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New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is the latest to propose giving drug dealers free advertising. From the Las Cruces Sun-News:

The proposed drug-dealer registry would be modeled after a national bill that has been introduced by U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce.

Pearce said he held 39 town hall meetings throughout New Mexico dealing with methamphetamine usage, and heard the same story everywhere he went.

"It is a catastrophe that is already happening, and we're not responding," Pearce said. "I think if the neighbors knew there was someone dealing drugs in their neighborhood, then parents would be able to say to their kids, 'stay away from that house.'"

This argument assumes that the registry will be a useful indicator of where drugs are being sold. If so, the registry will have tremendous potential to facilitate criminal liaisons. Mightn't some people turn to the list if they can't find the drugs they want? It's impressive that Pearce has managed to get so excited about the idea without worrying about this.

Of course, the smarter drug dealers won't operate at the address listed on the Internet. Ultimately, the registry would provide a false sense of security in that avoiding the grey house down the street isn't really the key to keeping your kids off drugs.

Still, I agree with Pearce that it would be ideal if concerned parents knew exactly where the drugs were being sold. Legalization is the only way to achieve this.

From the Fresno Bee:

In a ceremony today, the White House drug czar is honoring the state, local and federal officers who took down Modesto's California Healthcare Collective. Officials charge the ostensibly nonprofit collective with fronting for big-time marijuana dealers.

Walters' grandstanding is particularly galling in light of widespread public condemnation of the DEA's recent activity in California. Indeed, raiding dispensaries that openly provide medicine to sick people in accordance with state law is one of the lamest and least helpful things police can possibly do with our tax dollars.

Every problem associated with medical marijuana distribution could be solved if the federal government rescheduled the drug and brought it inside the law where it belongs.

Instead, the Drug Czar and his army of federally-subsidized task forces continue to gorge themselves on confiscated proceeds and negative publicity. Perhaps recognizing the absurdity of it all, they bend over backwards to paint their targets as gangsters and criminals:

"Most health-care providers wear white coats and carry stethoscopes," said Bill Ruzzamenti, director of the Fresno-based Central Valley High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. "In this particular case, they wore bulletproof vests [and] carried a gun."

Of course, it's actually the police who are playing doctor at gunpoint. And you can't blame dispensary owners for arming themselves when they have nowhere to turn for protection. The suggestion that these people are dangerous is a joke and should serve to remind us that truly dangerous people are the beneficiaries when police resources are wasted in a fraudulent political war against medical marijuana.

Are you watching this, Dennis Kucinich?

Tony Serra, a prominent defense attorney whose name comes up frequently in drug law reform, writes a revealing critique of the criminal justice system, based on his experiences in federal prison camp in Lompoc, California for tax resistance -- in the '70s and again for a few more months this year. The text of his letter, which was originally published in California Lawyer, was published online at the BreaktheChains.info web site. Serra writes that while the camp environment, which is low security, on its surface is far more humane than an all-out prison -- "In 1976 inmates, as a generality, felt graced and privileged by their placement in the Camp" -- things have changed for the worse:

Not one prisoner whom I have talked to-and I have talked to hundreds-believes he has been treated fairly by the judicial system. Many young men, who in a past generation would have received probation, have had their youth taken from them-10, 15, 20 years of incarceration, with no parole, no conjugals, no furloughs, no real job training or education. They are harsh and bitter. Their attitude is contagious in prison subculture. Prisoners nowadays uniformly hate the U.S. government. And we sit around and ask why recidivism is on the rise!

Read the full letter here.