http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=3086246

U.S. drug war damages both Can., Mexico
The StarPhoenix
May 28, 2010

Debt-reduction dilemma: Legal pot = $1 billion a year
Bankrupt California is sorely tempted to rewrite the law for a pot of gold
By Anna Mehler Paperny
Globe and Mail
May 28, 2010

See study and commentary attached.

BBC News
28 May 2010

Heroin therapy call for 'chronic addicts'

By Emma Wilkinson Health reporter, BBC News

Injectable "medical" grade heroin should be offered under supervision to the most hardened addicts, say UK researchers.

A trial in 127 addicts who had persistently failed to quit the drug showed a significant drop in use of "street" heroin after six months.

Writing in The Lancet, the researchers said the "robust evidence"
supports wider provision of heroin treatment.

A spokesman for the government said it would consider the findings.

Around 5-10% of heroin addicts fail to quit despite use of conventional treatments, such as methadone.

Those who took part in the trial had been using the drug for an average of 17 years and had been in treatment for 10 years.

When they took part in the programme they were on methadone treatment but were still taking street heroin on a regular basis.

The researchers - working at clinics in south London, Brighton and Darlington - found that those offered injectable heroin under the supervision of a nurse were significantly more likely to cut down their use of street heroin than those receiving oral or injectable methadone.

Improvements were seen within six weeks of starting the programme, they reported.

In further analysis yet to be published, it was noted that the benefits remained after two years and some patients were able to stop use of the drug altogether.
Treatable

Study leader, Professor John Strang, from the National Addiction Centre at King's College London, said the supervised heroin programme enables patients to start thinking about employment, re-engaging with their families and taking responsibility for their lives.

"This is a treatment for a severe group of heroin addicts that ordinary treatments have failed with and the question we're answering is 'are these patients untreatable?'."

"The very good news is that you can get these people on a constructive trajectory."

He said the latest study plus a series of other trials now provide clear evidence that this type of treatment should be offered more widely.

It was outlined in the UK government's 2008 Drug Strategy, subject to the results from this trial.

He added that although more expensive than conventional treatments, heroin therapy is considerably cheaper than imprisonment.

A Department of Health spokesman said any approach that gets people off drugs for good should be explored.

"We will look at evidence and both the clinical and cost effectiveness of these treatments.

"However, it is vital that we do all we can to prevent people using drugs in the first place."

Dr Roy Robertson a reader in the Department of Community Health Sciences at Edinburgh University, said whilst none of the outcomes are close to achieving abstinence, treatment with supervised injectable heroin "seems to be our best option".

"This is the intensive care for those heroin users who have failed after all sorts of other available treatments and continue to inject."

DrugScope chief executive Martin Barnes added that there is no "magic bullet" and several treatment interventions may be needed before someone becomes drug free or cuts down their drug use.

"On the basis of the outcomes described, there is a strong case for extending heroin prescribing as a carefully targeted and closely supervised form of treatment for chronic addiction."

---------------------------------------

To access The Lancet article:

The Lancet, Volume 375, Issue 9729, Pages 1885 - 1895, 29 May 2010
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60349-2

Supervised injectable heroin or injectable methadone versus optimised oral methadone as treatment for chronic heroin addicts in England after persistent failure in orthodox treatment (RIOTT): a randomised trial

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)60349-2/fulltext

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The Associated Press
Thursday, May 27, 2010

Jamaica: 73 killed in hunt for alleged drug lord

By DAVID McFADDEN

KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaican security forces kicked down doors and arrested dozens of people in a bullet-pocked slum Thursday, and said the death toll from four days of fighting sparked by the search for a reputed drug lord has risen to 73.

The target of the manhunt, Christopher "Dudus" Coke, was nowhere to be found. He is sought by the United States on drug and arms trafficking charges, and the U.S. Justice Department calls him one of the world's most dangerous drug kingpins.

"We are still searching for Mr. Coke," Deputy Police Chief Glenmore Hinds said. "Certainly we can't disclose where we are looking."

He said Coke's offices were found in the heart of the Tivoli Gardens slum, but would not say what authorities found there.

Hinds said police and soldiers had found 73 "civilian" bodies, three of which might not have been killed in incidents related to the raid. He said three security officers were also killed in battles with gunmen loyal to Coke, who had nine months to prepare for an escape while Jamaica's prime minister wavered over U.S. demands for his extradition.

Authorities sought to reassure the public about the ability and willingness of authorities to control Kingston's downtown slums.

They also stressed that mostly men had died in the shootouts, but refused to provide specific breakdowns and the tally could not be independently confirmed.

The worst bloodshed was in Tivoli Gardens, Coke's ramshackle base in West Kingston, where roughly 35 international journalists - including three from The Associated Press - were escorted Thursday by soldiers during an hour-long tour.

In the battle-scarred neighborhood, visibly anxious residents, mostly women and children, said they were relieved the fighting was apparently over but accused authorities of playing down casualty figures. Many looked warily at soldiers when they talked with journalists and accused security forces of shooting innocents.

"They kill my baby pickney!" a woman shouted to reporters, using the patois word for child while standing in a cluster of people near a large mural showing Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who Coke helped to win elected office and represents West Kingston in Parliament.

Another woman, who said she did not feel safe providing her name, lashed out at the government for approving the raid on Tivoli Gardens, where graffiti can be seen reading "Vote for Bruce" and "JLP" - the prime minister's Jamaica Labour Party.

"Not everybody is guilty living in here! A lot of innocent people died,"
the woman told AP reporters, adding that she huddled at home with her two children while shooting raged outside.

When asked about the numerous allegations of human rights abuses during the fighting, Hinds would only say that "any individual violator is responsible for his actions."

Information Minister Daryl Vaz said that officials were trying to identify decomposed bodies and that the government would conduct an independent investigation into police actions during the raid. He said Golding's government was "very concerned" about allegations of deliberate killings by security forces, which have long had a reputation for slipshod investigations and for being too quick on the trigger.

Police rarely, if ever, patrol inside Coke's slum. The last time they attempted to assert control inside Tivoli Gardens, in 2001, clashes between gunmen and security forces killed 25 civilians, a soldier and a constable.

On Thursday, sporadic gunfire could still be heard in the neighboring slum of Denham Town, where some streets remained barricaded by local gang members.

The director of Jamaica's Red Cross, Jaslin Salmon, said he was trying to get access to Denham Town - and said the death toll was almost certain to go up once he did.

"We know there are people with urgent needs there," Salmon said. "We've also been told there are bodies in there."

As journalists drove past Denham Town in a convoy, a crowd of some 100 people pointed at nearby May Pen cemetery, shouting: "There are a lot of bodies over there!" Soldiers barred anyone from entering. An AP crew was hindered from taking photographs outside the cemetery gates.

Hinds said 15 "badly decomposed" bodies of people killed in the fighting were being prepared for burial at the cordoned-off graveyard.

More than 500 people had been arrested in connection with the four days of fighting, most of them in Tivoli Gardens. Police were searching for weapons, but had found only six, along with 7,000 rounds of ammunition and some improvised explosives, Hinds said.

Detainees were being held at Kingston's National Arena, where dozens of relatives congregated outside a security gate, some carrying pictures of their sons.

"They are handling our kids very bad in there," said a bearded man, who said he would not provide his name. Later, a group of smiling young men walked out of the stadium.

The 41-year-old Coke, also known as "general" and "president," allegedly relied on a band of gunmen to keep control of Tivoli Gardens. He solidified his authority by dispensing charity and street justice in an area with little government presence.

American authorities say Coke has been trafficking cocaine to the streets of New York City since the mid-1990s, allegedly hiring island women to hide the drugs on themselves on flights to the U.S.

The four-day gunbattle occurred around the capital on Jamaica's south coast, far from the tourist resorts on the north shore of the Caribbean island.

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The Associated Press
May 28, 2010

Pot-friendly Oakland looks to bring in money by licensing, taxing medical marijuana growers

LISA LEFF, MARCUS WOHLSEN

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - Local governments in California and other Western states have tried to clamp down on medical marijuana, but Oakland has taken a different approach.

If you can't beat 'em, tax 'em.

After becoming the first U.S. city to impose a special tax on medical marijuana dispensaries, Oakland soon could become the first to sanction and tax commercial pot growing operations. Selling and growing marijuana remain illegal under federal law.

Two City Council members are preparing legislation, expected to be introduced next month, that would allow at least three industrial-scale growing operations.

One of the authors, Councilman Larry Reid, said the proposal is more of an effort to bring in money than an endorsement of legalizing marijuana use - although the council has unanimously supported that, too.

The city is facing a $42 million budget shortfall. The tax voters approved last summer on the four medical marijuana clubs allowed under Oakland law is expected to contribute $1 million to its coffers in the first year, Reid said. A tax on growers' sales to the clubs could bring in substantially more, he said.

"Looking at the economic analysis, we will generate a considerable amount of additional revenues, and that will certainly help us weather the hard economic times that all urban areas are having to deal with,"
Reid said.

How much money is at stake isn't clear because the tax rate and the number of facilities the law would allow haven't been decided. A report prepared for AgraMed Inc., one of the companies planning to seek a grower's license, said its proposed 100,000-square-foot-project near the Oakland Coliseum would produce more than $2 million in city taxes each year.

Given their likely locations in empty warehouses in industrial neighborhoods, the marijuana nurseries under consideration would have more in common with factories than rural pot farms.

Dhar Mann, the founder of an Oakland hydroponics equipment store called iGrow, and Derek Peterson, a former stock broker who now sells luxury trailers outfitted for growing pot as a co-founder of GrowOp Enterprises, have hired an architect to draft plans for two warehouses where marijuana would be grown and processed year-round.

Their vision includes using lights, trays and other equipment manufactured by iGrow and creating an online system that would allow medical marijuana dispensaries to see what pot strains are in stock, place orders and track deliveries.

"We are emulating the wine industry, but instead of 'from grape to bottle,' it's 'from plant to pipe,'" Mann said.

"Or seed to sack," offered Peterson.

The pair say they intend to operate the pot-growing business they have dubbed GROPECH - Grass Roots of Oakland Philanthropic and Economic Coalition for Humanity - as a not-for-profit. They anticipate gross sales reaching $70 million a year. After paying their expenses, they'd funnel the money to local charities and non-profits through a competitive grant process.

The discussion in Oakland comes amid a statewide campaign to make California the first state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana and to authorize cities to sell and tax sales to adults. Another Oakland pot entrepreneur, Richard Lee, is sponsoring a ballot measure voters will consider in November.

Lee, who owns two of Oakland's four dispensaries as well as Oaksterdam University, a trade school for the medical marijuana industry, hopes to secure one of the cultivation permits, but he thinks the city should opt for having more, smaller sites instead of a handful of large ones.

"We need to legalize and tax and regulate the production side as well as the retail side," Lee said. "It's a natural step."

Other supporters say licensed growers would create hundreds of well-paying jobs. The local branch of the United Food and Commercial Workers union already has signed up about 100 medical marijuana workers, and the growers are expected to have union shops as well, said Dan Rush, special operations director of UFCW Local 5.

"I think Oakland's intention is to make Oakland the leader and the trendsetter in how this industry can be effective in all of California,"
Rush said.

Allowing medical marijuana to be grown openly also could give patients a better idea of where their pot is coming from. Now, many growers hide their identities to avoid federal prosecution.

Oakland has already developed a reputation as one of the nation's most pot-friendly cities. Legislation on the city's books includes a declaration of a public health emergency after federal crackdowns on marijuana clubs and a ballot measure instructing police to make marijuana their lowest enforcement priority.

Self-described "guru of ganja" Ed Rosenthal, a popular writer of pot-growing how-to books, lived in Oakland for 25 years before moving recently to a more affluent borough nearby. He credits the city's positive attitude toward marijuana to a critical mass of activists who have flocked there since the 1970s.

"The whole population of Oakland is just very progressive," Rosenthal said. "It's the radicals who couldn't afford Berkeley or San Francisco who all moved to Oakland."

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Marijuana Legalization in California

By Jeffrey A. Miron

Published: Thursday, May 27, 2010

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/5/27/marijuana-legalization-use-alcohol/

In November 2010, California voters will consider a ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana in the state. The proposed law includes restrictions on sale and use, such as a minimum purchase age of 21, but the bill gives marijuana roughly the same legal status as alcohol. Early polls suggest the measure will pass, although full-scale debate has not yet occurred.

Marijuana legalization is a far bigger step than decriminalization or medicalization, which have already occurred in California and other states.
Decriminalization legalizes possession of small amounts of marijuana, but it does not eliminate the underground market or permit easy taxation.
Medicalization is closer to legalization, but it still leaves producers and consumers in a legal gray area and collects less revenue than legalization.

Should California, or the country, legalize marijuana? Yes, for a multitude of reasons.

Legalization will move the marijuana industry above ground, just as the repeal of alcohol prohibition restored the legal alcohol industry. A small component of the marijuana market might remain illicitâ€"moonshine marijuana rather than moonshine whiskeyâ€"but if regulation and taxation are moderate, most producers and consumers will choose the legal sector, as they did with alcohol.

Legalization would therefore eliminate most of the violence and corruption that currently characterize marijuana markets. These occur because, in underground markets, participants cannot resolve disputes via non-violent mechanisms such as lawsuits, advertising, lobbying, or campaign contributions. Instead, producers and consumers in these markets use violence to resolve disputes with each other and bribery or violence to resolve disputes with law enforcement. These features of “vice” markets disappear when vice is legal, as abundant experience with alcohol, prostitution, and gambling all demonstrate.

Legalization would result in numerous other benefits. Medical marijuana patients would no longer suffer legal limbo or social stigma from using marijuana to treat nausea from chemotherapy, glaucoma, or other conditions.
Infringements on civil liberties and racial profiling would decline, since victimless crimes are a key cause of such police behavior. Quality control would improve because sellers could advertise and establish reputations for a consistent product, allowing consumers to choose low or high-potency marijuana.

Legalization would also generate budgetary savings for state and federal governments, both by eliminating expenditures on enforcement and by allowing taxation of legalized sales. I recently estimated that the net impact would be a deficit reduction of about $20 billion per year, summed over all levels of government.

The one impact of legalization that might be undesirable is an increase in marijuana use, but the magnitude of this increase is likely to be modest.
The repeal of alcohol prohibition in the U.S. produced about a 20 percent increase in use, while Portugal’s 2001 de facto legalization of marijuana did not cause any measurable increase; indeed, use was lower afterward.
Across countries, use rates for marijuana show little connection to the strictness of the prohibition regime. The Netherlands has virtual legalization, for example, yet use rates do not greatly differ from those in the United States.

An increase in marijuana use, moreover, is not necessarily bad. If the ballot initiative passes, people who would like to use marijuana but abstain due to prohibition would be able to consume responsibly; legalization would allow them to enjoy marijuana without fear of arrest or incarceration and without concern over quality. Some new users might generate adverse consequences for themselves or others, such as driving under the influence, but most irresponsible users are disregarding the law and consuming already.

Legalization will not, of course, eliminate all negatives of marijuana use.
But just as the harms of alcohol prohibition were worse than the harms of alcohol itself, the adverse effects of marijuana prohibition are worse than the unwanted consequences of marijuana use. Legalization is therefore the better policy.

The ideal way to legalize marijuana is for the federal government to end its ban, while allowing each state to regulate and tax marijuana as it sees fit.
This would circumvent the complicated constitutional issues that will arise if the California initiative passes, as federal law would still prohibit marijuana.

But California’s initiative is nevertheless a valuable step, since the federal government is not yet ready to legalize. The California bill brings attention to the issue and, if adopted, will encourage other states and the federal government to follow suit.

The U.S. experiment with marijuana prohibition is just as misguided as was its earlier experiment with alcohol prohibition. We learned our lesson once; it is time to learn it again.

---
Jeffrey A. Miron is a senior lecturer and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University and is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Miron is the author of Libertarianism, from A to Z. This piece reflects the author’s personal views and not those of Harvard University or its Department of Economics.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/5/27/marijuana-legalization-use-alcohol/

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Marijuana Legalization in California

By Jeffrey A. Miron

Published: Thursday, May 27, 2010

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/5/27/marijuana-legalization-use-alcohol/

In November 2010, California voters will consider a ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana in the state. The proposed law includes restrictions on sale and use, such as a minimum purchase age of 21, but the bill gives marijuana roughly the same legal status as alcohol. Early polls suggest the measure will pass, although full-scale debate has not yet occurred.

Marijuana legalization is a far bigger step than decriminalization or medicalization, which have already occurred in California and other states.
Decriminalization legalizes possession of small amounts of marijuana, but it does not eliminate the underground market or permit easy taxation.
Medicalization is closer to legalization, but it still leaves producers and consumers in a legal gray area and collects less revenue than legalization.

Should California, or the country, legalize marijuana? Yes, for a multitude of reasons.

Legalization will move the marijuana industry above ground, just as the repeal of alcohol prohibition restored the legal alcohol industry. A small component of the marijuana market might remain illicitâ€"moonshine marijuana rather than moonshine whiskeyâ€"but if regulation and taxation are moderate, most producers and consumers will choose the legal sector, as they did with alcohol.

Legalization would therefore eliminate most of the violence and corruption that currently characterize marijuana markets. These occur because, in underground markets, participants cannot resolve disputes via non-violent mechanisms such as lawsuits, advertising, lobbying, or campaign contributions. Instead, producers and consumers in these markets use violence to resolve disputes with each other and bribery or violence to resolve disputes with law enforcement. These features of “vice” markets disappear when vice is legal, as abundant experience with alcohol, prostitution, and gambling all demonstrate.

Legalization would result in numerous other benefits. Medical marijuana patients would no longer suffer legal limbo or social stigma from using marijuana to treat nausea from chemotherapy, glaucoma, or other conditions.
Infringements on civil liberties and racial profiling would decline, since victimless crimes are a key cause of such police behavior. Quality control would improve because sellers could advertise and establish reputations for a consistent product, allowing consumers to choose low or high-potency marijuana.

Legalization would also generate budgetary savings for state and federal governments, both by eliminating expenditures on enforcement and by allowing taxation of legalized sales. I recently estimated that the net impact would be a deficit reduction of about $20 billion per year, summed over all levels of government.

The one impact of legalization that might be undesirable is an increase in marijuana use, but the magnitude of this increase is likely to be modest.
The repeal of alcohol prohibition in the U.S. produced about a 20 percent increase in use, while Portugal’s 2001 de facto legalization of marijuana did not cause any measurable increase; indeed, use was lower afterward.
Across countries, use rates for marijuana show little connection to the strictness of the prohibition regime. The Netherlands has virtual legalization, for example, yet use rates do not greatly differ from those in the United States.

An increase in marijuana use, moreover, is not necessarily bad. If the ballot initiative passes, people who would like to use marijuana but abstain due to prohibition would be able to consume responsibly; legalization would allow them to enjoy marijuana without fear of arrest or incarceration and without concern over quality. Some new users might generate adverse consequences for themselves or others, such as driving under the influence, but most irresponsible users are disregarding the law and consuming already.

Legalization will not, of course, eliminate all negatives of marijuana use.
But just as the harms of alcohol prohibition were worse than the harms of alcohol itself, the adverse effects of marijuana prohibition are worse than the unwanted consequences of marijuana use. Legalization is therefore the better policy.

The ideal way to legalize marijuana is for the federal government to end its ban, while allowing each state to regulate and tax marijuana as it sees fit.
This would circumvent the complicated constitutional issues that will arise if the California initiative passes, as federal law would still prohibit marijuana.

But California’s initiative is nevertheless a valuable step, since the federal government is not yet ready to legalize. The California bill brings attention to the issue and, if adopted, will encourage other states and the federal government to follow suit.

The U.S. experiment with marijuana prohibition is just as misguided as was its earlier experiment with alcohol prohibition. We learned our lesson once; it is time to learn it again.

---
Jeffrey A. Miron is a senior lecturer and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University and is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Miron is the author of Libertarianism, from A to Z. This piece reflects the author’s personal views and not those of Harvard University or its Department of Economics.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/5/27/marijuana-legalization-use-alcohol/

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Don't forget to join my Medical Marijuana News From Brett Yahoo newsgroup for the latest marijuana and medical marijuana news http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/mmjnews/

"A Pot Smokers Dilemma: An empty bowl needs to be filled while a filled bowl needs to be emptied. It never ends."

Sent from my Rotary-Dial Phone

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Attachment: http://drugsense.org/temp/zl6cLxUw8alO.html
==All private messages posted to this list are considered confidential - not to be forwarded or redistributed without prior permission of the original author.

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Time
Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Target of Raid May Have Left Jamaica

(KINGSTON, Jamaica) - After a slum raid that left nearly 50 people dead in four days of gunbattles, the reputed drug kingpin who was the target may have fled the country, the government said Wednesday.

Strongman Christopher Coke, who helped the prime minister win elected office, had months to stockpile weapons in his slum stronghold while the premier wavered over U.S. demands for his extradition. See pictures of Mexico's drug wars.

"I could not say if he is in Jamaica," Information Minister Daryl Vaz said of Coke, who is known as "Dudus." "It's very difficult to tell."

Police and soldiers who fought their way into the barricaded Tivoli Gardens slum in gritty West Kingston were conducting a door-to-door search, and the government reported calm Wednesday. Coke's lawyer has declined to confirm his whereabouts.

Gray smoke was rising from recently extinguished fires inside Tivoli Gardens. Sporadic gunfire rang out elsewhere in West Kingston and security forces barred journalists from entering the battle zones around the capital on Jamaica's south coast, far from the tourist resorts on the north shore of the Caribbean island.

The violence did not surprise island police and community groups who warned that Coke had been stockpiling weapons and preparing to defend himself since the U.S. demanded his extradition last August. According to the U.S. indictment, he has built a private arsenal of firearms smuggled in by gang members in the United States, sharing guns with other criminals to solidify his power as a major underworld boss.

"The situation at Tivoli is dreadful, but it's been something that's been simmering for a long, long time. And everybody knew that if they made the move for Coke that there would be trouble," said Susan Goffe, spokeswoman for local human rights group Jamaicans for Justice.

At least 44 civilians have been killed, said Bishop Herro Blair, Jamaica's most prominent evangelical pastor, who was escorted into the slum by security forces. At least four soldiers and police officers also have died in the fighting.

Jamaican politicians and gang leaders who control ghetto fiefdoms have had cozy ties for decades. Political parties created Jamaica's street gangs in the 1970s to rustle up votes. Since then, the gangs have turned to drug trafficking, but they remain staunchly and often violently loyal to their parties and live in poor neighborhoods called "garrisons."

The slum presided over by Coke, the alleged leader of the "Shower Posse"
gang, has long been a bastion of support for the governing Jamaica Labor Party. It is part of the district represented in parliament by Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who stonewalled the U.S. extradition request for months before reversing himself under pressure from Washington and the local political opposition.

Golding disputes the allegation that his party is close to Coke, and he is not known to have a personal relationship with Coke. But political observers say he could not have been elected to his parliament seat without the gang leader's support. A former prime minister from the same party, Edward Seaga, marched at the funeral of Coke's father, the gang leader known as Jim Brown, who died in a prison fire in 1992 while awaiting extradition to the U.S. on drug charges.

"There is a widespread perception that Coke is closely linked to the dominant JLP as evident in Golding's prevarication, maneuvering and ultimately dissembling on the matter of the extradition and on the related sideshow," said Brian Meeks, a professor at Jamaica's University of the West Indies.

Police rarely, if ever, patrol inside Coke's slum. The last time they attempted to assert control inside Tivoli Gardens, in 2001, clashes between gunmen and security forces killed 25 civilians, a soldier and a constable. Former police officials have said officers receive subtle messages to stay out of certain areas controlled by politically connected gang leaders.

Washington supports Jamaica's efforts to capture Coke. A federal indictment in New York accuses Coke of trafficking marijuana and cocaine to the U.S., and the U.S. Justice Department has named Coke one of the world's most dangerous drug kingpins.

"We support the bold steps taken by the government of Jamaica to enforce rule of law, protect its democracy, and combat the destabilizing effects of drug trafficking and related criminal activity," said Virginia Staab, a State Department spokeswoman.

The 41-year-old Coke, also known as "general" and "president," allegedly relied on a band of gunmen to keep control of Tivoli Gardens. He solidified his authority by dispensing charity and street justice in an area with little government presence.

Vaz, the information minister, said bosses like Coke have been able to thrive in part because Jamaica has failed the desperately poor slums.

"The necessary financial commitments have never been provided in these neighborhoods. That vacuum has been filled by these criminal elements,"
he said.

The 44 civilians killed inside the bullet-scarred slum were mostly males under age 30, said public defender Earl Witter, who toured the slum with Bishop Blair to probe for any human rights violations. In comments to the Jamaica Observer, he said they did not see any signs of abuses.

Since security forces occupied Tivoli Gardens, Vaz said the government has been delivering food and medicine to hundreds of needy residents.

But some slum residents complained that outsiders are not getting the full picture and victims are not receiving medical treatment in time.

One woman in Hannah Town, where fighting has been intense, told Radio Jamaica that a body of a local man known as "Prince" was just outside her home.

"He's lying in the gutter on our street," she said, her voice heavy with emotion.

Some observers say Coke could end up helping Jamaicans root out government corruption - if he's captured alive.

"If Coke is killed, the chances are very slim. If he sings and implicates members of both parties the hand of civil society will be strengthened to raise calls for a complete overhaul, including constitutional reform," said Barry Chevannes, a professor of social anthropology at the University of the West Indies.

___

Associated Press Writer Mike Melia in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed
to this report.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1991910,00.html#ixzz0p7NZEXGn

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Associated Press
Thursday, May 27, 2010

Jamaican police have tenuous hold on Kingston violence; death toll more than 44

By David McFadden

KINGSTON, JAMAICA -- Jamaican security forces claimed a tenuous hold over the slum stronghold of an alleged drug kingpin and gang leader sought by the United States, but only after clashes that killed at least
44 civilians, the country's official ombudsman said Wednesday.

Officers and soldiers were still fighting holdout defenders of Christopher Coke, known as "Dudus," in pockets of the Tivoli Gardens area of Kingston. He was still at large after nearly three days of street battles.

Bishop Herro Blair, Jamaica's most prominent evangelical pastor, said independent evaluations have put the number of civilian dead at 44 in West Kingston alone. Police say that at least four soldiers and police officers have died in fighting in West Kingston and elsewhere in the capital.

The country's embattled prime minister, Bruce Golding, promised an independent investigation into civilian deaths during the operation.

Blair and Jamaica's public defender were escorted by security forces into Tivoli Gardens, where Coke's supporters began massing last week after Golding dropped his nine-month refusal to extradite him to the United States. Coke has ties to Golding's Labor Party, which receives many votes from the Tivoli Gardens area that Golding represents in Parliament.

The gunmen fighting for Coke say he provides services and protection to the poor West Kingston community -- all funded by a criminal empire that seemed untouchable until the United States demanded his extradition.

Coke has built a loyal following, turning the neighborhood into his stronghold. U.S. authorities say he has been trafficking cocaine to the streets of New York City since the mid-1990s, allegedly hiring Jamaican women to carry the drugs on flights to the United States.

U.S. federal prosecutors in New York say drug traffickers in the United States routinely sent Coke gifts, including clothes, accessories and car parts in recognition of his influence over the American cocaine trade.

The violence that erupted Sunday has not touched the tourist meccas along the island's north shore, more than 100 miles from Kingston, or the nearby Montego Bay airport. But Jamaican officials said they are concerned about the impact on tourism.

"The entire Caribbean and the world is trying to pull itself out of a recession. This kind of hit, if one can call it that, comes at a very, very bad time," said Wayne Cummings, head of Jamaica's Hotel and Tourist Association.

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http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2010/05/ondcp-on-defensive-as-drug-war-exposed.html

 

Why decriminalizing drugs is the only fix for Mexico’s ‘Murder City
By Oakland Ross
Toronto Star
May 22, 2010

 

Article alert The following new article has just been published in Harm Reduction Journal For articles which have only just been published, you will see a 'provisional PDF' corresponding to the accepted manuscript. A fully formatted PDF and full text (HTML) version will be made available soon.

Case study     Impact: a case study examining the closure of a large urban fixed site needle exchange in Canada MacNeil J, Pauly B Harm Reduction Journal 2010, 7:11 (25 May 2010) [Abstract] [Provisional PDF]

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Aging baby boomers may lead drive to legalize marijuana further
By Matt Sedensky
Washington Post
May 25, 2010

Fie on your evidence-ignoring ideological agenda, Stephen Harper!
By Dan Gardner
The Ottawa Citizen
May 24, 2010

http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2010/kerlikowske-says-drug-war-has.html

International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy May 2010

European Court of Justice Weighs Dutch Cannabis Ban for Foreigners
http://www.humanrightsanddrugs.org/?p=1020&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HumanRightsAndDrugs+(Human+Rights+and+Drugs)
by Damon Barrett

By Paul van der Steen in Luxembourg

The Dutch government wants to ban cannabis sales to foreigners, but coffee shops in Holland argue that it's a violation of EU free-trade regulations. The European Court of Justice will now decide.

The continuing struggle of Dutch border towns against drug tourism could soon take a new turn, as the European Court of Justice (ECJ) prepares to hand down a ruling regarding one of the most severe measures employed in this battle so far.

Last Thursday, the ECJ heard arguments in Josemans v. Maastricht. The case dates to 2006, when authorities found two foreign nationals on the premises of Easy Going, a coffee shop that sells cannabis. Maastricht is the largest city in the far south of the Netherlands; it sits directly on the Belgian border and is only a 30 minute drive from Germany. The Easy Going coffee shop there is owned by Marc Josemans, who is also the chairman of a branch association to which the city's coffee shop owners belong.

Free Market for Drugs?

Law enforcement officers found the two foreigners shortly after a municipal regulation had gone into effect prohibiting the presence of foreigners in coffee shops. It remains the only time the city has enforced the new law as the municipality awaits the outcome of the ECJ case. In the Netherlands, the case has made its way up to the Council of State, the highest Dutch court ruling on such matters. Before the European Court gives a ruling, the council has asked it whether distinguishing between local and foreign cannabis customers isn't at odds with the underlying principles of the European Union's internal market.

In a weird legal twist, the case has led to a clash between the EU's laws governing free trade among member states and Holland's soft-drug policy. For decades, the Netherlands has had a unique policy governing soft drugs, effectively decriminalizing — though not legalizing — the use of cannabis. The sale of soft drugs through coffee shops is strictly
regulated: Advertising is not allowed, for example; nor is selling to underage customers.

On the other hand, the European Union guarantees a free, unified market of goods and services among its members. Whether this should apply to the semi-legal parts of the Netherlands' cannabis industry is the question now up for debate.

André Beckers, Joseman's legal counsel, has argued it should. He claims cannabis is an economic commodity like any other. Beckers has shown that Easy Going, one of Maastricht's 14 coffee shops, expects to sell €10 million worth of cannabis this year, in addition to the €500,000 it stands to make from "normal" activities, such as selling coffee. Because of the illegal nature of some of its business, a coffee shop is under no obligation to pay sales tax on the cannabis it sells, but Easy Going is required to pay income tax, employee benefits, corporate tax and value-added tax on its legal revenues. The lawyer also cited a recent study which found coffee shops indirectly added €140 million and 1,370 jobs to the Dutch economy.

Maintaining Public Order

Sander Lely, an attorney for the city, countered that trade in contraband could never be covered by regulations governing the common market. "That some of its revenue is generated through the sale of legal products is irrelevant," Lely said. He was supported in his argument by both Dutch and Belgian representatives.

Hubert van Vliet, a representative of the European Commission, pointed out the possible consequences if the ECJ found coffee shops were not covered by EU laws. "Everything pertaining to coffee shops would then be exempt," he argued. "What will that mean for the border workers employed there? The free flow of capital would also be affected, which means only Dutch nationals would be allowed to own coffee shops."

Lely and the representative of the Dutch state argued that the exclusion of foreign nationals from coffee shops was not merely a matter of Dutch self interest, but also important for the maintenance of public order in other EU member states. "The Netherlands is subject to international pressure in this respect," said Corina Wissels, the Dutch representative. Approximately 70 percent of the 2 million people who visit a Maastricht coffee shop each year are from foreign countries, mainly Germany, France and Belgium. The Belgian representative asked the court to consider the nuisance caused by French drug users traveling through Belgium, drug runners and users returning home driving under the influence.

Customer-Card System

Arguing for the European Commission, Van der Vliet referred to an earlier ruling by the ECJ concerning Polish prostitutes in the Netherlands. In that case, the court ruled that a member states could not apply one set of business laws to its own citizens and another set to other EU nationals. "The European Commission does not oppose a test case in itself," he said. "But why haven't less far-reaching measures been tried first, such as a customer-card system, reducing the maximum amount available to single customers or requiring customers to consume purchased wares on the spot?"

The judges expressed surprise over the Dutch drug policy. They asked what the coffee shop's permit was for exactly, if the sale of cannabis was technically illegal in the Netherlands. The court also wondered who supplied the drugs on sale to the coffee shop. The state perhaps?

The ECJ declined to schedule a specific date for its ruling. It did, however, promise to process the case quickly. A definitive ruling by the Dutch Council of State is expected before the end of this year. The case will play an important part in the formation of new Dutch soft-drug policy. Mayors of Dutch border municipalities have also said they would await a ruling by the Council of State before experimenting with customer cards for cannabis users.

***

Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Raad van State (Netherlands) lodged on 15 April 2009 — M.M. Josemans and the Burgemeester of Maastricht v Rechtbank Maastricht

(Case C-137/09)

(2009/C 141/57)

Language of the case: Dutch

Referring court

Raad van State

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicants:

1. M.M. Josemans

2. Burgemeester of Maastricht

Questions referred

1. Does a regulation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, concerning the access of non-residents to coffeeshops, fall wholly or partly within the scope of the EC Treaty, with particular reference to the free movement of goods and/or services, or of the prohibition of discrimination laid down in Article 12 in conjunction with Article 18 of the EC Treaty?
2. In so far as the provisions of the EC Treaty concerning the free movement of goods and/or services are applicable, does a prohibition of the admission of non-residents to coffeeshops form a suitable and proportionate means of reducing drug tourism and the public nuisance which accompanies it?
3. Is the prohibition of discrimination against citizens on grounds of nationality, as laid down in Article 12 in conjunction with Article
18 of the EC Treaty, applicable to the rules on the access of non-residents to coffeeshops if and in so far as the provisions of the EC Treaty concerning the free movement of goods and services are not applicable?
4. If so, is the resulting indirect distinction between residents and non-residents justified, and is the prohibition of the admission of non-residents to coffeeshops a suitable and proportionate means of reducing drug tourism and the public nuisance which accompanies it?




--
Read and Participate in "Drogas y conflicto en Colombia"
the Drugs programme's weblog in Spanish.
http://colombiadrogas.wordpress.com/

Lee y participa en "Drogas y conflicto en Colombia", el blog del Programa Drogas.
http://colombiadrogas.wordpress.com/

--
Drugs & Democracy
Transnational Institute (TNI)
De Wittenstraat 25
1052 AK Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
Tel +31-20-6626608
Fax 6757176
http://www.tni.org/drugs/
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Attached is an example of honest drug education…

 

 

 

The Drug Policy Learning Curve
Canada could learn a thing or two from the failures of America's war on drugs. But there has to be the political will.
By Craig Jones
May 20, 2010

 

If pot must be sold, it should be at pharmacies
Shop dispensing medical marijuana -- without even a business licence
By Jon Ferry
The Province
May 19, 2010

Liberals re-thinking support for drug-sentencing laws
By Janice Tibbetts
Vancouver Sun
May 19, 2010

 

 

 

Pls circulate widely. Let's get everyone talking about this!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0A1XTlJAio

Legalize drugs to reduce suffering
Dr. Marlene Hunter
Times Colonist
May 18, 2010

 

Marijuana Fuels a New Kitchen Culture
By Kim Severson
New York Times
May 18, 2010

http://www.bclocalnews.com/fraser_valley/abbynews/news/94210394.html

Berlin Set to Relax Cannabis Laws
Spiegel (Germany)
May 18, 2010

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-nadelmann/sting-soros-montel-and-mo_b_578862.html

---

The Denver Post
May 18, 2020

Editorial

Will feds allow state pot laws?

Colorado and other states that have enacted medical marijuana laws should be allowed to proceed without federal interference.

Now that Colorado is poised to begin regulating medical marijuana dispensaries, it makes sense to consider how the potential state law jibes with the long arm of federal law.

Though President Obama's administration is taking a tolerant view toward the 14 states with medical pot laws, future administrations might decide to strictly enforce federal laws, which don't recognize the drug as anything other than illegal.

Colorado's Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, has co-sponsored a measure that says as long as the doctors who prescribe, patients who use, dispensaries that sell and growers that provide medical marijuana follow state laws, federal drug agents would not be allowed to arrest or charge them with drug crimes.

That's an important exception to make because unless Gov. Bill Ritter surprises lawmakers with a veto, Colorado is on its way to sanctioning dispensaries and creating a vast new regulatory framework for the burgeoning new industry.

We don't think the dispensary model was what voters had in mind when they legalized medical marijuana in 2000. But though we have expressed several misgivings toward the proposed medical marijuana law, it would be highly improper and destructive for the federal government to undermine it.

Polis' measure, HR 2835, also would downgrade marijuana within the rubric of the Controlled Substances Act from Schedule I to Schedule II - an unnecessary provision that will only heighten the opposition from states without medical marijuana laws.

The measure, co-sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, doesn't prevent federal drug agents from conducting investigations and arresting bad actors. Federal charges still could be brought against those who break state rules. Rather, the measure would simply recognize the will of the people in states that have allowed use of medical marijuana.

We think that is proper, though we have significant concerns about how such a provision would work in the real world. (And yes, we question whether Congress has the will to take up HR 2835 and address the controversial subject anytime soon. Polis' measure was introduced last
year.)

The proposal would create a federal medical marijuana exemption for any state that wished to opt in. Yet each state regulates its medical pot differently, and some states have struggled to do so effectively.

To date, the medical marijuana industry in Colorado has been more like a carnival that has allowed tens of thousands of residents with questionable ailments to join legitimate users who more readily fit the definition of someone who is truly suffering.

Polis argues that Colorado effectively polices its tobacco and liquor industries, and that it is reasonable to assume it will be able to do so with medical pot.

And it is true that new state provisions could make it more difficult to obtain a medical pot permit while creating a system of supervision of dispensaries.

Given that lawmakers have embarked on this journey, we think they should be allowed to do so without federal interference.

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Goar: Housing shortage tiptoes onto political agenda

Published On Wed May 12 2010

Carol Goar  Toronto Star Columnist

It would take a minor miracle for Parliament to pass a private member's bill calling for "secure, adequate and affordable housing for Canadians."

But faith, hope and the prospect of a miracle are what sustain the churches, unions, municipalities, community groups, social agencies and anti-poverty activists who have been fighting for a national housing strategy for 20 years.

The sponsor of Bill C-304, Vancouver New Democrat Libby Davies, has beaten the odds so far.

Last fall, her private member's bill was one of a handful selected for parliamentary debate. It won approval in principle in the House of Commons and was referred to an all-party committee for detailed study. But it died on the order paper when Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament.

Davies revived it when the House reopened in March. The human resources committee (made up of six Conservatives, three Liberals, two members of the Bloc Québécois and one New Democrat) resumed its study. Three weeks later, it returned the bill to the House of Commons with a few amendments.

Then the Vancouver MP's luck ran out. The government woke from its slumber and challenged one of the committee's amendments. (It would have allowed Quebec to opt out and adopt a parallel housing strategy). The Speaker of the House of Commons, Peter Milliken, agreed the measure went beyond the committee's jurisdiction.

That leaves Davies in a quandary. Without the opt-out provision, the Bloc Québécois won't support the legislation. And without its 48 votes, her bill has little chance of becoming law.

But the five-term New Democrat isn't admitting defeat. "The housing crisis is one of the core reasons I ran for Parliament," she says. "It had fallen off the political agenda."

She is now mounting a three-pronged effort to save her bill:

·                          She is attempting to delay the vote on her bill. She hopes to buy time by allowing other MPs with private member's bills to move ahead of her on the order paper.

·                          She is encouraging individuals and organizations that believe affordable housing is a basic right to contact their MP. (Many of her supporters need no urging. Groups such as Campaign 2000, the Salvation Army and the Council of Canadians with Disabilities have already launched email blitzes.)

·                          And she approaching as many MPs as she can — urban Conservatives in particular — about the housing needs of their constituents.

Will it work?

It's a long shot, but anything can happen in a minority Parliament.

The biggest risk is that the Conservatives will engineer a quick vote on Bill C-304. They tried last Wednesday but failed because too few MPs were in the House.

The longer-term danger is that Davies won't be able to muster the votes she needs. But she does have a few bargaining chips. More than 50 groups have endorsed her bill. And they're not all left-wing. They include the Conservative-friendly Evangelical Federation of Canada. She also has the support of four major social action groups in Quebec, which can put pressure on the Bloc.

And there is still a possibility — albeit remote — that the public will weigh in. Homelessness is no longer a big city issue. Virtually every municipality has an Out of the Cold program. No one feels as immune to misfortune as they did before the recession.

Canada needed a national housing strategy in 1990 when aspiring prime minister Paul Martin declared: "The housing crisis is growing at an alarming rate and the government sits there and does nothing."

He could have acted, but didn't. Harper could have acted, but hasn't. The sole remaining hope is that Parliament will rise to the challenge with a rare act of leadership.

Laurel Rothman

National Coordinator, Campaign 2000

& Director of Social Reform, Family Service Toronto

355 Church St. Toronto M5B 1Z8

Tel: 416-595-9230 x228; Fax: 416-595-0242

NEW E-mail: laurelro@familyservicetoronto.org  

Websites: www.campaign2000.ca & http://www.familyservicetoronto.org/amilyservicetoronto.org 

For People For Change

Disclaimer

The information contained in this e-mail communication (and any attachments) is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient of this email communication (and any attachments) please delete the e-mail immediately and notify me at the telephone number shown above or by return e-mail. Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Family Service Toronto. Neither the sender nor Family Service Toronto accepts liability for any errors or omissions in the content of this message that arise as a result of e-mail transmission. This message and any attachments have been scanned for viruses, however Family Service Toronto does not accept liability for any virus that may have been transmitted.

 

 

 

 

 

• Support for Libby Davies Housing Bill 304 (see attached briefing up-date)

 

 

The Los Angeles Times
May 16, 2010

An illegal substance sold legally

Liquor, that is. But the 'drugstores' of Prohibition are echoed by today's medical marijuana dispensaries.

Daniel Okrent

"He owned some drugstores, a lot of drugstores," Daisy Buchanan said.
"He built them up himself." To Daisy, this was a perfectly reasonable explanation of the wealth of her new neighbor, Jay Gatsby. To her husband, more knowing about the world beyond the boundaries of East Egg, it was evidence that Gatsby had made his money as a bootlegger.

Modern readers in the grip of F. Scott Fitzgerald's prose may not recognize the meaning of Tom Buchanan's insight, but Fitzgerald knew his contemporaries would understand. In 1925, when "The Great Gatsby" was published, the meaning of "drugstores" was as clear as gin: Those were the places you went to get medically prescribed alcohol, a legally acceptable source of liquor during all 13 years of Prohibition.

Sound familiar? To any modern Californian, of course it does.

For most of the 1920s, a patient could get a prescription for one pint every 10 days about as easily as California patients can now get "recommendations" for medical marijuana. All it took to acquire a liquor prescription was cash - generally about $3, the equivalent of about $40 today - placed in the hand of an agreeable doctor. It cost $3 to $4 more to have it filled by the local pharmacist. Dentists were similarly licensed, as were veterinarians who believed their patients too could use a belt of Four Roses bourbon.

Then as now, the adaptability of the medical profession was impressive.
In 1917, as the 18th Amendment establishing Prohibition was working its way through the ratification process, the American Medical Assn. ousted alcohol from its approved pharmacopoeia, adopting a unanimous resolution asserting that its "use in therapeutics ... has no scientific value."

But the Volstead Act, which spelled out the enforcement and regulation of Prohibition, nonetheless made an exception for medicinal use, and in 1922, just two years into the dry era, the AMA demonstrated how open minds can be changed - or, perhaps, how capitalism abhors a missed opportunity. The results of a national survey of its members - a "Referendum on the Use of Alcohol in the Medical Profession" - revealed an extraordinary coincidence: The booming prescription trade had been accompanied by the dawning realization among America's doctors that alcoholic beverages were in fact useful in treating 27 separate conditions, including diabetes, cancer, asthma, dyspepsia, snake bite, lactation problems and old age. In a word, the assertion that medicinal alcohol had "no scientific value," from the AMA's 1917 resolution, no longer had any scientific value. One especially agreeable Detroit physician provided these instructions on his prescriptions: "Take three ounces every hour for stimulant until stimulated."

Pharmacists who wanted a piece of this highly profitable new business devised practices appropriate to their clientele. Those with high-end customers, mindful of the power (and profit) in brand names, dispensed the prescribed "medicine" in the distillers' own bottles, which looked exactly as they had before 1920 except for the addition of a sober qualifying phrase on their newly printed labels: A 100-proof pint of Old Grand-Dad, for instance, still announced that it was "Bottled in Bond,"
but just beneath that familiar legend appeared the improbable phrase, "Unexcelled for Medicinal Purposes." At the bottom end of the retail ladder were operations like Markin's, a drugstore on the north side of Chicago. After police officers apprehended a drunk emerging from the store with bottle in hand, an assistant city attorney informed Mayor William E. Dever in 1923, "The officers testified that [the liquor] burned their tongues and that when they touched their matches to it, immediately there was a flame."

Some establishments that assumed the name "drugstore" never bothered with drugs and by no stretch of the imagination could be considered stores. At the corner of Sixth Avenue and West Fourth Street in Manhattan, the Golden Swan had been operating as a saloon for years and, as its unofficial name - the Hell Hole - indicated, none too glamorously. The site of some of Eugene O'Neill's most prodigious drinking bouts, the Hell Hole was one of the models for Harry Hope's hopeless bar in "The Iceman Cometh" ("It's the No Chance Saloon ... the End of the Line Cafe," one character says. "No one here has to worry about where they're going next, because there is no farther they can
go.") When Prohibition arrived, the Hell Hole's proprietor closed up briefly, then claimed upon reopening that the bar was now a drugstore.
Having bought off the local cops, he continued to operate just as he had before.

In Chicago, druggist Charles Walgreen saw his chain expand from 20 stores in 1920 to a staggering 525 a decade later. Along the way, Walgreen's introduced the milkshake, which family historians have credited with the chain's rocketing expansion. But it's doubtful that milkshakes alone were responsible. Something Charles Walgreen Jr. told an interviewer many years later suggests another possibility. The elder Walgreen worried about fire breaking out in his stores, his son recalled, but this apprehension extended beyond an understandable concern for the safety of his employees: He "wanted the fire department to get in as fast as possible and get out as fast as possible," Charles Jr. remembered, "because whenever they came in, we'd always lose a case of liquor from the back."

All that "medicinal" whiskey (and rum and gin and brandy and every other imaginable liquid intoxicant) was perfectly legal. But it also made a mockery of the law, debased the dignity of the medical profession and encouraged rampant criminality, as mobsters eventually and inevitably took over much of the medicinal market. What finally straightened out the liquor business was the legalization that came with repeal in 1933 - legalization that was accompanied by a coherent and effective set of enforcement laws, a healthy boost in tax revenues (in the first post-repeal year, the federal government was enriched by the 2010 equivalent of $4 billion in alcohol tax revenue), and an honest recognition that, all too often, "medicinal" had been a cynical euphemism for "available."

Daniel Okrent is the author of "Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition," just published by Scribner.

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Reefer madness: Automatic jail for six pot plants is too harsh
Calgary Herald
May 16, 2010

 

Comprehensible account of Prohibition politics, morality
By Graeme Voyer
May 15, 2010

Saskatchewan won't get safe-injection sites
CBC News
May 16, 2010

 

Police force to give addicts 'DIY drug kits' - with clean needles and advice on how to find the best veins
Daily Mail (UK)
May 14, 2010

http://reason.com/archives/2010/05/11/a-drug-raid-goes-viral/

Last week, a Columbia, Missouri, drug raid captured on video went viral. As of this morning, the video had garnered 950,000 views on YouTube. It has lit up message boards, blogs, and discussion groups around the Web, unleashing anger, resentment and even, regrettably, calls for violence against the police officers who conducted the raid. I've been writing about and researching these raids for about five years, including raids that claimed the lives of innocent children, grandmothers, college students, and bystanders. Innocent families have been terrorized by cops who raided on bad information, or who raided the wrong home due to some careless mistake. There's never been a reaction like this one.

But despite all the anger the raid has inspired, the only thing unusual thing here is that the raid was captured on video, and that the video was subsequently released to the press. Everything else was routine. Save for the outrage coming from Columbia residents themselves, therefore, the mass anger directed at the Columbia Police Department over the last week is misdirected. Raids just like the one captured in the video happen 100-150 times every day in America. Those angered by that video should probably look to their own communities. Odds are pretty good that your local police department is doing the same thing.

First, some background on the raid depicted in the video: On February 11, the Columbia, Missouri, police department's SWAT team served a drug warrant at the home of Jonathan Whitworth and Brittany Montgomery. Police say that eight days earlier they had received a tip from a confidential informant that Whitworth had a large supply of marijuana in his home. They say they first conducted a trash pull, and found marijuana residue in the family's garbage. During the raid, police shot and killed the family's pit bull. At least one bullet ricocheted, injuring the family's pet corgi. Whitworth, Montgomery, and their 7-year-old son were at home at the time. The incident was written up in the Columbia Daily Tribune, noted on a few blogs that cover drug policy (including a post I put up here at Reason), and then largely forgotten for several weeks.

On April 28, I received an email from Montgomery. She had seen my post at Reason and read an account of some of my reporting on SWAT teams published in Reader's Digest. She said she was reading to her son in his bedroom at the time of the raid. Her husband had just returned home from work. Police fired on their pets within seconds of entering the home.

"I've never felt so violated or more victimized in my life," Montgomery wrote. "It's absolutely the most helpless and hopeless feeling I could ever imagine. I can't sleep right ... and I am constantly paranoid. It's a horrible feeling ... to lose the safety and security I thought I was entitled to in my own home. Nobody protected us that night, my son and I were locked in the back of a police car for nearly four hours on a school night while they destroyed my home."

According to Montgomery, when the couple's neighbors inquired about the raid, they were told that the SWAT team had merely conducted a drill, and no shots were fired. When neighbors learned from the family that this was a lie, they began writing to the department and the Daily Tribune to demand answers. When the couple discovered the police had videotaped the raid, they requested a copy of the video. Montgomery said in her email that the copy they were initially given had no audio, and the incriminating (to the police) portions of the video had been removed.

On February 23, the Daily Tribune published its first story on the raid. The paper made its own request for the SWAT video, which the police department initially denied. On April 20, Jonathan Whitworth pleaded guilty to a single charge of possession of drug paraphernalia. He wasn't even charged for the minor amount of marijuana in his home (marijuana for personal use has been decriminalized in Columbia). He was issued a $300 fine. On April 27, the Daily Tribune made a formal request for the video, which it received on April 30, with full audio and with no visuals removed. The paper posted the video with an accompanying article on May 3. On May 5, I posted it here at Reason, and the video went viral.

The police department has since conceded it was unaware that there were pets or a child in the home at the time of the raid. A spokesman for the Columbia Police Department initially said police had to conduct the raid immediately before the drug supply could be moved, a statement later shown to be false when police revealed the raid was conducted more than a week after the initial tip.

According to surveys of police departments conducted by University of Eastern Kentucky criminologist Peter Kraska, we've seen about a 1,500 percent increase in SWAT deployments in this country since the early 1980s. The vast majority of that increase has been to serve search warrants on people suspected of nonviolent drug crimes. SWAT teams are inherently violent. In some ways they're an infliction of punishment before conviction. This is why they should only be used in situations where the suspect presents an immediate threat to others. In that case, SWAT teams use violence to defuse an already violent situation. When they're used to serve drug warrants for consensual crimes, however, SWAT tactics create violence where no violence was present before. Even when everything goes right in such a raid, breaking into the home of someone merely suspected of a nonviolent, consensual crime is an inappropriate use of force in a free society.

The overwhelmingly negative reaction to the video is interesting. Clearly, a very large majority of the people who have seen it are disturbed by it. But this has been going on for 30 years. We've reached the point where police have no qualms about a using heavily armed police force trained in military tactics to serve a search warrant on a suspected nonviolent marijuana offender. And we didn't get here by accident. The war on drugs has been escalating and militarizing for a generation. What's most disturbing about that video isn't the violence depicted in it, but that  such violence has become routine.

As horrifying as the video from Columbia, Missouri, is, no human beings were killed. The police got the correct address, and they found the man they were looking for. In many other cases, such raids transpire based on little more than a tip from an anonymous or confidential informant. Nor is it unusual for raids just as violent as the one depicted in the video to turn up little in the way of drugs or weapons. (Whitworth wasn't exactly an outstanding citizen—he had a prior drug and DWI conviction. But he had no history of violence, and there were no weapons in the home.) Surveys conducted by newspapers around the country after one of these raids goes bad have found that police only find weapons of any kind somewhere between 10-20 percent of the time. The percentage of raids that turn up a significant amount of drugs tends to vary, but a large percentage only result in misdemeanor charges at worst.

Shooting the family's dogs isn't unusual, either. To be fair, that's in part because some drug dealers do in fact obtain vicious dogs to guard their supply. But there are other, safer ways to deal with these dogs than shooting them. In the Columbia case, a bullet fired at one dog ricocheted and struck another dog. The bullet could just as easily have struck a person. In the case of Tarika Wilson, a Lima, Ohio, SWAT officer mistook the sounds of a colleague shooting a drug dealer's dogs for hostile gunfire. He then opened fire into a bedroom, killing a 23-year-old mother and shooting the hand off of the one-year-old child in her arms.

The Columbia raid wasn't even a "no-knock" raid. The police clearly announced themselves before entering. The Supreme Court has ruled that police must knock and announce themselves before entering a home to serve a search warrant. If they want to enter without knocking, they have to show specific evidence that the suspect could be dangerous or is likely to dispose of contraband if police abide by the knock-and-announce rule. As is evident in the Columbia video, from the perspective of the people inside the home that requirement is largely ceremonial. If you were in a backroom of that house, or asleep, it isn't at all difficult to see how you'd have no idea if the armed men in your home were police officers. The first sounds you heard would have been gunfire.

But because this was a knock-and-announce raid, the police didn't need to show that Whitworth had a violent background or may have had guns in the home to use the violent tactics in the video. They didn't need to show that Whitworth posed any sort of threat at all, other than the fact he was suspected of dealing marijuana. Though SWAT teams are frequently defended as necessary tools reserved for the most dangerous of drug offenders, the reality is that in many communities, all search warrants are served with forced entry and paramilitary tactics.

The militarization of America's police departments has taken place over a generation, due to a number of bad policy decisions from politicians and government officials, ranging from federal grants for drug fighting to a Pentagon giveaway program that makes military equipment available to local police departments for free or at steep discounts. Mostly, though, it's due to the ill-considered "war" imagery our politicians continue to invoke when they refer to drug prohibition. Repeat the mantra that we're at war with illicit drugs often enough, and the cops on the front lines of that war will naturally begin to think of themselves as soldiers. And that's particularly true when you outfit them in war equipment, weaponry, and armor. This is dangerous, because the objectives of cops and soldiers are very different. One is charged with annihilating a foreign enemy. The other is charged with keeping the peace.

Soon enough, our police officers begin to see drug suspects not as American citizens with constitutional rights, but as enemy combatants. Pets, bystanders, and innocents caught in the crossfire can be dismissed as regrettable but inevitable collateral damage, just as we do with collateral damage in actual wars. This is how we get images like those depicted in the video.

It's heartening that nearly a million people have now seen the Columbia video. But it needs some context. The officers in that video aren't rogue cops. They're no different than other SWAT teams across the country. The raid itself is no different from the tens of thousands of drug raids carried out each year in the U.S. If the video is going to effect any change, the Internet anger directed at the Columbia Police Department needs to be redirected to America's drug policy in general. Calling for the heads of the Columbia SWAT team isn't going to stop these raids. Calling for the heads of the politicians who defend these tactics and promote a "war on drugs" that's become all too literal—that just might.

Radley Balko is a senior editor at Reason magazine.