I encourage you all to do the same. It occurs to me that even as the candidates have been slow to recognize the power of the internet community, so have the activists been slow to access this avenue to shaping the debate. In an election year where the candidates and their constituencies are so accessible via these forums, we could be making our arguments to them directly.
The pre-written letter is fine, but I deleted it entirely and wrote my own. It still only took a few minutes and they send it to CBS and also to a wide range of media outlets in your area. It felt very satisfying to know I had reached that many people with so little effort. Try it.
Ann Harrison posted a story at Alternet offering her usual in-depth reportage on the two California medical marijuana patients that were arrested in the courtroom by the feds, moments after having state charges dismissed.
And last, but far from least, Barry Crimmins responds to the 2004 SOTU Address, sentence by sentence. Crimmins political quips run far beyond just the drug war, but I leave you with his answer to this remark George W made in defense of the Patriot Act.
GWB: For years, we have used similar provisions to catch embezzlers and drug traffickers. If these methods are good for hunting criminals, they are even more important for hunting terrorists.
Terrorists aren't criminals?
Oh yeah and the War on Drugs has been every bit as effective at interdicting drugs as the war on terror has been at eliminating terrorism. And goodness knows had the war on embezzlement ever even taken place, you'd have had many fewer dollars in your campaign chest.
They singled out one activist in particular. They recognized him.
...Aaron Houston, who clutched a recorder in his hand throughout. The sole paid staffer of Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana, Houston has been bird-dogging the Democratic candidates since last summer, praising those accepting - or even open-minded - on medical cannabis, damning those who are not. He's paid by the Washington-based lobby group, the Marijuana Policy Project. On January 13th, Houston and a colleague attended a publicly announced campaign appearance by Sen. John Edwards at Exeter Town Hall.
It hardly sounds as if Houston was agitating.
As a hundred-odd citizens milled nosily around the meeting room prior to the event - Edwards not yet in the building, nothing emanating from the podium - Houston passed out his single sheet castigating Edwards' stance endorsing the current federal raids on medical marijuana. Stopping them now would be "irresponsible" Edwards has said, and GSMM links him with Attorney General John Ashcroft as "both want[ing] to arrest cancer patients."
Houston maintains he was leafleting in low-keyed fashion; if anyone queried him, he said he simply replied, ask the senator about his position and moved on. The Edwards staffers were similarly distributing literature.
Aaron was surrounded and one staffer attempted to rip the literature out of his hand. They called the police. Despite the whole exchange having been recorded, the Edwards' campaign is declining to comment. I don't suppose they have an excuse for such bad manners much less for suppressing First Amendment freedoms.
Already, anyone but Bush is winning in the polls. So I urge you, in light of these disturbing developments among the Democratic front-runners, to support Kucinich all the way to Boston. He is the only candidate to address the failure of the drug war honestly and his continued presence in the race amplifies the reform movement's voice.
This forum exists for the purpose of communicating John Kerry's message with respect to electing him President.
This is NOT the place to rant about whether or not drugs should be legalized!
Thank you for understanding. If anyone continues to try to restart this topic, they will be placed on pre-mod status. This has gone on long enough!!
There were three active threads on the subject - all were locked down in conjunction with Sarah's threat. Perhaps someone should remind her that the word forum implies a venue to exchange opinions and the level of comment would indicate an interest in the issue among the voters.
I've said this before, don't discount the effect the anti-prohibition movement will have on this race. Whether the candidates like it or not, this issue will be 'bird-dogging' them all the way to Boston.
Thanks to Jules Siegel for unearthing this gem, Detective ruled too cute in drug bust. A Broward Circuit Court judge dismissed a criminal charge against a West Palm Beach man charged with selling drugs during an undercover sting at a gay nightclub in Fort Lauderdale, ruling Detective Mike Nahum is too good looking.
Judge Susan Lebow ruled the defendant, Julio Blanco, was lured by the police officer into committing a crime in hopes he would be rewarded with sex.
On Wednesday, an appeals court backed the trial judge's decision and ruled the police officer's actions were so "outrageous" that it was entrapment. Blanco had never been arrested before and was not under any suspicion of criminal activity until he was talked into it by law enforcement, the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled.
Unfortunately, we won't be able to make our own judgment on the issue, since Nahum is not be photographed because he still is working undercover. We'll have to depend on the defense attorney's description.
Blanco's attorney, Kevin Kulik, spoke up to ensure the transcript would accurately reflect Nahum's macho, muscular appearance. "For the record, I would submit he was about 6' 2". He was in good shape, you know, a fit individual, young detective, looked to be maybe 30."
Nahum shouldn't feel too badly about it, he's probably the first detective in the US to have been declared attractive by a finding of the court.
You have to love it. I wonder how many attorneys will now be citing this case in entrapment defenses?
After watching this and the following story on Kerry and the the Vietnam guy, on the theme, Photo Op or Actual Act of Providence?, (I believe it's the latter), all of a sudden it feels like the mainstream press is finding the same spine they're reporting to have discovered in the Democratic party.
I hope some technogenius out there figures out how to find and save that video permanently, I couldn't find it at the site and I would love to have it for the archives.
Pretend you've just been marched to the school cafeteria to take the Anonymous Student Drug Use Survey. Now check one:
12. If I say I use drugs on this survey,
A) absolutely nothing bad will happen to me
B) I will be praised and rewarded for my honesty
C) all kinds of really bad shit will probably happen to me
Survey designers and providers also know which side of their bread is buttered. They preferentially and intentionally design and return student surveys which hint to the School Board and the local newspapers that "we got trouble right here in River City!" because that pumps up the anti-drug political hysteria that keeps surveyors and drug testing labs and drug dog services in business.
And mathematical kind of guy that he is, Elmer also sums up the hidden cost of this policy.
Drug testing, as we've often noted here, shifts the pattern of student drug use from innocuous pot, which lingers in fat tissue for a month, to the fast-disappearing water-soluble substances like heroin, cocaine and meth, snort it on Friday night, be drug-free (or dead) by Monday.
Good point don't you think? Doesn't add up to good policy to me either.
Education programs like D.A.R.E. which don't work and others which insult the intelligence of kids. Treatment slots wasted on non-addicted marijuana users who are referred by schools and criminal justice, while hard drug addicts are turned away. And law enforcement that has demonstrated major corruption while leading us to being the most incarcerated country on the planet.
I find it somewhat uncanny that whenever I get bogged down in my personal quagmires, Pete posts what I wanted to say. Read the whole thing.
And while you're there, read his posts on First marijuana overdose? and The Demonized Seed. Both stories worth reading and Pete always deconstructs the spin, pro or con equally well.
And of course, I stand with Drug War Rant in continued support of Dennis Kucinich. It's still a long road to Boston and Dennis' courageous stance on cannabis has brought the issue into the national debate. Check out Pete's take on the shape of the race in New Hampshire. He also has a link to the MPP ads that are reported to be airing there.
DALLAS - Federal marshals were bringing a fugitive con man back to Texas this weekend from Dillon, Mont., where they ended his flight toward the Canadian border.
Finding 64-year-old Bobbie McCoy Burress was easy: They just had the rental company switch on the global positioning device in his rented car.
"They turned on the device and located the guy in Montana," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Arnold Spencer. "If he had made it to Canada, it would have made it much more difficult."
Not more difficult to find him but to extradite him. It's not hard to imagine the current administration using this tactic to track political dissenters as well.
And while we're on the subject of microwave tracking, I been holding this disturbing piece on the new surveillance society, Parents spy on teens by phone. In the tradition of Little Linzy, the drug testing teenager who believes Big Brother should start at home, Patrick O'Neil, youth reporter has more good news for parents who prefer intimidation to conversation.
PARENTS will be able to track their teenagers 24 hours a day using secret bounce-back SMS messages.
Parents using the "text track" technology get a return SMS instantly revealing their child's location. Teens will have no idea when their parents have done a check-up.
In the UK, setting it up costs less than $100.
After setup, for a mere fifty-five cents per check:
Parents can set up a zone around their wayward child's school or banned boyfriend's house. If the teenager leaves or enters the zone, an alarm is triggered and an SMS alert is instantly sent to parents.
Is it just me or does this seem like a bad way to raise kids? Schools bring in cops and dogs to intimidate them from using drugs and parents use electronic leashes instead of teaching them to make responsible choices and trusting them to do it. I'm no Luddite, but it seems to me that not all progress is good.
The ranks of drug policy reformers swells with this newly persecuted class of civil society and their professional organizations are increasing going public with their criticism of these ill-conceived strategies to combat drug abuse.
The truly absurd aspect of the DEA's campaign against the appropriate practice of pain management is that the doctor's are mandated by their licensing agencies to prescribe the proper levels of medication and the DEA is then prosecuting them for fulfilling that requirement. As a result it's easier to find a dermatologist than it is a family physician.
Jeb doesn't often address the war on drugs at Freedom Sight but when he does, he's right on target.
When the war on (some) drugs turns into a war on doctors, will it be enough to make people understand the dangers of zealotry? It's exactly this kind of thinking that has caused the increase in all manner of stupid laws and policies which, in effect, punish all of us for the actions of the few who commit real offenses. We see this in cases such as zero-tolerance policies in schools, where students are disciplined for possessing over-the-counter pain, cold, or allergy medicine. We see it when law abiding citizens are deprived their right to keep and bear arms because of the actions of criminals. And now we're seeing it where doctors are discouraged from providing necessary care for those suffering from chronic, debilitating pain, because some prosecutors apparently can't tell the difference between someone suffering from cancer, and a junkie.
I agree. It's the DEA and its lackeys who should be prosecuted for criminal interference in the practice of medicine.
I think 04 will be the most interesting election season we've seen in decades. I'm not going to post this on Tim Blair but my prediction for this race is that an unprecedented surge of reactivated 60s liberals and newly registered young voters will sweep Bush and his cronies unequivocally out of office. And I'm still predicting the Dean campaign will crash and burn before he gets to Boston. I'm not sure who I think will lead us to this victory but it won't be Dean.
The early results would seem to indicate Al Giordano at Big Left Outside was right about Kerry all along and as far as I know he was the only one saying it. I was hoping Kucinich would be the usurper but I'm happy to see that Dennis' support was strong enough to have an effect in shaping the course of events nonetheless.
The lesson to be learned here I think is, don't trust the pollster's numbers. As the town treasurer once said at the annual Cummington town meeting, "You can cook the books any way you like, but there just ain't no money in the bank."
This year NORML is encouraging CBS to reject these ads by persuading the network to abide by it's stated policy of not running ads on "controversial issues of public importance."
A reasonable request considering:
Recently, CBS cited this official policy to deny airing an advertisement sponsored by the advocacy organization MoveOn.org, which criticized President Bush's $1 trillion deficit.
Unfortunately, it appears CBS only applies the policy to those issues it (read that the Bush administration) disagrees with.
...the network accepted a Super Bowl ad that discourages tobacco smoking and one from the American Legacy Foundation encouraging "lifestyle choices" for teenagers, in addition to the ONDCP anti-marijuana ads.
Let CBS know you are aware of this hypocrisy and you will not let it pass unremarked. NORML has a prewritten letter on the site that you can send in a few clicks. Just enter your zip code in the take action now box. Let the station know you are watching what they do but you will not be viewing their programming unless they apply their policy equally.
When the Chavez administration puts forward a reform, it gets approved. It's been a "done deal" for four years! That's because the Venezuelan people gave it an absolute majority in Congress in the 2000 elections.
And neither does Al see the pending referendum on Chavez' government as an obstacle to either the legislation or to Chavez' continued rule.
Even at face value, the reform is on a track that precedes "this summer," six months away. And, fact is, that the proposed referendum may well, if it happens, take place well after this summer.
Or, as Charlie Hardy, the Wyoming Cowboy in Caracas, reported on Narco News (see Participatory Democracy in Venezuela, October 17, 2003), it might not happen at all because the opposition that claims to want a referendum doesn't really want it (the "opposition" knows that it will lose). Anybody with any eyes and ears on the ground in Venezuela, who is honest, and smart, will tell you the same.
The bad news is Giordano didn't stop there. He went on to make some pretty serious ad hominem attacks on the DRC Net team and since Al opened up the discussion; I guess I'm going to weigh in.
In the spirit of full disclosure for those who are new arrived at Last One Speaks, I'm a long time supporter of Al's work and his vision for authentic journalism. I've known him for many years and consider him a treasured friend. I barely know Dave Borden but I've spent enough time with Phil Smith at the conferences to consider him more than a casual acquaintance and to have formed an opinion about his character.
It's like I used to tell my bickering patrons when I was a bartender, "Call me Switzerland. I like everybody." What I don't like however, is this tiffing that seems to have been ongoing since last February in Merida. I don't know what happened there. I was like a kid at the circus for the first time, everything seemed grand and wonderful. I'm sure the logistical nightmare of organizing an event over three days in three languages produced more than a little tension behind the scenes. But enough is enough.
I agree that DRC should have credited and linked to the source when they disputed Big Left Outside's story. I don't know why they didn't. I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they thought it was more politic to handle it that way. They were wrong - it was impolite - but I think Al's response is over the top as well.
I'm reminded of Ethan Nadelmann's opening remarks at the DPA conference to the effect that sometimes we know our fellow reformers so well that we hate them. That's okay. We don't have to like each other but we do need to work together to end this insane war on some drugs. It's easy to forget but there are still not that many of us, certainly not enough to fracture our common cause over personal quarrels. These ad hominem attacks serve no one but the prohibitionists.
So Al, I'd like to remind you of your own words:
They thought they could gag us, but our truth, together with your truth, makes a bigger truth that will now place the narco-system in check.
We all have our own truth and just because DRC Net was wrong in their assessment of the situation, doesn't make them evil men with some malevolent intent to undermine reform. With due respect dear friend, I think our cause would be better served by keeping the civility in 'civil society'.
Video download (WARNING: some viewers may find this material disturbing)
Heed the warning, I found the footage to be extremely disturbing indeed. It wasn't even so much watching the men being killed as it was the tone of the soldier's voices as they zeroed in on their targets. They may as well have been playing a video game for all the emotion they showed. If you only had the audio, you might think they were blowing up graphics into bytes, instead of human beings into bits. I found the last kill of the crawling wounded man to be especially chilling in its coldly calculated calibration.
Our men in the Apache had no fear for their lives in this situation. They were merely doing what they had been trained to do in their video war games. Trouble is, they didn't sound like it felt any different to them to kill actual people.
The accompanying article reports, "The MPEG format file has been posted to several right-wing US forums, where the effectiveness of the Apache's firepower has been celebrated."
For myself, I'm not putting on my party hat over the use of such unnecessary force, no matter how efficiently it's delivered. I'm not sure what leaves me more queasy, the footage itself or the fact that there is a whole subset of people on this planet that would find pleasure in its brutality.
The hash sellers of Denmark's famed Christiania Freetown dramatically burned their own stands on the community's Pusher Street Sunday afternoon. The self-immolating move came in response to increasing pressure from the Danish government to crack down on soft drug sales in the enclave, which has been an autonomous, self-governing community since hippies swarmed into an abandoned military base in downtown Copenhagen in 1971.
The original settlement of squatters eventually became Christiania, an independent community that throve over the years.
"In Christiania, in the middle of a modern Western city, an alternative economy, society and life style has been created, which involves much more than only an alternative drug policy. It has survived several attacks from both illegal and legal interest groups, and although it has been forced to give up some of its ideals, it has also become an integrated part of the city and the region,"
...Since its establishment three decades ago, Christiania has become a global counterculture icon, with its open cannabis sales, its psychedelic spirit, its radical democracy, and also for what it lacks: cars, police and government. Christiania residents banned hard drugs in 1979, and the Danish government regularized the 84-acre, 1000 strong community's status a decade later. While tensions between Christiania and the Danish state have risen and fallen over the years -- a 1976 effort to shut it down was countered by tens of thousands of anarchists from all over Europe -- the current Danish government announced last month that it could legally evict Christiania's residents, and that has raised alarms in the enclave and among its supporters worldwide.
Denmark's first conservative government in some 30 years apparently feels the country would be better served by banishing the present residents and re-developing the area into luxury condos. Unsubstantiated rumor has it that the US government and Swedish prohibitionists have influenced the government's new policy about the town.
All is not lost however.
Christianians are plotting a survival strategy, said "mother of Christiania" Britte Lillesoe.
...."It may get worse," conceded Lillesoe, "but we will stay. This is so strange. We banned hard drugs here in 1979 because prohibition made the crime come in. Our solution was to throw out the dealers, but we said cannabis was okay. It's a soft drug, so you can push it if you keep the hard drugs out. And we said you can sell it only on Pusher Street. It got bigger and bigger because nothing happened elsewhere. Now the right-wing government has closed hash clubs in Copenhagen, and the customers come here. I'm just an old hippie and we're just a little tiny place that tried to set the best example for ending prohibition," she said.
And so they have. It looks like greed and corporate interests are attempting to trump personal freedom and common sense once again. I'm rooting for the residents of this 'free town'. Save Christiania.
Layton appeared on Internet network's Pot-TV and agreed to Emery's, the Marijuana Party's and the cannabis community's peace terms in the War on Drugs.
Layton went further than just joking about inhaling or eating pot brownies. He outright appealed to the stoner community by promising cafes, personal grow-ops, no jail time, no fines, or harassment by The Man for grass if he was elected prime minister. Layton spoke about legalization of marijuana. This is the furthest any reputable candidate in Canada has ever dared to go.
It's a far cry from what current Prime Minister Paul Martin is offering up.
Compare this to the Liberal's so-called decrim bill that heavily fines possessors, slams growers and dealers with double the current sentencing terms along with forcing judges to hand out mandatory minimums. The Liberals are truly wagging the dog with this piece of legislation that was cooked up in Washington.
I wouldn't pop the champagne corks on this just yet though, Layton is apparently something of a visionary within the NDP. The old-timers are not necessarily on board.
The party hasn't dealt completely with their leader's views on grass and currently they don't have the platform he outlined in their election plank...
Emery seems unconcerned by this.
Emery admits, Jack Layton's comments took them all by surprise. He's a smart leader. He has dared the party to contradict him in public, which they won't do. They know that statement is the future. That's where the votes are. They know the young disenfranchised... are the people that they need to bring on in to add strength to their other issues.
Emery is also a smart leader and a brilliant businessman having built his own (legal) empire around the cannabis culture. One hopes his confidence in the NDP faithful is not misplaced. I still have some lingering doubts they can pull this merger off however, based on this evidence.
The Prince of Pot has wanted to give the NDP oodles of cash to continue to promote the pro-marijuana message. The only problem is that the NDP have turned down his offers. "They are the only person or group that has turned down my money," he says. "The NDP head office wouldn't take my money. I offered them $5,000 with more to come, but they wouldn't take it. They didn't think it would look right."
....Emery's cash is completely legit.
"I pay shockingly high income tax [about $12,000 a month]. I can give to political organizations. I told them, "You know I pay more in taxes than anyone who has given you money this year. I assure you. This money is totally clean. I pay taxes on every dime I give you." But they wouldn't take the money. It must be nice. I've never met a political organization that has turned down money. We must still make them nervous."
Residual skepticism aside, my money is on the indefatigable Emery being able to successfully woo the party regulars and pull this odd marriage off.
Emery's efforts to inspire the youth vote and instruct them on the process is also to be applauded. Marc is a man who thinks on his feet and doesn't waste any time musing over his defeats.
With the litigation strategy handed a 6–3 loss at the Supreme Court the only way Mary Jane is going to be as legal as alcohol is by electing the NDP. Emery says, “We went to the courts and they’re pretty much done. So now we’re re–doubling our efforts in the political realm. In the long–term it might prove to be more fruitful to have political allies. Now that we’ve been told by the courts that politics is our only avenue, then politics it is.”
Marc's personal charisma may provide much of the momentum for his success, but nonetheless he presents a good model for activism that I think could work here. Read the whole article.
What a feel-good story. A major industrial workplace is shuttered, its workforce tossed. Then, hard-working entrepreneurs take over the space, putting dozens of people to work meeting big demand for a quality product. Except the product is pot and the people behind this plan will probably go to jail. The Barrie Molson Park grow op showed what progressive pot policy could be like. Now it just shows how moronic the laws are that punish people for creating a decent product millions want.
WELL THAT DIDN'T TAKE LONG
LOOSE ENDS
NO ADMITTANCE
AVOIDING THE ISSUE
LAUGH OUT LOUD
TOO CUTE
DEM BONES GONNA RISE AGAIN
SING-SING A SONG
BY THE NUMBERS
WHAT HE SAID
HIGH TECHNOLOGY
HIPPOCRATIC OATH
GAZING INTO THE CRYSTAL BALL
WELCOME HOME?
...TO FORGIVE DIVINE
CAUGHT IN THE CROSSHAIR
BURN OUT
STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
IN SYNC
