EDITORIAL: HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO BUILD AN
AIR-CONDITIONED DRUG SMUGGLING TUNNEL?
Every now
and then authorities discover an electrified, air-conditioned
tunnel underneath our border with Mexico or Canada, presumably
built for drug smuggling. How many such tunnels go undiscovered?
And does it take more than one successful smuggling operation to
pay for a tunnel's construction?
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MEDICAL MARIJUANA: NEW HAMPSHIRE VETO OVERRIDE FALLS
TWO VOTES SHORT
New
Hampshire will not become the 14th medical marijuana state -- at
least, not yet. An effort to override Gov. Mark Lynch's veto
fell two votes short in the state Senate Wednesday. Supporters
vow to keep working.
SOUTHWEST ASIA: THREE DEA AGENTS AMONG DEAD IN AFGHAN
HELICOPTER CRASH
The DEA
suffered its first spilled blood in Afghanistan Monday when
three of its agents were killed in a helicopter crash that also
took the lives of seven US soldiers. The chopper was returning
from a drug raid when it went down.
LATIN AMERICA: MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION FARES POORLY IN
CHILE POLL
If you are
trying to figure out which Latin American country will be the
first to legalize marijuana, you can probably eliminate Chile.
Support for legalization there is in the teens -- and
declining.
FEEDBACK: DO YOU READ DRUG WAR
CHRONICLE?
Do you read
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WEEKLY: BLOGGING @ THE SPEAKEASY
"Marijuana
Debate! Former Judge vs. Several Complete Idiots," "Efforts to
Stop Drugs at the Border Have Become a Joke," "It's Not Just
Marijuana -- DEA is at War With Other Medicines Too," "A
Marijuana Blog That's the Opposite of All the Others," "Obama
Isn't Plotting to Legalize Marijuana, But Everyone Else Is,"
"Former Drug Czar Lies About His History of Attacking Medical
Marijuana," "It's Official: The Media is in Love With Marijuana
Legalization," "An Historic Hearing on Marijuana Legalization in
Sacramento," "Our Side: San Diego ASA Protests State Narcs Lobby
Awards," "Heroin Maintenance Comes to Denmark" and "Nice Article
on Wisconsin's Medical Marijuana Bill and the Movement
Supporting It."
1. Editorial: How Much Does It Cost to
Build an Air-Conditioned Drug Smuggling Tunnel?
Last year I attended a small lunch-time forum on the subject
of immigration and the US-Mexico border. Seated at the table was
a man in a military uniform, not one of the speakers, but
clearly eager to say his piece. After the presentation was over,
he put up his hand, told us he was an officer with Southcom --
the branch of the Armed Forces dealing with areas to the south
of the United States -- and that his military education and
experience told him that walls don't stop people. Walls just
slow people down, he said -- you can go over a wall, you can
through it, you can go around it, or you can go under it. And
militarily he understood that a wall spanning our border would
not slow people down enough to stop the kind of traffic that we
have crossing the border -- not unless we simply shoot people to
kill on sight, which he was unwilling to do.
Whatever one thinks about immigration, or attempts to block
it at the border, the reasoning has clear implications for the
so-far ineffective attempts at drug interdiction. If it is
either impossible or at least difficult to stop people at the
border -- and since we haven't managed to do it so far, it must
at least be difficult -- how difficult must it be to stop the
flow of drugs? After all, people have a certain height and width
and depth, and they need oxygen and occasionally food and water
and space to move. Drugs can be packaged in any shape or size,
they don't require maintenance over the period of time involved
in trafficking them, and a fairly small volume of certain drugs
can be worth a small mint. It's fairly safe to say that drugs
are not going to be kept out of this country, no matter how hard
we try. It is simply not going to happen.
Since that time the issue has taken on a new degree of
poignancy and urgency. Since Mexican President Calderon took
office in 2006 and began his attempted crackdown against the
cartels, more than 12,000 Mexicans have died in the surge of
violence that followed. The 2009 death toll alone has passed
6,000. Because drugs are illegal, all the money people spend on
them in the US goes into a criminal underground where violence
is often the rule. The unabated flow of drugs across the
US-Mexico border is powerful evidence of prohibition's
failure.
The past week offered up a more visual form of evidence to
make the point. Across the border from San Diego in Tijuana a
partially-completed smuggling tunnel was found. They got almost
as far as the border fence. It was found by the authorities
before being finished, but not very long before. Military
officials took a group of reporters to see it on Tuesday. The tunnel had been equipped with
electricity and an air supply, according to the Associated
Press.
My two questions are: How many successful drug smuggling
operations are needed in order to pay for constructing and
maintaining such a tunnel -- might it only need to be used once?
-- and how many more tunnels are there that have never been
found? I have a feeling that there are many undiscovered
smuggling tunnels, and that the cost of building one with
air-conditioning and electric transportation is low compared
with the likely rewards. Mexico offers a virtually unlimited
labor pool. The proof that the cost is low is simply the fact
that they keep building them over and over. They wouldn't keep
building the tunnels if it weren't a cost-effective
strategy.
Don't expect the drug trade to slow anytime soon, at least
not because of law enforcement, and don't let the pictures of
the latest tunnel or drug seizure fool you into thinking it
might. Hope that something happens to stop the wave of violence
terrorizing our southern neighbors and threatening our borders
possibly too. But don't expect that finding another tunnel is
what will do that.
In an historic hearing Wednesday, the
California legislature examined the pros and cons of marijuana
legalization. The hearing marked the first time legalization has
been discussed in the legislature since California banned
marijuana in 1913.
Ammiano press
conference for hearing
Onlookers and media packed the hearing room for the
three-hour session. Capitol employees had to hook up remote
monitors in the hallway for the overflowing crowd of supporters
and opponents of marijuana legalization.
The hearing before the legislature's Public Safety Committee
was called for and chaired by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-SF),
who earlier this year introduced AB 390, a bill that would legalize, regulate,
and tax marijuana in the state. While Ammiano has made clear
that he supports legalization, the witness list for the hearing
was well-balanced, with legislative analysts and representatives
of law enforcement as well as reform advocates in the mix.
The hearing began with testimony from legislative analysts,
who estimated that the state could realize tax revenues ranging
from hundreds of millions to nearly $1.4 billion a year from
legalization. The latter figure was from the state Board of
Equalization, while the lower estimates came from the
Legislative Analyst's Office.
But tax revenues wouldn't be the only fiscal impact of
legalization. "If California were to legalize, we would no
longer have offenders in state prison or on parole for marijuana
offenses," noted Golaszewski. "We estimate the savings there at
several tens of millions of dollars a year. There would also be
a substantial reduction in the number of arrests and criminal
cases law enforcement makes. To the extent they no longer have
to arrest people for marijuana, they could shift resources
elsewhere."
Golaszewski said there are roughly 1,500 people imprisoned on
marijuana charges in California, 850 of them for possession
offenses.
The analysts were followed by a panel of attorneys who
debated the legality of state legalization. "If California
decides to legalize, nothing in the Constitution stands in its
way," said Tamar Todd, a staff attorney for the Drug Policy
Alliance Network.
But while Marty Mayer, attorney for the California Peace
Officers Association (CPOA), generally agreed with that
assessment, he also argued that the state could not unilaterally
legalize. "The state of California cannot unequivocally legalize
marijuana," he said, noting that marijuana is prohibited under
federal law.
Next up were the cops, and there were no surprises there.
"Marijuana radically diminishes our society," said CPOA
president John Standish. "Marijuana is a mind-altering addictive
drug that robs you of memory, motivation, and concentration," he
said before Ammiano cut him short, noting that the purpose of
the hearing was to discuss public safety and economic impacts of
legalization, not to debate marijuana's effects on health.
"Alcohol and cigarettes are taxed to the hilt, but the taxes
don't cover the cost of medical treatment, let alone DUIs,"
Standish continued. "This would lead to an increase in crime
rates, social costs, medical costs, and environmental concerns.
There is also a very real concern that Mexican drug cartels are
behind most of the imported marijuana coming into the US," he
added, without explaining what that had to do with legalizing
marijuana production in California.
And, pulling out yet another woolly chestnut, Standish
resorted to the old and discredited "gateway theory" that
marijuana use is a stepping stone to hard drug use. "Marijuana
is a gateway drug," he said. "Every incident in 30 years of law
enforcement I have been in where marijuana has been involved has
not been good. Both marijuana and methamphetamine are equally
critical problems," he said.
overflow
room
After reciting a short list of violent incidents around
large-scale illegal grows allegedly operated by Mexican drug
cartels, Sara Simpson, acting assisting chief of the Attorney
General's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, warned that the
cartels were likely to try to maintain their market share. "That
could lead to more violence," she warned.
"Legalizing marijuana is bad public policy," said Simpson. "A
significant number of marijuana users are incapacitated," she
claimed. "When a recreational drug user backs over your
four-year-old, you consider yourself a victim of violent crime.
Legalization would increase death and injury totals."
"Why would we want to legalize a substance known to cause
cancer?" asked Scott Kirkland, chief of police in El Cerrito and
chairman of the California Police Chiefs' Medical Marijuana Task
Force. "Legalization will only result in increased use of
marijuana with a corresponding increase in drugged driving," he
warned.
But later witnesses said that California was simply wasting
resources by arresting marijuana offenders. Dan Macallair,
executive director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, said
that arrest statistics from the past 20 years show that
California law enforcement is more focused on prosecuting simple
possession cases than cultivation and sales.
"California's drug war, particularly on marijuana, is focused
on drug users," he said. "Virtually every category of crime has
declined since 1990, except for a dramatic increase in arrests
for marijuana possession. In 1990, there were 20,834 arrests for
possession. Last year, there were 61,388 arrests. "
This was going on while arrests for all other drug offenses
declined, Macallair said. For all other drugs, arrests were down
29%. Even marijuana manufacture and sales arrests had declined
by 21%. More people went to prison in California in 2008 for
marijuana possession than for manufacture or sales, he
added.
"Our courtrooms are full every day with marijuana cases,"
said Terence Hallinan, the former San Francisco City and County
District Attorney. "It's still against the law to sell even a
gram. There are a lot of people in court and jail for marijuana
offenses."
The Rev. Canon Mary Moreno Richardson of St. Paul's Episcopal
Cathedral in San Diego told the committee marijuana law
enforcement has especially pernicious effects on the young.
"When they find a group of kids with a joint, they take them all
in to juvie. When they're incarcerated, they join gangs for
safety. Jails have become the boot camps for the gangs," she
said. "We need to think about and protect our youth."
"I speak on behalf of California's millions of marijuana
users who are tired of being criminals and would like to be
taxpaying, law-abiding citizens," said Dale Gieringer, executive
director of California NORML. "We think it makes no sense
for taxpayers to pay for criminalizing marijuana users and their
suppliers when we could be raising revenues in a legal
market."
"Today, our marijuana laws are putting our children in harm's
way," said retired Orange County Superior Court Judge James P.
Gray. "We want to reduce the exposure of a lifestyle of
marijuana use and selling to our children, but prohibition's
illegal dealers don't ask for ID," he said.
At the end of the hearing, Ammiano opened the floor to public
comment. While most speakers supported legalization, a
contingent of conservative African-American religious leaders
vigorously denounced it. "I know from personal experience the
devastation that occurs in one's life and community as a result
of drug abuse that began with marijuana," said Bishop Ron Allen,
founder and president of the International Faith Based
Coalition.
Also in opposition was Californians for Drug Free Youth. John
Redman, the group's director, said legalizing marijuana to raise
revenues was reprehensible. "This is blood money, pure and
simple," Redman said.
The battle lines are shaping up. On one side are law
enforcement, conservative clerics, and anti-drug zealots. On the
other are researchers, activists, and, evidently, the majority
of Californians. Ammiano gave as a handout at the hearing a
sheet listing at least six recent polls showing majority support
for marijuana legalization in the state.
The bill isn't going anywhere for awhile. Ammiano said he
will hold more hearings later and may revise it based on the
hearings. But marijuana legalization is now before the
legislature in California.
3. Drug War Chronicle Book Review: "Drug
War Zone: Frontline Dispatches from the Streets of El Paso and
Juarez," by Howard Campbell (2009, University of Texas Press,
310 pp., $24.95 PB)
Howard Campbell's "Drug War Zone" couldn't be more timely.
Ciudad Juárez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, is awash
in blood as the competing Juárez and Sinaloa cartels wage a
deadly war over who will control the city's lucrative drug
trafficking franchise. More than 2,000 people have been killed
in Juárez this year in the drug wars, making the early days of
Juárez Cartel dominance, when the annual narco-death toll was
around 200 a year, seem downright bucolic by comparison.
The violence in Mexico, of which Juárez is the current
epicenter, has been setting off alarm bells in Washington, and
the US has responded with thousands more law enforcement agents
on the border and more than a billion dollars in aid to the
Mexican government. In other words, what we've been doing hasn't
worked, so let's do even more of it, even more intensely.
We've all seen the horrific headlines; we've all seen the
grim and garish displays of exemplary violence; we've read the
statistics about the immense size of the illegal drug business
in Mexico and the insatiable appetites of drug consumers in El
Norte ("the north," e.g. the US). What we haven't had -- up
until now -- is a portrayal of the El Paso-Juárez drug trade and
drug culture that gets beneath the headlines, the politicians'
platitudes, and law enforcement's self-justifying
pronouncements. With "Drug War Zone," Campbell provides just
that.
He's the right guy in the right place at the right time. A
professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of
Texas-El Paso who has two decades in the area, Campbell is able
to do his fieldwork when he walks out his front door and has
been able to develop relationships with all sorts of people
involved in the drug trade and its repression, from low-level
street dealers in Juárez to middle class dabblers in dealing in
El Paso, from El Paso barrio boys to Mexican smugglers, from
journalists to Juárez cops, from relatives of cartel victims to
highly-placed US drug fight bureaucrats.
Using an extended interview format, Campbell lets his
informants paint a detailed picture of the social realities of
the El Paso-Juárez "drug war zone." The overall portrait that
emerges is of a desert metropolis (about a half million people
on the US side, a million and a half across the river), distant
both geographically and culturally from either Washington or
Mexico City, with a long tradition of smuggling and a dense
binational social network where families and relationships span
two nations. This intricately imbricated web of social relations
and historical factors -- the rise of a US drug culture, NAFTA
and globalization -- have given rise to a border narco-culture
deeply embedded in the social fabric of both cities.
(One thing that strikes me as I ponder Campbell's work, with
its description of binational barrio gangs working for the
Juárez Cartel, and narcos working both sides of the border, is
how surprising it is that the violence plaguing Mexico has not
crossed the border in any measurable degree. It's almost as if
the warring factions have an unwritten agreement that the
killings stay south of the Rio Grande. I'd wager they don't want
to incite even more attention from the gringos.)
Campbell compares the so-called cartels to terrorists like Al
Qaeda. With their terroristic violence, their use of both high
tech (YouTube postings) and low tech (bodies hanging from
bridges, warning banners adorning buildings) communications
strategies, their existence as non-state actors acting both in
conflict and complicity with various state elements, the
comparison holds some water. Ultimately, going to battle against
the tens of thousands of people employed by the cartels in the
name of an abstraction called "the war on drugs" is likely to be
as fruitless and self-defeating as going to battle against
Pashtun tribesmen in the name of an abstraction called "the war
on terror."
But that doesn't mean US drug war efforts are going to stop,
or that the true believers in law enforcement are going to stop
believing -- at least most of them. One of the virtues of "Drug
War Zone" is that it studies not only the border narco-culture,
but also the border policing culture. Again, Campbell lets his
informants speak for him, and those interviews are fascinating
and informative.
Having seen its result close-up and firsthand, Campbell has
been a critic of drug prohibition. He still is, although he
doesn't devote a lot of space to it in the book. Perhaps, like
(and through) his informants, he lets prohibition speak for
itself. The last interview in the book may echo Campbell's
sentiments. It's with former Customs and Border Patrol agent
Terry Nelson. In the view of his former colleagues, Nelson has
gone over to the dark side. He's a member of Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition.
If you're interested in the border or drug culture or the
drug economy or drug prohibition, you need to read "Drug War
Zone." This is a major contribution to the literature.
Our organization, StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet), is a
participant in "America's Giving Challenge," a contest to help
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those who receive the largest number of donations through the
"Causes"
program by November 7. The key is not the size of the donation
-- Causes will accept any gift of $10 or more, and any gift no
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Supporters can make donations that count in the contest up to
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Please donate today to help StoptheDrugWar.org win this
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that is. Write your friends to tell them how important it is to
reform drug policy and eventually end prohibition itself. Send
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Raids. Tell them why you feel the drug war is wasteful and
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but in the court of public opinion and then in Congress.
How many
shipments are needed to pay for one drug smuggling
tunnel?
Mexican drug trafficking organizations make billions each
year trafficking illegal drugs into the United States, profiting
enormously from the prohibitionist drug policies of the US
government. Since Mexican president Felipe Calderon took office
in December 2006 and called the armed forces into the fight
against the so-called cartels, prohibition-related violence has
killed over 12,000 people -- the body count passing 6,000 for
2009 so far this month. The increasing militarization of the
drug war and the arrest of several high-profile drug traffickers
have failed to stem the flow of drugs -- or the violence --
whatsoever. The Merida initiative, which provides $1.4 billion
over three years for the US to assist the Mexican government
with training, equipment and intelligence, has so far failed to
make a difference. Here are a few of the latest developments in
Mexico's drug war:
Saturday, October 24
A high ranking federal police official was assassinated in
Chihuahua. Jose Alfredo Silly Pena was a naval captain who
served as a federal police intelligence official. He, along with
three other men, had been kidnapped by heavily armed men some
hours earlier. Additionally, 23 people were killed in violence
in Chihuahua during a 48-hour period. 18 of these murders
occurred in Ciudad Juárez. In Guerrero, four bodies were found
in a hidden pit just meters from where seven bodies had been
found last Tuesday. In other parts of Mexico, an unidentified
gunman was killed by the army near Tlapehuala, and two more were
killed and six captured after battling soldiers near Tamaulipas.
The day before, four people, including two police officers, were
killed after a firefight in Hidalgo; two people were killed in
Michoacán, and three each in Durango, Coahuila, and Oaxaca.
Sunday, October 25
In Torreon, Coahuila, gunmen ambushed the convoy of the municipal
public safety director. The official survived, but a nearby
civilian was killed in the ensuing firefight. In another part of
Torreon, a gun battle left two other people dead, one of whom
was apparently homeless. Fifteen people were killed in
Chihuahua, 14 of whom were killed in Ciudad Juárez. One of the
dead was head of the police anti-theft unit, who was gunned down
in a restaurant as he ate. At least three killings occurred in
Sinaloa, and two women were kidnapped after being snatched from
their car on the highway. At least three people were killed in
Sonora, including a lawyer and a reputed gang leader.
The AP reported that dozens of ICE officials have been
investigated for their handling of informants. Allegations
include that ICE steered investigators away from a man who has
since been charged with the El Paso murder of Jose Daniel
Gonzalez Galeana. Galeana was a Juárez cartel manager and ICE
informant. Additionally, ICE officials are being accused of
allowing a man -- described as a "homicidal maniac" by the DEA
-- to continue to be an informant even after having supervised
the killing of a Juárez cartel associate.
Tuesday , October 27
In Puebla, four police officers were killed and a fifth
wounded after being shot by gunmen. The officers were performing
a traffic stop of a suspicious vehicle when another truck pulled
up from which several heavily armed gunmen emerged and opened
fire in an apparent attempt to "rescue" the passengers of the
first vehicle.
In Nayarit, four men have been arrested in the videotaped
and widely publicized torture of five teenagers. It appears the
five boys had attempted to rob a house when they were captured
by heavily armed vigilantes. In addition to being beaten and
threatened with weapons, the boys were forced to kiss each
other. The boys were later dumped naked on a street. There has
been increased activity in recent months by vigilante groups
thought to be linked to drug traffickers or members of the
police.
Wednesday , October 28
Mexican soldiers have discovered an enormous, partially completed tunnel which
ends just across the border from Otay Mesa, California. The
tunnel, which was incomplete, came complete with electricity and
an air supply system. Journalists in Tijuana were invited to
tour the site, which is the latest of many similar discoveries
in recent years.
Mexican police have arrested a man suspected of being La Familia's operations chief for the state
of Michoacán. The man, Abel Valadez Oribe, 32, was on his way to
a cockfight when he was detained by police after being tipped
off by informants. Oribe, also known as "El Clinton," is also
suspected of ordering multiple murders, including that of the
mayor of Ixtapan de la Sal. His arrest comes a week after 303
suspected members of La Familia were arrested across the United
States. In another part of Michoacán, the dismembered remains of
an unidentified man were found by the roadside near Uruapan.
Uruapan was the site of one of the most publicized incidents of
the Mexican drug war in 2006, when gunmen threw five severed
heads onto a dance floor in a local nightclub.
Total body count for the week: 157
Total body count for the year: 6,175
More crooked jail guards, and a trooper who
must have had a whopper of a habit. Let's get to it:
If we can't
keep drugs out of the prisons, how can we keep them out of the
country?
In Newark, New Jersey, a New Jersey state trooper was indicted
Tuesday on heroin possession charges. Trooper Jason Hanrahan
had been arrested January 15 after he was observed buying heroin
from a Newark man, who has also been indicted. Hanrahan was
allegedly in possession of "less than a half ounce" of heroin
when he was detained. Although Hanrahan was not charged with a
drug trafficking or intent or conspiracy charge, a half ounce of
heroin is much, much more than the typical personal dose. Since
New Jersey law separates heroin possession offenses by weight,
and less than half an ounce is the offense for which small-time
possessors are charged, Hanrahan could have been popped with
only a personal dose or two. Or he could have been popped with
nearly a half ounce. If the former, Hanrahan doesn't belong in
the corrupt cop crowd -- he's just another user who got caught.
Either way he is looking at up to five years in prison and a
$15,000 fine.
In Raleigh, North Carolina, a former Wake County Jail guard was arrested last
weekend for selling drugs and providing a weapon to an
inmate. Former guard Timothy Bullock, 26, faces six counts each
of selling or delivering marijuana, conspiring to sell or
deliver marijuana, and possession of marijuana with intent to
sell or distribute. He will also face eight counts of providing
drugs to an inmate. The offenses allegedly took place in April
and May. Bullock quit his job in May. The inmate has also been
arrested. Bullock was jailed on a $100,000 secured bond.
In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a Silverdale Detention Center guard was arrested
Monday on charges of possessing drugs in a jail and
inappropriate contact with inmates. Guard Sifrona Cotton, 31,
was arrested by Hamilton County sheriff's deputies. Silverdale
is a privately owned prison operated by Corrections Corporation
of America.
US Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) and more than 20 congressional cosponsors Tuesday
introduced a bill that would allow defendants in federal medical
marijuana prosecutions to use medical evidence in their defense
-- a right they do not have under current federal law. The Truth in Trials Act, H.R. 3939, would create
a level playing field for such defendants.
Sam
Farr
"This is a common sense bill that will help stop the waste of
law enforcement and judicial resources that have been spent
prosecuting individuals who are following state law," Rep. Farr
said on Tuesday. "We need strict drug laws, but we also need to
apply a little common sense to how they're enforced. This
legislation is about treating defendants in cases involving
medical marijuana fairly, plain and simple."
More than a hundred medical marijuana providers have been
prosecuted for violating federal marijuana laws, and more cases
are coming down the pike. More than two dozen cases are
currently pending. While the Justice Department last week issued
guidelines to federal prosecutors discouraging them from
prosecuting providers who comply with state medical marijuana
laws, that guidance does not require that courts or prosecutors
allow testimony about medical marijuana, nor does it suggest
that prosecutors drop those cases.
"The Truth in Trials Act will restore the balance of justice
and bring fundamental fairness to federal medical marijuana
trials," said Caren Woodson, government affairs director with Americans for
Safe Access (ASA), the nation's largest medical marijuana
advocacy group. "This legislation complements the recent Justice
Department guidelines for federal prosecutors and is now more
necessary than ever."
While Farr has introduced the Truth in Trials bill in earlier
sessions, supporters hope this time the bill will gain some
traction. It has already been endorsed by more than three dozen
advocacy, health, and legal groups, including ASA, the ACLU, the
National Association of People With AIDS, the National Minority
AIDS Council, and the AIDS Action Council.
Three months after New Hampshire Gov. John
Lynch (D) vetoed a medical marijuana bill, bill supporters
attempting to override the veto came up one vote short in the
state Senate Wednesday. A two-thirds majority was required to
override. The override effort had successfully passed the House
earlier in the day.
almost but not
quite at the New Hampshire
Statehouse
The House voted to override the veto by a vote of 240-115, or
67.7% of the vote. But supporters failed to pick up a single
vote in the Senate, and that made all the difference. The Senate
vote both last summer and this week was 14-10 to override. It
would have taken 16 votes to reach a two-thirds majority.
The bill, HB 648, would have established three
nonprofit dispensaries to distribute up to two ounces of
marijuana every 10 days to patients whose use had been approved
by a doctor. Patients could be approved for chronic or terminal
conditions that included cachexia, or wasting disorder; chronic
pain; or nausea or muscle spasms. They would have had to
register with the state to obtain an ID card.
In his veto message earlier this year, Gov. Lynch cited
concerns about cultivation and distribution, as well as the
opposition of law enforcement. Lawmakers had attempted to
address those concerns in conference committee, crafting a
tightly-drafted bill, but Lynch was unmoved.
"It's up to 16 of us in this chamber to look at those who are
suffering to say, 'I understand and I will help','' said Sen.
Peggy Gilmour (D-Hollis). But every senator who voted against
the measure earlier this year voted against the override
Wednesday.
Pushing for the bill was the New Hampshire
Coalition for Common Sense, backed by the Marijuana Policy
Project (MPP). "You never give up hope so I'm disappointed,"
coalition spokesman Matt Simon told the Nashua Telegraph. "Now I'm not looking
forward to making those difficult calls to people depending on
the legislature to relieve their unrelenting pain."
In fact, Simon and other medical marijuana supporters are
looking to inflict a little pain on legislators who voted
against them. In a message to supporters after the override
failed, MPP pointedly noted that two senators who had voted
against the override, Betsi DeVries and Ted Gatsas, are up for
reelection in Manchester next week.
Three DEA agents and seven US soldiers were
killed Monday when their helicopter crashed as they were
returning from a firefight with suspected drug traffickers in
western Afghanistan. They were among 14 US casualties suffered
in helicopter crashes Monday. An additional eight US soldiers
were killed Tuesday, making October the bloodiest month for the
US in Afghanistan since it invaded and occupied the country
eight years ago.
DEA memorial
for agents Leamon, Michael and
Weston
The DEA identified the dead agents as Forrest
Leamon, 37; Chad Michael, 30; and Michael Weston, 37. Leamon and
Michael were members of the DEA's FAST (Foreign-deployed
Advisory and Support Teams) and Weston was assigned to the DEA's
Kabul country office. Their deaths were the first reported by
the DEA since it initiated operations in Afghanistan in 2005 in
a bid to thwart the country's multi-billion dollar opium
trade.
Afghanistan supplies more than 90% of the world's illicit
opium, the raw ingredient for heroin. The UN Office on Drugs and
Crime reported last week that Taliban insurgents
earn as much as $160 million a year from taxing poppy farmers,
protecting drug shipments, and operating their own drug
smuggling networks. Those funds help finance Taliban operations
against US and NATO forces and their allies in the Afghan armed
forces.
The helicopter crashed in the predawn hours Monday after
returning from a raid in which US and Afghan soldiers attacked a
suspected drug trafficking compound. The US military said a
dozen insurgents were killed in the raid. The Taliban claimed credit for shooting down
the chopper, but US officials denied that it had gone down
because of enemy fire.
Anti-Western sentiment is already running high in
Afghanistan. This weekend, police in Kabul clashed with anti-American
rioters infuriated by rumors that American soldiers had
burned a copy of the Koran. Several people were wounded when
police opened fire on the angry crowd.
In an opinion released Thursday, the Colorado Court
of Appeals has ruled that persons designated as "caregivers"
under the state's medical marijuana law must do more than merely
supply marijuana to patients. In so doing, the court upheld the
conviction of a Longmont woman, Stacy Clendenin, who argued that
marijuana she grew in her home was distributed to authorized
patients in dispensaries.
Colorado state
medical marijuana application
That wasn't good enough for the appeals court. Caregivers
authorized to grow marijuana for patients must actually know the
patients they are growing for, the court said.
"We conclude that to qualify as a 'primary care-giver' a
person must do more than merely supply a patient who has a
debilitating medical condition with marijuana," the court
ruled.
The ruling, if upheld on appeal, threatens to put a crimp in
Colorado's burgeoning medical marijuana industry. Dozens of
dispensaries have sprung up in the state this year, and growers
have been supplying some of them.
That has sparked calls for reining in the dispensaries, a
call that was echoed in a concurring opinion to the ruling. In
his concurrence, Judge Alan Loeb wrote that Colorado's
constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana "cries out
for legislative action."
Attorney General John Suthers told the Denver Post he applauded the decision. "I am
pleased to see the Court of Appeals has provided legal support
for our case that a caregiver, under Amendment 20, must do more
than simply provide marijuana to a patient," Suthers said. "I
also was pleased to see the assertion in the special concurrence
that Amendment 20 'cries out for legislative action.' I could
not agree more. I hope the legislature will act and create a
regulatory framework that gives substance to the Court of
Appeals' findings."
But Clendinin's attorney, Robert Corry, said the ruling was
limited and that he would appeal it. "This decision is quite
limited and only applies to Stacy Clendenin and only applies to
those who went to trial before July when the state board agreed
that caregivers could simply provide marijuana," Corry said. "I
am concerned that the court superimposed California law on
Colorado and I don't think California (medical marijuana) law is
a shining star of success."
The UN's top official on health rights called Tuesday for the decriminalization of drug
use and an end to forced drug rehabilitation camps in Asia.
The camps amount to "keeping sick people jailed," said Anand
Grover, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health at a
conference on international health rights in Hanoi.
Anand Grover
(unaids.org)
"The criminalization of these practices actually hinders the
right to health of all persons," Grover said.
Grover denounced the practice of many Asian nations,
including China, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam, of forcing drug
users to detoxify in massive drug treatment camps. The Open
Society Institute reports that more than 50,000 people are being
held in such camps in Vietnam and as many as 350,000 in
China.
Grover elaborated on his decriminalization remarks in a Tuesday interview with Radio Australia.
Remarking on the battle to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS,
Grover said: "Well, you know the success in Asia has been by
being able to protect and empower the communities of sex
workers, drug users and men having sex with men. But ultimately
their rights are not being protected because their right to
health is being compromised by, for example, large numbers of
drug users who because possession and consumption is illegal in
most countries find themselves in either compulsory treatment
centers or voluntary treatment centers where it's not the
evidence-based treatment which is actually resorted to, but old
detoxification, which has a huge relapse rate, and they're
subjected to a large number of abuses throughout the region,
including in India for instance where NGOs run the centers and
they're totally unregulated. And people will end up dying later
on."
Grover clarified that he was not talking about legalizing the
drug trade. "It's not the drug trade that we want to
decriminalize," he said. "I think that large numbers of people
who are just simple drug users they find themselves being
treated as criminals and their rights abused."
Only 14.6% of Chileans support marijuana
legalization, down from 19% five months ago, according to a
newly released Ipsos poll. Some 56% of Chileans reject
legalizing marijuana for any reason, the poll found.
Marco
Enríquez-Ominami
The news is slightly better on the medical marijuana front.
There, support has risen to 28.5%, up from 21.7% in June.
Chile is one of the most socially conservative countries in
Latin America. Abortion is illegal there, and divorce became
legal only five years ago. Homosexuality became legal a decade
ago, but the country does not have an anti-discrimination law
that includes sexual orientation.
Marijuana has become something of an issue in the country's
presidential elections. Former Socialist Party leader Marco
Enriquez-Ominami, who is running as an independent has said that
he "is a supporter of looking into the matter of legalizing
marijuana."
But Eduardo Frei, candidate of the ruling left-leaning
Concordance of Parties for Democracy (CPD) responded in a recent
debate that he opposes pot legalization. "All drugs are
addictive and they lead to harder drugs," he said.
The first round of the Chilean presidential election is set
for December 11.
November 2, 1951: The Boggs Act nearly
quadruples penalties for all narcotics offenses and
unscientifically lumps marijuana in with narcotic drugs.
(Narcotics are by definition a class of drugs derived from the
opium poppy plant, containing opium, or produced synthetically
and to have opium-like effects. Opioid drugs relieve pain, dull
the senses and induce sleep.)
November 1, 1968: The UK's Advisory Committee on Drug
Dependence releases the Wootton Report, recommending that
marijuana possession not be a criminal offense.
November 5, 1987: Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio
breaks the story that Reagan Supreme Court nominee Douglas
Ginsburg admitted to having smoked marijuana with his students
"on a few occasions in the '70s" while he was a professor at
Harvard. Two days later, President Reagan asks Ginsburg to
withdraw his nomination.
October 30, 1995: President Bill Clinton signs legislation
passed by Congress rejecting a US Sentencing Commission move to
reduce penalties for crack cocaine offenses to bring them equal
with powder cocaine.
November 5, 1996: California's Proposition 215 (The
Compassionate Use Act) passes with 56% of the voting public in
favor. Proposition 200 (The Drug Medicalization, Prevention, and
Control Act) in Arizona passes with 65% of the vote.
November 4, 1998: Voters in seven states overwhelmingly
approve nine medical marijuana and larger drug policy reform
initiatives.
November 3, 1999: The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation
(CJPF) cosponsors a press conference and releases a letter to
Drug Czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey from distinguished American and
Latin American leaders who reject the US export of the failed
"war on drugs" to Latin America.
November 3, 2001: DEA raids the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource
Center, a medical marijuana distribution facility, arresting its
president, Scott Imler. City officials condemn the raid at a
press conference attended by more than 100 center members.
October 31, 2002: The Washington Post publishes a story about
a rare interview with Benjamín Arellano Félix, the man accused
of running Mexico's most ruthless drug cartel, from the La Palma
maximum security federal prison in Almoloya de Juárez, Mexico.
Arellano said the United States has already lost its war on
drugs and that violent trafficking gangs will thrive as long as
Americans keep buying marijuana, cocaine and heroin.
November 1, 2002: Every prosecutor in the United States is
sent a letter from the Office of National Drug Control Policy
(ONDCP) and the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA),
urging them to make prosecution of cannabis crimes a high
priority and to fight efforts to ease drug laws.
November 5, 2002: Reuters reports that researchers say
alcohol and violence pose more of an immediate health hazard
than drugs for young adults who enjoy clubbing. Researchers say
that drugs such as ecstasy, speed, cocaine and heroin are a
serious problem in clubs, but assaults fueled by alcohol are the
main reason clubbers seek hospital treatment.
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prohibition-era beer raid, Washington, DC (Library of
Congress)
Since last issue:
Scott Morgan writes: "Marijuana Debate! Former
Judge vs. Several Complete Idiots," "Efforts to Stop Drugs at
the Border Have Become a Joke," "It's Not Just Marijuana -- DEA
is at War With Other Medicines Too," "A Marijuana Blog That's
the Opposite of All the Others," "Obama Isn't Plotting to
Legalize Marijuana, But Everyone Else Is," "Former Drug Czar
Lies About His History of Attacking Medical Marijuana" and "It's
Official: The Media is in Love With Marijuana Legalization."
Phil Smith previews: "An Historic Hearing on Marijuana
Legalization in Sacramento" -- with pictures!
David Borden highlights: "Our Side: San Diego ASA Protests
State Narcs Lobby Awards," "Heroin Maintenance Comes to Denmark"
and "Nice Article on Wisconsin's Medical Marijuana Bill and the
Movement Supporting It."
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