.: Global Justice News

News2020.com for the latest sceptical slant on the 'Drugs War' lunacy. Bringing together the most relevant third party news feeds, we hope you choose to bookmark News2020.com now. Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

'cannabis heads'
Abc.net.au
April 2nd 2007

A 60-year-old Traralgon man will face court today charged with a string of drugs offences. Harold Willis was remanded in custody over the weekend after police searched a house in Little Crescent, Traralgon on Friday. It is alleged police found $30,000 in cash and three plastic bags cannabis heads at the house. Police allege the cannabis has a street value of $16,000. The defendant is charged with trafficking, using and possessing drugs and possessing the proceeds of crime. He will face the Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court at Morwell today.

The biggest U.S. threat: dying marijuana users
Andy Nicewicz
Rocky Mountain Collegian
March 22nd 20007

Reading The Denver Post last Thursday, I noticed a small blurb about Angel Raich, a 41-year-old mother of two from Oakland, Calif., who suffers from scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and other ailments. According to her doctor, medical marijuana is the only thing keeping her alive.
Sadly, a federal appeals court ruled last Wednesday that she can still be charged with federal drug charges.
It’s very unfortunate, especially for people who are suffering like Angel Raich, that the government chooses to ignore the evidence that marijuana can actually help people. One study done by the Institute of Medicine in 1999 found that ‘’the accumulated data indicate a potential therapeutic value for cannabinoid drugs, particularly for symptoms such as pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation.'’
Numerous other reputable organizations have also endorsed the use of marijuana for medical purposes (see www.drugwarfacts.org).

Opponents of medical marijuana still claim there hasn’t been enough research on the subject to legitimize making marijuana available to patients. Ironically, this is because marijuana is categorized by the government as a ‘’Schedule I Substance,'’ which defines marijuana as having a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in the United States and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision. It’s sort of a Catch-22. Because marijuana is a Schedule I Substance, many restrictions are placed on research, and because there are these restrictions, it’s exceedingly difficult to provide ‘’sufficient'’ evidence to remove marijuana from the Schedule I category.

At any rate, the federal government has chosen to use its rather limited resources to charge Angel Raich with drug charges. The federal government has many purposes and duties, but investigating, arresting and trying dying mothers using our tax dollars certainly shouldn’t be one of them. Moreover, the federal government’s involvement in medical marijuana cases in California raises questions of Constitutional validity.

The United States was founded as a federal system, meaning that states are granted some manor of autonomy from the national government to make their own laws. In California, where Raich resides, medical marijuana is legal (the same is true in Colorado). However, it is illegal under federal law. Under the U.S. Constitution, the national government only has powers granted to it expressed in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Under the 10th Amendment, all other powers are granted to the States. The federal appeals court involved in this case cited Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, also known as the Commerce Clause, to justify the national government’s interference in the affairs of California. The Commerce Clause says that the national government has the power to regulate commerce between states, but applying this to a person who gets her cannabis from private care-givers from inside California, as Raich did, is questionable at best.

Whatever the federal government’s reasons for its involvement, this woman is dying, and the government is taking away the thing that can help her live. I remember when Terry Schiavo was going to be taken off life support. There were protests, huge amounts of media coverage, and the involv ement of various elected officials on her behalf, including President Bush.
So where are the religious leaders now, preaching about the sanctity of life and the duty to help those in need? Where are the politicians introducing new legislation and condemning acts of heartlessness? But I suppose in the war on drugs, enemies like Angel Raich pose one of the biggest threats to the United States, right?

The couple’s school-age children were placed in the care of the Ministry of Children and Families...
Nanaimobulletin.com
March 16th 2007

A married couple sought in connection with a marijuana grow-op on Uplands Drive have turned themselves in. A 46-year-old Nanaimo man and his 33-year-old wife both showed up within hours of each other at the Nanaimo RCMP detachment over the night of March 8-9. RCMP are recommending charges of possession for the purpose of trafficking and cultivation of cannabis. No names were released.
The two will make their first court appearance June 5. RCMP pulled 265 marijuana plants and a quantity of growing equipment and supplies from their Uplands Drive home March 8. The couple’s school-age children were placed in the care of the Ministry of Children and Families.
It isn’t known whether the children have been reunited with their family – privacy legislation prevents the ministry from commenting on specific cases.

'an illegal drug laboratory'
Abc.net.au
March 8th 2007

Three men have been charged with a string of drug offences after a series of police raids across the Sunshine Coast hinterland. Police swooped on several properties in Kenilworth yesterday and allegedly discovered about 60 cannabis plants, an illegal drug laboratory and items used to produce large quantities of amphetamines. A 27-year-old Kenilworth man and a 40-year-old New Farm man are due to appear in Maroochydore Magistrates Court today on numerous drug charges. A 19-year-old man was also charged with assaulting police.

Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances
Mangalorean.com
March 8th 2007

Pune,India: Five more people were arrested Wednesday in connection with a rave party held near this city over the weekend and a large quantity of prohibited drugs and cash were seized from them.Seven kilograms of cannabis leaves and four kilograms of marijuana, besides Rs.350,000 in cash and five mobile phone handsets, were seized from the three held in Yervada. The prohibited drugs, albeit in a smaller quantity, 10 china clay cigars and two mobile phones were found with the women.
While three of the five accused - Ankush Babiya Singh, Anil Suresh Abhange and Deepak Gaikwad - are residents of Yervada, the two women - Zora Mustaq Sheikh and Ashrafi Fazal Mehboob Sheikh - are slum-dwellers from the Kondva Khurd area in city outskirts.
Singh has already spent 10 years in the Yervada jail after a conviction under the same Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act that he faces again. He apparently took to drug peddling again after his release in 2003, More Psychotropic Substances.....

"I am disappointed in the attitude of the court"
Independent.co.uk
March 7th 2007

A grandmother who advocates cooking with cannabis was found guilty of growing and possessing the drug by a jury who deliberated for just 15 minutes today.
Patricia Tabram, 68, was in breach of a six-month suspended jail sentence when police, acting on a tip-off, found four plants growing in a wardrobe at her bungalow in Humshaugh, Northumberland, in September 2005. They also found powdered cannabis in a jar next to her cooker.
The jury heard Tabram's claims that she used cannabis to ease her depression, as well as aches and pains she still suffers from two car crashes.
The jury of six men and six women came back with unanimous guilty verdicts for the two counts, one of possessing the drug and one of cultivating it. Judge Barbara Forrester postponed sentencing to a later date so reports can be prepared. Tabram, who is defending herself, told the court: "I am old and I am tired, and I am disappointed, not in the result by the jury.
"I am disappointed in the attitude of the court regarding someone my age with my health problems and the way I deal with it. Full Disappointed....

'clearly under the influence of drugs'
Yourguide.com.au
March 8th 2007

A young chap who grew cannabis on his parent's Shelbourne property trafficked 15pounds of the
drug within one year, a court heard yesterday. Daniel Webb, 21, pleaded guilty to nine charges in the Bendigo Magistrates Court, including trafficking, cultivating and possessing cannabis. Police found a hydroponic growing room in a tool shed when they raided his family's Nixons Road property on September 5 last year. Police prosecutor Senior Constable Mark Snell said police found three mature cannabis plants,
They also found seven separate amounts of cannabis, cannabis seeds, scales and tubs of cannabis butter when they searched a unit Webb shared with his brother. It was claimed a variety of weapons, including swords, double-edged knives, a slingshot and baton, were also found.
While police were conducting the search, a man Webb knew arrived at the property and police established he was there for the purpose of purchasing cannabis, said Sen-Constable Snell. The court heard Webb was interviewed at the Bendigo Police Station the following day and was clearly under the influence of drugs...Full Influence....

'it takes about Rs 5,000 to grow 15-20 plants'
Telegraphindia.com
March 5th 2007

Krishnagar, March 5th: Weeks after stumbling upon hundreds of schoolteachers who had cannabis growing on their land, Nadia police have arrested one of them.
Police said Prahlad Mondal of Dhananjaypur Upper Primary School in Nakashipara, 130 km from Calcutta, did not pay any heed to the warnings of the district administration, which has been running an awareness campaign against the cultivation of cannabis.
The Telegraph had reported on February 14 that the police had found cannabis plants in the backyards of at least 500 primary school teachers. Ganja worth over Rs 20 crore has been destroyed during the crackdown launched in January. The cultivation is banned under the Prevention of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. Many of the teachers had pleaded ignorance about the crop being cultivated on their land by hired workers or sharecroppers. But the police said many were into it for fast money. A full-grown hemp plant fetches between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000. It takes about Rs 5,000 to grow 15-20 plants, Full Grow......

Punjab is emerging as the new hub for smuggling
Zeenews.com
March 6th 2007

New Delhi, Punjab is emerging as the new hub for smuggling drugs into the country, a development attributed by the report of a UN body to the increase in cross-border movement between India and Pakistan.
Most of the drugs, particularly heroin, that are smuggled into India through Punjab are subsequently taken to New Delhi or Mumbai, traditional trafficking hubs, before being ferried further to other countries, the report said.

"Evidence suggests that Punjab has been emerging as a new hub for smuggling drugs into India," the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said in its annual report for 2006 on drug abuse.
"This recent development appears to be connected with the increase in the licit and illicit cross-border flow of goods and persons between India and Pakistan," INCB, an independent and quasi-judicial body of the UN international drug control committee, said. This accounts for over one-third of India`s total volume of cannabis seizures of 144 tonnes, it said. More Movement..

‘rave’ is to ‘talk wildly, as in delirium.’
Dnaindia.com
March 6th 2007

The dictionary meaning of the word ‘rave’ is to ‘talk wildly, as in delirium.’ For a younger crowd, substitute dance, for talk. Though the rave party concept is old, even prehistoric by today’s standards, since it began in the 1960s, it continues to appeal to the hip youngsters of today for its mixture of a mood of abandon, electronic music and sadly, drugs.

Rave parties are quite common in parts of Goa, and in and around Mumbai too and occasionally, when the police gets to know of them, they get busted, as happened over the weekend. The Pune cops walked in, disguised as party goers, and arrested nearly 300 youngsters from different parts of the country.

It’s interesting to note that the cyber and economic crimes cell of the police picked up information on the party, since the word on the rave had been spread through a website. Even more intriguing is the fact that the party took place on Holi weekend, when Indian revelers traditionally imbibe bhang, a derivative of the cannabis or hemp plant.

As it always tends to happen, whenever a rave party is raided, reports tell us that among those who were arrested were call centre employees, air hostesses and students. The sub-text is clearly that these are the ‘types’ who routinely go in for such degenerate events and take drugs.

Let us look at the big picture here. The main drugs caught were marijuana, hashish, charas and ganja, all derivatives of hemp. A few synthetic party drugs were also found, Full Rave....

.: The News from Drug Policy Central

Stop the Drug War (DRCNet) - Incarceration

Safe Streets Arts Foundation: Our Director to perform at ACLU awards dinner

Can't wait for our director Dennis Sobin to perform his classical-jazz guitar music again at the Kennedy Center? Got $150 to spend on a very worthwhile cause (ACLU awards dinner) at Washington's prestigious Omni Shoreham Hotel on March 18?

As many fans of our director's classical and jazz guitar playing know, when he is not engaged in his regular performances at the Kennedy Center, he appears at colleges, festivals and (his favorite) nonprofit fundraisers. Coming up on his busy early spring performance schedule is the annual Nation's Capital ACLU Bill of Rights Awards Dinner on March 18, 2010, 6:30 pm at the Omni Shoreham in Washington, DC. Presenting the awards this year is Gregory B. Craig, President Obama's first White Counsel Counsel. Mr. Craig led the Administration's effort to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp and fought for President Obama's "civil liberties campaign" to correct many of President Bush's harsh policies.

For more information about the ACLU awards dinner, please click here. For free listening/downloads of Dennis Sobin's ten guitar music CDs, please click here. Thank you.

 
All art on this page created by imprisoned artists and available at our Prison Art Gallery or online at http://prisonsfoundation.org/art.htmt

"The Safe Streets Arts Foundation, incorporating both the Prisons Foundation and the Victims Foundation, is proud to sponsor the annual From-Prison-to-The-Stage Show at the Kennedy Center and the Prison Art Gallery at 1600 K Street. NW, Suite 501, Washington, DC, three blocks from the White House."

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The Obama administration released its Fiscal Year 2011 budget proposal this week, including the federal drug control budget. On the drug budget, the Obama administration is generally following the same course as the Bush administration and appears to be flying on autopilot.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP -- the drug czar's office), the administration is requesting $15.5 billion for drug control, an increase of 3.5% over the current budget. Drug law enforcement funding would grow from $9.7 billion this year to $9.9 billion in 2011, an increase of 5.2%. Demand side measures, such as prevention and treatment, also increased from $5.2 billion this year to $5.6 billion next year.

The $15.5 billion dollar drug budget actually undercounts the real cost of the federal drug war by failing to include some significant drug policy-driven costs. For instance, operations for the federal Bureau of Prisons are budgeted at $8.3 billion for 2011. With more than half of all federal prisoners serving time for drug offenses, the real cost of current drug policies should increase by at least $4 billion, but only $79 million of the prisons budget is counted as part of the national drug strategy budget.

The Obama drug budget largely maintains the roughly two-to-one imbalance between spending on treatment and prevention and spending on law enforcement. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske called the imbalanced budget "balanced."

Highlights and lowlights:

"The new budget proposal demonstrates the Obama administrations' commitment to a balanced and comprehensive drug strategy," said Kerlikowske. "In a time of tight budgets and fiscal restraint, these new investments are targeted at reducing Americans' drug use and the substantial costs associated with the health and social consequences of drug abuse."

Drug reformers tended to disagree with Kerlikowske's take on the budget. "This is certainly not change we can believe in," said Bill Piper, national affairs director for the Drug Policy Alliance. "It's extremely similar to the Bush administration drug budgets, especially in terms of supply side versus demand side. In that respect, it's extremely disappointing. There's nothing innovative there."

"This budget reflects the same Bush-era priorities that led to the total failure of American drug policy during the last decade," said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project. "One of the worst examples is $66 million requested for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign when every independent study has called it a failure. The president is throwing good money after bad when what we really need is a new direction."

Houston also took umbrage with the accounting legerdemain that continues to allow ONDCP to understate the real cost of federal drug policies. "It's disconcerting to see the Obama administration employ the same tactics in counting the drug budget that the Bush administration did," said Houston. "Congress told ONDCP in 2006 to stop excluding certain items from the budget, and we had a Democratic committee chairman excoriate John Walters over his cooking of the books, but it doesn't appear they've done anything to stop that. Maybe they have to cook the books to make this look like a successful program."

But reformers also noted that some good drug policy news had already come out of the Obama administration. They also suggested that the real test of Obama's direction in drug policy would come in March, when Kerlikowske releases the annual national drug control strategy.

"I'm a little disappointed," said Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, "but I think there is a significant difference in the environment from the Bush years. Maybe not in this budget, but things like issuing those Department of Justice regulations on medical marijuana have made a major difference."

"They are unwilling or unable to change the drug war budget, but the true measure of their commitment to a shift in drug policy will be the national drug control strategy that comes out in a few weeks," said Piper. "The question is will their drug strategy look like Bush's and like their drug budget does, or will they articulate a new approach to drug policy more in line with the president's comments on the campaign trail that drug use should be treated as a public health issue, not a criminal justice one."

The Obama administration's decision to not interfere with medical marijuana in the states was one example of a paradigm shift, said Piper. So was its support for repealing the federal needle exchange funding ban and ending the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses.

"In a lot of ways, the budget trimming that comes out of the White House is a fraud because they know Congress won't make those cuts," said Piper. "I wonder if that's the game Obama is playing with the Byrne grants. That's the kind of thing they can articulate in the drug strategy if they wanted to. They should at least talk about the need to shift from the supply side to the demand side approach. They could even admit that this year's budget does not reflect that, but still call for it."

This is only the administration's budget request, of course. What it will look like by the time Congress gets through with it is anybody's guess. But it strongly suggests that, so far, there's not that much new under the sun in the Obama White House when it comes to the drug budget.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday approved Sen. Jim Webb's (D-VA) National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 on a unanimous voice vote Thursday. The bill would create a commission to conduct a top-to-bottom evaluation of the country's criminal justice system and offer recommendations for reform at every level.

Jim Webb at 2007 incarceration hearing (photo from sentencingproject.org) Webb has been a harsh critic of national drug policies, and has led at least two hearings on the costs associated with current policies. The bill could create an opportunity to shine a harsh light on the negative consequences of the current policies.

An amendment offered by Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) and accepted by the committee stripped out the original bill's lengthy list of negative drug policy "findings" and replaced them with blander language, but left the bill's purpose intact.

Passage out of committee was applauded by sentencing reform advocates. "Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) commends the Senate Judiciary Committee for recognizing that the American criminal justice system needs an overhaul," said Jennifer Seltzer Stitt, FAMM federal legislative affairs director. "Any comprehensive reform of our criminal justice system must include eliminating mandatory minimum laws. One-size-fits-all mandatory drug sentencing laws enacted in the 1980s are responsible for filling prisons with low-level, nonviolent drug offenders, wasting millions in taxpayer dollars, and destroying public trust in the criminal justice system. The National Criminal Justice Commission can help right these wrongs by recommending mandatory sentencing reform."

The bill's prospects are uncertain. It faces a crowded calendar in the Senate and has made little progress in the House.

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 For a nation that leads the world in putting people behind bars, we're doing an absolutely horrible job of looking after the poor folks we keep tossing in there:

The Justice Department reported Thursday that 12 percent of incarcerated juveniles, or more than 3,200 young people, had been raped or sexually abused in the past year by fellow inmates or prison staff, quantifying for the first time a problem that has long troubled lawmakers and human rights advocates.

So often, "protecting the children" is the knee-jerk justification for all sorts of draconian criminal justice policies. Yet, the youth who need the most help are routinely being sexually assaulted by the people who're supposed to be rehabilitating them.

The shameful ? though not at all surprising ? explanation for this seems to be that we just can't afford to do a better job than this:
Four former commissioners on a blue-ribbon prison rape panel that spent years studying the issue say they fear that authorities are deferring to concerns by corrections officials that reforms would cost too much, while not focusing enough on prison safety and the effects of abuse on inmates.  

We can afford to put them in prison, but we just can't afford to take very good care of them. That is literally what's happening here, and it illustrates perfectly what an unfathomable travesty our criminal justice system has become. Yet, lawmakers continue to cower before the mighty prison lobbies that fight tirelessly to build more and more prisons that are less and less safe.

It's amazing that drug policy and criminal justice reform could be considered even remotely controversial while our correctional institutions remain plagued by endemic patterns of violence and sexual abuse. This would be intolerable even if everyone ever sentenced to prison in America actually deserved to be there (imagine that).

It's not enough to just wish it wasn't like this. The bottom line is that anyone who lobbies for aggressive police tactics and harsh laws bears responsibility for the abuse and indignation that innocent (and guilty, though undeserving) people will inevitably suffer within our brutal prison system. If you understand what happens in there, then you have a moral obligation to consider that reality when forming and expressing opinions about who truly belongs behind those bars.

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As 2009 prepares to become history, we look back at the past year's domestic drug policy developments. With the arrival of a highly popular (at least at first) new president, Barack Obama, and Democratic Party control of the levers of power in Congress, the drug reform gridlock that characterized the Bush years is giving way to real change in Washington, albeit not nearly quickly enough. A number of this year's Top 10 domestic drug stories have to do with the new atmospherics in Washington, where they have led, and where they might lead.

But not all of them. Drug reform isn't made just in Washington. Under our federal system, the 50 states and the District of Columbia have at least some ability to set their own courses on drug policy reforms. In some areas, actions in the state legislatures have reflected trends -- for better or worse -- broad enough to earn Top 10 status.

And Washington and the various statehouses notwithstanding, movement on drug reform is not limited to the political class. Legions of activists now in at least their second decade of serious reform work, a mass media that seems to have awakened from its dogmatic slumber about marijuana, a crumbling economy, and a bloody drug war within earshot of the southwestern border have all impacted the national conversation about drug reform and are all pushing politicians from city councilmen to state legislators to US senators to rethink drug prohibition.

For drug reformers, these are interesting times, indeed. Herewith, the Top 10 domestic drug policy stories of 2009:

marijuana plants (photo from US Fish and Wildlife Service via Wikimedia) Marijuana Goes Mainstream

Wow. This year has seen the US enter the beginnings of a sea change on policies and attitudes toward the recreational use of marijuana. The first hint that something had changed was the Michael Phelps bong photo non-scandal. When the multiple Olympic gold medal winner got outed for partying like a college student, only one corporate sponsor, fuddy-duddy Kellogg, dumped him, and was hit by a consumer boycott -- and arguably by falling stock prices -- in return. Otherwise, except for a deranged local sheriff who tried fruitlessly to concoct a criminal case against somebody -- anybody! -- over the bong photo, America's collective response basically amounted to "So what?"

Post-Phelps it was as if the flood gates had opened. Where once Drug War Chronicle and a handful of other publications pretty much had the field to ourselves, early this year, the mass media began paying attention. Countless commentaries, editorials and op-eds have graced the pages of newspaper and those short-attention-span segments on the cable news networks, an increasing number of them calling for legalization. The conversation about freeing the weed has gone mainstream.

The sea change is also reflected in poll numbers that, for the first time, this year showed national majorities in favor of legalization. In February, a Zogby poll showed 44% support nationwide -- and 58% in California. By late spring, the figures were generally creeping ever higher. An April Rasmussen poll had support for "taxation and regulation" at 41%, while an ABC News/Washington Post poll found 46% supported "legalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use." Also in April, for the first time, a national poll showed majority support for legalization when Zogby showed 52% saying marijuana should be "legal, taxed, and regulated." In July, a CBS News poll had support for legalization at 41%.

In October, a Gallup poll had support for legalization at 44%, the highest ever in a Gallup survey. And a few weeks ago an Angus-Reid poll reported 53% nationwide supported legalization. Legalizing pot may not have clear majority support just yet, but it is on the cusp.

Marijuana law reform was also a topic at statehouses around the country this year, although successes were few and far between. At least six states saw decriminalization bills, but only one passed -- in Maine, which had already decriminalized possession of up to 1.25 ounces. This year's legislation doubled that amount. And then there were legalization bills. Two were introduced in the 2009 session, in California and Massachusetts, and two more have been pre-filed for next year, in New Hampshire and Washington. Both the California and Massachusetts bills got hearings this year, and the California bill is set for another hearing and a first committee vote in the Assembly in two weeks. In Rhode Island, meanwhile, the legislature voted this year to create a commission to study marijuana law reform; it will report at the end of January.

And then, finally, there is the excitement and discussion being generated by at least three separate marijuana legalization initiative campaigns underway in California. Oaksterdam medical marijuana entrepreneur Richard Lee's Tax Cannabis 2010 initiative has already announced it has sufficient signatures to make the ballot. Time will tell if the others make it, but at this point it is almost certain that voters in California will have a chance to say "legalize it" in November.

medical marijuana dispensary, Ventura Blvd., LA (courtesy wikimedia.org) Medical Marijuana: The Feds Butt Out and the Floodgates Begin to Swing Open

During his election campaign, President Obama promised to quit siccing the DEA on medical marijuana patients and providers. In February, new Attorney General Eric Holder announced there would be no more federal raids if providers were in compliance with state law, and pretty much held to that promise since then. In October, the Justice Department made it official policy when it issued a policy memo reiterating the administration's stance.

The new "hands off" policy from Washington has not been universally adhered to, nor has it addressed the issue of people currently serving sentences or facing prosecution under Bush administration anti-medical marijuana initiatives, but it has removed a huge looming threat to growers and dispensary operators and it has disarmed a favored (if intensely hypocritical) argument of medical marijuana foes that such laws should not be passed out of fear of what the feds would do.

Meanwhile, California rolls right along as medical marijuana's Wild West. Like countless other localities in the Golden State, the city of Los Angeles is grappling with what to do with its nearly one thousand dispensaries. The issue is being fought city by city and county by county, in the state courts and in the federal courts. And while the politicians argue, dispensary operators are creating political facts on the ground as their tax revenues go into hungry state and local coffers.

This year also marked the emergence of a medical marijuana industry infrastructure -- growers, grow shops, dispensaries, educational facilities, pot docs -- beyond California's borders, most notably in Colorado, where the dispensary scene exploded in the wake of the removal of the federal threat, and in Michigan, where last year's passage of a medical marijuana law has seen the creation of the Midwest's first medical marijuana industry.

While medical marijuana is legal in 13 states (and now, the District of Columbia), it remains difficult to win victories in state legislatures. There were medical marijuana bills in at least 18 states, but only two -- Minnesota and New Hampshire -- were approved by legislatures, and they were vetoed by prohibitionist governors. Bills are, however, still alive in six states -- Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin -- with New Jersey and Wisconsin apparently best positioned to become the next medical marijuana state. In Rhode Island, which already approved a medical marijuana law in 2007, the legislature this year amended it to include a dispensary system.

salvia leaves (photo courtesy Erowid.org) The Reflexive Prohibitionist Impulse Remains Alive -- Just Ask Sally D

Despite evident progress on some drug reform fronts, a substantial number of Americans continue to hold to prohibitionist values, including a number of state legislators. The legislative response to the popularity of the fast-acting, short-lived hallucinogen salvia divinorum is the best indicator of that.

The DEA has been reviewing salvia for five years, and has yet to determine that it needs to become a controlled substance, but that hasn't stopped some legislators from trying to ban it. Appalled by YouTube videos that show young people getting very high, legislators in 13 states have banned or limited sales of the herb.

This year, four more states joined the list. The good news is that legislators in seven other states where salvia ban bills were introduced had better things to do with their time than worry about passing them.

drug testing lab "We Must Drug Test Welfare and Unemployment Recipients!"

In another indication that the drug warrior impulse is still alive and well -- as are its class war elements -- legislators in various states this year continued to introduce bills that would mandate suspicionless drug testing of people seeking unemployment, public assistance, or other public benefits. Never mind that Michigan, the only state to pass such a law, saw its efforts thrown out as an unconstitutional search by a federal appeals court several years back.

Such efforts exposed not only public resentment of benefits recipients, but also a certain level of ignorance about the way our society works. A common refrain from supporters was along the lines of "I have to get drug tested for my job, so why shouldn't they have to get drug tested?" Such questioners fail to understand that our system protects us from our government, but not from private employers.

But if welfare drug testing excited some popular support, it also excited opposition, not only on constitutional grounds, but on grounds of cost and elemental fairness. In the four states where drug testing bills were introduced -- Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri and West Virginia -- none of them went anywhere. But even in an era when drug reform is in the air, such bills are a clear sign that there will be many rear-guard battles to fight.

unjust, but also unaffordable Rockefeller Drug Law and Other State Sentencing Reforms

Reeling under the impact of economic downtowns and budget crises, more and more states this year took a second look at drug-related sentencing policies. Most notable of the reforms enacted at the state level this year were reforms in New York's draconian Rockefeller drug laws, which went into effect in October. Under this newest round of Rockefeller drug law reforms, some 1,500 low-level drug offenders will be able to seek sentence reductions, while judges gain some sentencing power from prosecutors, and treatment resources are being beefed up. But still, more than 12,000 will remain in Empire State prisons on Rockefeller drug charges.

New York wasn't the only state to enact sentencing reforms this year. This month, New Jersey legislators passed a bill giving judges the discretion to waive mandatory minimum sentences for some drug offenses. Last month, Rhode Island mandatory minimum reforms went into effect. Earlier this year, Louisiana finally acted to redress the cruel plight of the "heroin lifers," people who had been sentenced to life without parole for heroin possession under an old state law. A new state law cut heroin sentences, but did not address the lifers. As a result, some lifers remained in prison with no hope of parole while more recent heroin offenders came, did their time, and went. Now, under this year's law, the lifers are eligible for parole.

Sentencing reforms are also in the works in a number of other states, from Alabama to California and from Colorado to Michigan. In some cases, reform legislation is in progress; in others, legislators are waiting for commissions to report their findings. In nearly every case, it is bottom-line budget concerns rather than bleeding heart compassion for the incarcerated that is driving the reforms.

PolitickerMD cartoon about the Berwyn Heights raid Swatting SWAT

It was only one bill in one state, and all it required was reporting by SWAT teams of their activities, but the Maryland SWAT bill passed this year marked the first time a state legislature has moved to rein in aggressive paramilitary-style policing. More precisely, the bill requires all law enforcement agencies that operate SWAT teams to submit monthly reports on their activities, including when and where they are used, and whether the operations result in arrests, seizures or injuries.

In took an ugly incident involving the mayor of a Washington, DC, suburb to make it happen. Marijuana traffickers sent a load of pot to the mayor's address to avoid having police show up on their doorstep in the event something went wrong, but something did go wrong, and police tracked the package. When the mayor innocently carried the package inside on returning home, the SWAT team swooped, manhandling the mayor and his mother-in-law and killing the family's pet dogs. The cops were unapologetic, the mayor was apoplectic, and now Maryland has a SWAT law. A new bill just filed in Maryland would take it further, requiring police to secure a judge's warrant before deploying a SWAT team.

shrine to San Malverde, Mexico's ''narco-saint,'' Culiacan, Sinaloa America Finally Notices the Drug War Across the River

While Congress and the Bush administration got serious about Mexico's bloody drug wars in 2008, passing a three-year, $1.4 billion anti-drug aid package for Mexico and Central America, it was not until this year that the prohibition-related violence in Mexico really made the radar north of the border.

It only took about 11,000 deaths (now up to over 16,000) among Mexican drug traffickers, police, soldiers, and innocent bystanders to get the US to pay attention to the havoc being wreaked on the other side of the Rio Grande. But by the spring, Washington was paying attention, and for the first time, one could hear mea culpas coming from the American side. Mexico's drug violence is driven by demand in the US, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano echoed.

But just because Washington admitted some fault didn't mean it was prepared to try anything different. And while the Mexican drug wars brought talk of legalization -- especially of marijuana -- what they brought in terms of policy was the Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy, which is basically mo' better drug war.

Mexico's drug wars show no signs of abating, and the pace of killing has accelerated each year since President Felipe Calderon sent in the army three years ago this month. The success -- or failure -- of his drug war policies may determine Calderon's political future, but it has for the first time concentrated the minds of US policymakers on the consequences of prohibition south of the border.

syringes -- better at the exchange than on the street Congress Ends Ban on Needle Exchange Funding, Butts Out of DC Affairs

After a decade-long struggle, the ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs ended this month with President Obama's signature on an omnibus appropriations bill that included ending the federal ban, as well as a similar ban that applied to the District of Columbia. The bill also removed a ban on the District implementing a medical marijuana law passed by voters in 1998.

Removing the funding ban has been a major goal of harm reduction and public health coalitions, but they had gotten nowhere in the Republican-controlled Congresses of the past decade. What a difference a change of parties makes.

Jim Webb at 2007 incarceration hearing (photo from sentencingproject.org) Questioning the Drug War: Two Congressional Bills

The US Congress has been a solid redoubt of prohibitionist sentiment for decades, but this year saw the beginning of cracks in the wall. Two legislators, Rep. Elliot Engel (D-NY) and Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) introduced and have had hearings on bills that could potentially challenge drug war orthodoxy.

Engel's bill, the Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission Act, which has already passed the House, would set up a commission to examine US eradication, interdiction, and other policies in the Western Hemisphere. While Engel is no anti-prohibitionist, any honest commission assessing US drug policy in the Americas is likely to come up with findings that subvert drug war orthodoxy.

Meanwhile, Sen. Webb's National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 comes at the issue from a much more critical perspective. It calls for a top-to-bottom review of a broad range of criminal justice issues, ranging from sentencing to drug laws to gangs and beyond, with an emphasis and costs and efficacy. Webb's bill remains in the Senate Judiciary Committee, but has 35 cosponsors. Webb has already held hearings on the costs of mass incarceration and the economic costs of drug policy, and even more than Engel's bill, the Webb bill has the potential to get at the roots of our flawed national drug policy.

Sen. Durbin at May hearing on crack sentencing The Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity

The 100:1 disparity in the quantities of crack needed to earn a mandatory minimum federal prison sentence versus the quantities of powder cocaine needed to earn the same sentence has been egregiously racist in its application, with roughly 90% of all federal crack offenders being non-white, and pressure has been mounting for years to undo it. It hasn't happened yet, but 2009 finally saw some serious progress on the issue.

The move to reform the sentencing disparity got a boost in June, when Attorney General Holder said it had to go. The next month, a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee passed the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act of 2009. The bill is now before the House Judiciary and Energy and Commerce Committees.

On the Senate side, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced a companion bill in October, the Fairness in Sentencing Act. It hasn't moved yet, but thanks to a decade-long effort by a broad range of advocates, all the pieces are now in place for something to happen in this Congress. By the time we get around to the Top 10 of 2010, the end of the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity better be one of the big stories.

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Please join us for the next Drop the Rock General Coalition meeting at the Correctional Association of New York?s office in Harlem.

Pizza will be served.

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Vigil to honor Americans arrested for marijuana and non-violent drug use...

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In neighborhoods across the city and state, teams of volunteers will go out into their communities to educate the public about Drop the Rock?s campaign to reduce incarceration in New York.

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Faced with a demand from Gov. Phil Bredesen (R) that all state agencies slash their budgets by 9%, the Tennessee Department of Corrections has responded with a plan to free somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 prisoners before they have finished serving their sentences. Those eligible for release under the plan would be nonviolent offenders, including drug offenders.

According to a TDC statistical report, drug offenders make up 19% of all Tennessee prisoners and serve an average of 10 years. The state prison population has increased by 80% since 1993, with some 28,000 people now behind bars in the Volunteer State. This year, the TDC's budget is $700 million.

The department would have no recourse but releasing prisoners early if it were to implement the cuts called for by Gov. Bredesen, said Corrections Commissioner George Little. The department has scaled back spending and has 400 positions it is leaving unfilled he said. "This isn't scare tactics," he said. "We've got to make ends meet... We would not propose these sorts of very serious and weighty options if we were not in such dire circumstances. We've, frankly, exhausted all of our options other than, frankly, prison population management," Little said.

Little's remarks came on the first day of state budget hearings and were intended to show how the TDC would proceed if Bredesen went ahead with his plan to slice 9% from all state department budgets. Bredesen has said that declining tax revenues and the end of the federal stimulus program may force the state to reduce spending by up to $1.5 billion by the end of the next fiscal year.

Before the hearing, Bredesen told reporters he would try to avoid letting prisoners out early. "I obviously am not interested in returning hardened criminals back to the streets," he said. "But I've told each of them (departments) to come in and tell me, if I say you've got to have 9%, tell me how you can get it... The best thing to do is to get all the possibilities on the table and sort through it."

To achieve a 9% reduction, the TDC could simply release about 3,300 prisoners held in local jails at a cost of $35 to $42 a day. Or it could close one or two of the state's 14 prisons, which would result in the release of about 4,000 prisoners.

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Hundreds, possibly more than a thousand, people poured into the Convention Center in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the Drug Policy Alliance's 2009 International Drug Policy Reform Conference got underway yesterday. Set to go on through Saturday, the conference is drawing attendees from around the country and the world to discuss dozens of different drug reform topics. (See the link above for a look at the program.)

screening of near-final version of the next Flex Your Rights film, 10 Rules for Dealing with Police This is the second time DPA has brought the conference to the distant deserts of the Southwest. In 2001, DPA rewarded libertarian-leaning New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson (R) for becoming the highest ranking elected official in the US to call for ending drug prohibition by bringing the conference to his home state. Since then, the ties between DPA and New Mexico have only deepened.

As DPA New Mexico office head Reena Szczepanski explained at the opening plenary session, the Land of Enchantment is fertile ground for drug reform. "Back in 1997, when drug policy reform was little more than a twinkle in the eye, New Mexico passed a harm reduction act mandating the Department of Health to give out clean syringes for people with HIV/AIDS," she noted. "Then, when Gov. Johnson said it was time to end the war on drugs, DPA very wisely immediately opened an office here. In 2001, we passed the overdose prevention act, allowing for the distribution of naloxone. Then we passed opting out on the federal welfare ban, we passed asset forfeiture reform, we passed the 911 Good Samaritan Act -- saving somebody's life is more important than busting them for small amounts of drugs."

But wait, there's more. "Thanks to Gov. Bill Richardson, we became the 12th state to have legal access to medical marijuana for seriously ill people," Szczepanski continued. "We're working on treatment instead of incarceration, we're working to end the war on drugs in New Mexico and this country. This is a very special place for drug policy reform."

New Mexico is also right next store to one of the drug war's bloodiest battlegrounds: the mean streets of Ciudad Juarez, just across the Rio Grande River from El Paso, Texas, which in turn in borders New Mexico. More than 2,200 people have died in prohibition-related violence in Juarez this year alone.

That violence just across the river inspired El Paso City Councilman Beto O'Rourke to turn a motion expressing sympathy for El Paso's sister city into one that also asked for an open and honest debate on ending drug prohibition. The resolution passed the city council by a unanimous vote, only to be vetoed by the mayor. Then, as the council scheduled an override vote, the pressure came down.

"Each of us on the council got a call from Rep. Silvestre Reyes, our congressman and a very powerful figure," O'Rourke told the crowd Thursday. "He told us if we went forward with this, it will be very hard to get your district the federal funding you need. That's a powerful threat, since we rely on federal funding to deliver basic services. It was enough to get four members to change their votes."

While the resolution was defeated, the debacle opened the door for serious debate on drug policy in El Paso and generated support for ending prohibition as well, O'Rourke said. "Our local Students for Sensible Drug Policy chapter came out very strongly and helped organize a global policy forum in El Paso. I received hundreds of calls, letters, and emails of support from around the country and the world," O'Rourke related to sustained applause.

If Councilman O'Rourke was a new face, Ira Glasser is a familiar one. Former executive director of the ACLU and president of the DPA board of directors, Glasser told the crowd he was more optimistic about the prospects for change than ever before.

"Today we stand on the brink of transformative progress," he said. "I have never said that before. We can almost touch the goals we have sought, the unraveling of the so-called war on drugs, which is really a war on fundamental freedoms and constitutional rights, on personal autonomy, on our sovereignty over our minds and bodies, a war against people of darker skin color."

Just as Jim Crow laws were the successor to the system of slavery, said Glasser, so the drug war has been the successor to Jim Crow. "It's no accident that after the civil rights revolution ended with the passage of the last federal civil right law in 1968, Richard Nixon was elected on the southern strategy against progress on civil rights," he noted. "Within months of taking office, Nixon declared the modern war on drugs."

Glasser wasn't the only one feeling uplifted. "I am feeling good, better than ever before," said DPA executive director and plenary keynote speaker Ethan Nadelmann. "The wind is at our back. We are making progress like never before. We have to move hard and fast. Historically speaking, there are moments when everything comes together," drawing a pointed comparison with the successful temperance movement that managed to get alcohol banned during Prohibition. But Prohibition generated its own counter-movement, he said, again drawing a pointed parallel.

"Now, we're in another moment," Nadelmann said. "We're hurting with the recession, state budgets are hemorrhaging. More and more people are realizing we can't afford to pay for our prejudices, we can't continue to be the world's largest incarcerator."

But it's not just the economy that is opening the window, he continued. "What's happening in Mexico and Afghanistan, where illicit drugs are ready sources of revenues for criminals and political terrorists, that has people thinking. We have two major national security problems causing people to think afresh."

Nadelmann had a suggestion: "Ending marijuana prohibition is a highly effective way of undermining that violence," he said. "Until we end it, buy American."

Just after the opening plenary session ended, reporters and other interested parties repaired to a Convention Center conference room to see the US unveiling of the British Transform Drug Policy Foundation publication, After the War on Drugs: A Blueprint for Regulation, a how-to manual on how to get to drug reform's promised land. Transform executive director Danny Kushlick was joined by Jack Cole of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Sanho Tree of the Institute for Policy Studies, Deborah Small of Break the Chains, and DPA's Nadelmann as he laid out the case for moving beyond "what would it look like."

"There's never been a clear vision of a post-prohibition world," said Kushlick. "With this, we've tried to reclaim drug policy from the drug warriors. We want to make drug policy boring," he said. "We want not only harm reduction, but drama reduction," he added, envisioning debates about restrictions on sales hours, zoning, and other dreary topics instead of bloody drug wars and mass incarceration.

"As a movement, we have failed to articulate the alternative," said Tree. "And that leaves us vulnerable to the fear of the unknown. This report restores order to the anarchy. Prohibition means we have given up on regulating drugs; this report outlines some of the options for regulation."

That wasn't the only unveiling Thursday. Later in the evening, Flex Your Rights held the first public showing of its new video, 10 Rules for Dealing with Police. The screening of the self-explanatory successor to Flex Your Right's 2003 "Busted" played to a packed and enthusiastic house. This highly useful examination of how not to get yourself busted is bound to equal if not exceed the break-out success of "Busted."

The conference, of course, continued Thursday afternoon and will go through Saturday, but your reporter was busy getting this week's Drug War Chronicle ready to go. Come back next week for fuller reports on the 2009 International Drug Policy Reform Conference.

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