Drug war hits

This will be old news to the drug reformers who visit here but it's still mentioning that one of the cops who was involved in the death of the Atlanta granny may be charged with murder. I think it's a good thing he'll be held accountable but I hope this doesn't take the heat off the greater investigation into the no-knock, low-knock warrants.

On a happier note, a beneficial side effect of the Democratic sweep in Congress is that Dennis Kucinich is now in charge of the committee that oversees drug policy.

This subcommittee replaces the now-defunct Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources subcommittee, which was headed up by staunch drug warrior, Rep. Mark Souder ( R-IN ). Kucinich will assume many of his oversight duties, including policy oversight of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and appointed Drug Czar John Walters. One commentator on Stopthedrugwar.org crowed that "the responsibility of overseeing the ONDCP has effectively been transferred from Congress's most reckless drug warrior to its most outspoken drug policy reformer" [his emphasis].

I'm not much for schadenfreude but I have to admit that no matter what happens with this, I'm really glad to see that smug little prig Souder get kicked off his lofty perch as chief Congressional prohibitionist. And I have great hope that Kucinich could actually instill some common sense into the funding process at least.

The administration must think so as well. Bush himself made an appearance to ask for 31% increase in funding for anti-drug ads in his budget proposal. One would hope the Congressmen will have read the internal audit that showed the ads were not only ineffective but in fact counterproductive and contributed to an increase in teens' use of marijuana.

The White House apparently hopes to sidestep those incovenient statistics by changing its focus to meth as is made clear by Souder's remarks to the press. Why they think anti-meth ads wouldn't have the same dismal result is unclear.