COMMON GROUND

I'm back from the conference and still trying to process the information overload. This event was huge for me and there's much to tell but I'm really burned out at the moment so for tonight I'm just going to send a million thanks to Drug Policy Alliance for making my attendance possible.

Not to worry though, DRC Net was publishing from the conference and offers this report on the opening session including Ethan Nadelmann's opening presentation.

Ethan is an amazing speaker and offered his usual brilliant deconstruction of the battle ahead. He made some points that should be well taken by all of us on the need for consumers to stand up for the principle of personal sovereignty over mind and body, to come forward as examplars of responsible drug use and the equal need for co-operation among the hundreds of drug reform agencies regardless of the differences in their agendas or personality conflicts among the members.

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YOU CALL THIS PREVENTION

Unfortunately, while I was stuffing my brain full of drug war knowledge in New Jersey, the prohibitionists didn't suspend operations. The inbox is of course jammed full with the latest outrages.

Ridiculous raid story of the week goes to this debacle in South Carolina.

Fourteen officers cordoned off the main hallway of Stratford High School at 6:40 a.m. Wednesday to search for marijuana. No drugs were found.

The justification for the raid was absurd.

"Within the last three weeks, there's been an influx of drug activity," he said. "I've been in this business for 34 years, and I've never seen the amount of activity we've experienced recently."

Aarons said he watched school surveillance tapes from four days that showed students congregating under cameras, periodically walking into a bathroom with different students and coming out moments later.

They can't afford to give these students essential educational resources even as basic as books and bussing but they can justify the expense of sending in a commando squad with drawn weapons to terrorize 107 high school kids, just because they were milling around in a main hall before school starts and going into the bathrooms together? Isn't that what we did in high school?

What astounds me is that the taxpayers don't complain. When they sent 14 officers to break up the peace protest here, every red-white-and-blue bleeding patriot in this town was bitching about the cost at a time when town services are being cut. I'll bet this little failed raid cut even deeper into the Goose Creek town coffer. It would have been better spent on funding some extracurricular programs so the kids would have an alternate to taking drugs. And I wonder how many of those kids are going to respect the law after having been treated with such disrepect?

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AS THE DRUG CZAR SPINS

John Walters appeared on CSPAN and as usual, earnestly delivered his misinformation. (You have to click on the program.)

It's 24 minutes long and I don't recommend viewing immediately after eating but the callers made a pretty good case and it's worth watching. Along with the long debunked potency agurment he spews the customary skewed or outright false statistics about addiction to marijuana, these being based mainly on court ordered admissions to treatment programs handed out in lieu of jail time to young non-violent offenders in small possession cases.

He trotted out a chart proving 56% of young people in 2002 have tried marijuana at least once. He should be frightened by that number. It means the majority of 20-somethings in this country know he is lying about this plant.

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SATCHMO SPEAKS

On a brighter note, as a reminder that this herb has inspired some of the most creative minds of this century. The Winnipeg Sun reports that Louis Armstrong was a daily marijuana smoker from about age 27 until his death in July 1971, one month short of his 70th birthday.

Last word to one of my all time favorite jazz legends.

"One reason we appreciated pot, as y'all calls it now, ( was ) the warmth it always brought forth from the other person.

"If we all get as old as Methuselah our memories will always be of lots of beauty and warmth from gage. Well, that was my life, and I don't feel ashamed at all. The respect for it will stay with me forever. I have every reason to say these words and am proud to say them. From experience."

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