WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

Drying out here in lovely downtown Noho this morning after a tremendous rainstorm yesterday afternoon. I was on the street when it hit. It was absolutely psychedelic. It poured buckets for about 20 minutes, gales of wind driving it in sheets down the pavement. By the time I walked half a block there was a two foot deep flood under the railroad trestle and the cross street at the top of the hill was about four inches deep.

The umbrella was totally ineffective. I was soaked to the skin from the waist down in seconds. I came back to the office and literally had to wring out my slacks.

---

SWEET LIBERTY

There's a new guy posting on the drugwar.com discussion list these days, Bob Armstrong, a staunch Libertarian. We've been having an ongoing debate for the last few weeks on corporate complicity in the sorry state of the world economy.

There's a lot I admire about the Party's political stance, but I have real problem with their insistence on blaming everything solely on the so called 'nanny government'. This is my last post on the subject:

And here's where the Libertians lose me. There's a lot I like about the model, but I'm confounded by this blind and at times almost belligerent defense of the so called free market system as forced on the economy by the multinational corporations at the expense of the lower economic classes.

It's so easy to say that opportunities exist but what bothers me, is the vehement supporters of that line within the LP are people who enjoyed the advantages of
at least a comfortable middle class upbringing.

Let me ask, and I mean this in the kindest way possible, did you grow up in the ghetto Bob? Did you fight your way off the streets to get your education? Was there one day in your childhood when you were hungry and your mom had nothing to feed you? Did you have to wonder who your dad was? These are the people who are working on the production lines of US multicorporates, only here they unionized for better conditions. So now they are outsourcing the labor.

An ugly scenario that plays out at ten times the intensity on the level of the exploitation of the third world poor by the multinationals who bring their production facilities into these countries to avoid the profit eating environmental, safety and labor
regulations in the US.

And don't tell me that competition solves this problem. The oil industry bands together into associations that pay the rents inside the beltway on K street and pay the tabs for the August legislative jaunts. And so do the pharmas and the insurance industry and the industrial prison complex......

Bush didn't blow a 6.8 surplus into a 4.3 deficit on government programs. The people did not get that money. Halliburton, WorldCom, ClearChannel, and Bush cronies ad infinitum are spending our tax dollars right now and the truly evil aspect is they are using that money to advance an inhumane agenda that views human beings of a certain socio-economic class as expendable because there are so many of them. There is nothing in your free market model that would enable this class to compete against that kind of corporate force.

Wake up and smell the herbicide. It's clearing the way for the petrol pipeline in a Latin American country near you. And it's not likely to benefit your local indigineous peasant but you can be certain that someone in corporate America will be driving a new Jag on the profits.

Bob's usually pretty quick on the trigger with a response, but there's been none forthcoming on this post. Methinks he has no defense to that point.

---

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS

John Ashcroft is still working hard to shackle the judiciary. In his latest move to jam the wheels of justice and fill the prison industrial complex with warm bodies, he issued a new directive instructing prosecutors to seek the highest penalities possible, including upward departures in all federal cases before the courts. Oddly, I heard this quote last night on Law and Order where they were discussing plea bargains. The head DA said:

The negotiated agreement between two opposing attorneys is the greatest tool invented to promote justice, since the guillotine.

Someone should let John know he is supposed to protect the system, not reinvent it to reflect his own image. Pete Guither at Drug War Rant, has a a great analysis of this addle-brained policy along with links to the pertinent coverage.

---

CAUSE AND EFFECT

The United Nations released a report this week stating the Global Use Of Ecstasy Is Soaring.

The report, presented at a news conference in Rome, estimated that global use of Ecstasy rose by 70 percent between 1995-1997 and 2000-2001, while use of amphetamines rose by 40 percent over the same period.

More than 40 million people worldwide, or 1 percent of all people 15 years or older, used amphetamine-type stimulants, known as ATS, in 2000-2001.

Am I the only that sees the correlation between the rise in use of these drugs and the alleged success of cocaine and heroin eradication? The bottom line folks is that people are going to take drugs. Take away one drug and they find another. The meth is being largely manufactured right here in the US and you're in more danger with a meth lab in your neighborhood than you are from an heroin user nodding off in your local alley.

From what I've heard, anybody with a bathtub can make the stuff with legally procured items and the profit margin is apparently tempting.

Let me say it again. The only solution to addiction is legalization and regulation.

---

NEWS OF THE NORTH

I know I've been focusing on the bad side of the war for quite a while now. I wish there was more good news to tell but the outrages keep pouring into my inbox every day. The the only light in this bleak landscape I can offer today is this link to Cultural Baggage's interview with my Canadian hero, Marc Emery.

Dean Becker has dozens of interviews with drug reform minded doctors, scientists, judges, congressmen, Nobel prize winners and more available online at the site. He also airs 3 minute reports on national and international drug war news on the 4:20 Reports, 7 days per week, available for download at the site. Check it out.

---