts speak for themselves: No one ever died from using marijuana, unlike alcohol or cocaine. Marijuana tends to mellow people, but we know alcohol and cocaine excites some into violence. +
