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In The Trenches

Drug Policy Forum of Kansas: Action Alert - January 13, 2008

1) Kansas Legislative Session Starts Tomorrow 2) Medical Marijuana Organization Gains Creditability 3) Wichita Doctor - Criminal or Drug War Victim? 4) DPFKS has new address The Kansas Legislative Session starts up again for the second half of the 2007/2008 session tomorrow. Check our website after January 20th for updates and analysis of drug policy reform-related bills. The Kansas Compassionate Care Coalition, a Kansas-based advocacy organization seeking legislation protecting medical marijuana patients from arrest, is mentioned today in a front page article in the Topeka Capitol-Journal on legislative priorities (see http://www.cjonline.com/stories/011308/sta_236261740.shtml). The 800-member strong organization is founded around a Statement of Principle regarding medical marijuana. Former Kansas Attorney General Robert T. Stephan held a press conference in August announcing his support for the organization. For more information on the organization and to sign their Statement of Principle, see their website, www.ksccc.org. Wichita pain-management doctor, Stephen Schneider and his nurse-wife Linda were arrested last month and charged in 34-count indictment of, among other things, causing the death of their patients by over prescribing opiate pain medication. A New Mexico-based organization, the Pain Relief Network, have come to the doctors defense by filing a lawsuit alleging that the Controlled Substances Act is being illegally enforced by the federal government. The doctor and his wife are being held without bail, have been denied visits by their teenage children, and have had all their assets seized by the government. The government is now trying to remove their court appointed attorneys from the case. The Board of Healing Arts will rule on Tuesday whether to close his Wichita clinic. Sounds like their guilty before even going to trial! Read all the latest news about Dr. Schneider’s case at the Pain Relief Network’s website and decide for yourself if he is criminal or a victim of the government’s war on drugs. http://www.painreliefnetwork.org/prn/category/news/ Our mailing address has changed! It is now: DPFKS, P.O. Box 357, Lawrence, Kansas 66044. Please help us promote innovative drug policies by sending your tax-deductible donation today. Become a member: Add yourself to our mailing list by going to our web site www.dpfks.org.
In The Trenches

Drug Truth 4:20 Reports 01/14/08

PLEASE NOTE: We have restyled our website. The new, CMS format 4:20 DWN, Cultural Baggage and Century of Lies shows are at: http://www.drugtruth.net/ Lots of New features, XML files, built-in podcasts, searchability, and lots more. Drug Truth Network Update: 4:20 Drug War NEWS from 90.1 FM in Houston & on the web at www.kpft.org. Those who sit silently and watch the drug war unfold are the best friends the drug barons could ever hope for. - Rev. Dean Becker 4:20 Drug War NEWS 01/14/08 to 01/20/08 now online (3:00 ea:) Mon - Poppygate Report with Glenn Greenway Tue - Philippe Lucas of Vancouver Island Compassion Society discusses latest Canadaian marijuana news Wed - Philippe Lucas II Thu - Drug War Facts with Doug McVay Fri - Marc Emery, Canada's "Prince of Pot" speaks of forthcoming extradition hearing Sat - Marc Emery 2/2 Sun - Corrupt Cop Story with Phil Smith NOTE: CULTURAL BAGGAGE (Broadcast on Wed) & CENTURY OF LIES (Broadcasts Tue) Hundreds of our programs are available online at www.drugtruth.net, www.audioport.org and at www.radio4all.net. We provide the "unvarnished truth about the drug war" to scores of broadcast affiliates in the US and Canada. Next - Century of Lies on Tues, Cutural Baggage on Wed: - Cultural Baggage 12:30 PM ET, 11:20 AM CT, 10:30 AM MT & 9:30 AM PT: Peter Christ of LEAP - Century of Lies 12:30 PM ET, 11:20 AM CT, 10:30 AM MT & 9:30 AM PT: Dominic Holden of Hempfest Potcasts: 4:20 Drug War News Century of Lies Cultural Baggage Check out our latest videos via www.youtube.com/fdbecker: Please become part of the solution, visit our website: www.endprohibition.org for links to the best of reform. "Prohibition is evil." - Reverend Dean Becker, Drug Truth Network Producer Dean Becker 713-849-6869 www.drugtruth.net
In The Trenches

Drug Truth w/Transcripts 01/10/08

PLEASE NOTE: We now have TRANSCIPTS! Also potcasts, searchability, CMS, XML, sorts by guest name and by organization. (To downlad files, click on links below, to simply listen go to www.drugtruth.net and select the arrow below the shows description.) Cultural Baggage for 01/09/08 Alison Chinn Holcomb of ACLU of Washington Foundation discusses marijuana laws + Report on cadmium poisoning of federal prisoners with Karen Garrison whose son Lawrence was exposed plus Paul Wright, publisher of Prison Legal News. MP3 LINK: http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/?q=audio/download/1718/FDBCB_010908.mp3 TRANSCRIPT: http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/?q=node/1718#comments Century of Lies for 01/08/08 Marc Emery, Canada's "Prince of Pot" discusses his forthcoming extradition hearing to send him to the US for a potential life sentence for exporting marijuana seeds + Paul Wright, publisher of Prison Legal News. MP3 Link: http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/?q=audio/download/1717/COL_010808.mp3 TRANSCRIPT: http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/?q=node/1717#comments Next - Century of Lies on Tues, Cutural Baggage on Wed: - Cultural Baggage 12:30 PM ET, 11:20 AM CT, 10:30 AM MT & 9:30 AM PT: Peter Christ - Century of Lies 12:30 PM ET, 11:20 AM CT, 10:30 AM MT & 9:30 AM PT: Dominic Holden Hundreds of our programs are available online at www.drugtruth.net, www.audioport.org and at www.radio4all.net. We provide the "unvarnished truth about the drug war" to scores of broadcast affiliates in the US and Canada. Programs produced at Pacifica Radio Station KPFT in Houston. www.kpft.org Check out our latest videos via www.youtube.com/fdbecker: Please become part of the solution, visit our website: www.endprohibition.org for links to the best of reform. "Prohibition is evil." - Reverend Dean Becker, Drug Truth Network Producer Dean Becker 713-849-6869 www.drugtruth.net
Event

Prison Art Gallery: FREE Reception Featuring Judge Arthur Bennett

You are cordially invited to attend a free reception at the Prison Art Gallery (three blocks from the White House) featuring a talk by Judge Arthur Burnett. There will be a question and answer period following Judge Burnett's presentation. Refreshments will be served.
In The Trenches

Prison Art Galley: Free Stuff on our Newly Expanded Website

[Courtesy of Prision Art Galley] Here's What You Get FREE when you visit our website www.PrisonsFoundation.org now! Complete CDs of your favorite music performed by ex-prisoner musicians, and access to daily News You Can Use updates and complete archives. All absolutely FREE! We have some very special treats in store for you when you visit our newly expanded website www.PrisonsFoundation.org. No sign-up, password, or anything else required. Just come and get! You can download complete music CDs performed by the Prison Art Gallery Guitar Ensemble. Choose one or all of the following ten CDs, each over an hour, and now absolutely FREE: Mostly Motown, Beatles Forever, Latin Love, Duke Ellington Songbook, Rogers and Hammerstein Songbook, Carole King Songbook, Gershwin Songbook, Classic Jewish Songs, Hoagy Carmichael Songbook, and Irving Berlin Songbook. Also, you can get Free daily installments of News You Can Use featuring the latest national, global and local prison developments from authoritative sources. Our archives go back years, so whatever prison-related subject you're looking for, you'll find it here. FREE. Don't Miss Our Upcoming FREE Reception Featuring Judge Arthur Bennett You are cordially invited to attend a free reception at the Prison Art Gallery, 1600 K St NW, Washington, DC (three blocks from the White House) featuring a talk by Judge Arthur Burnett. There will be a question and answer period following Judge Burnett's presentation. Refreshments will be served. If you ever wanted to know more about the inner workings of the judicial system that sends so many people to prison, this is a rare opportunity to find out. Senior Judge Arthur L. Burnett, Sr., now on leave from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, currently serves as the Executive Director of the National African American Drug Policy Coalition. In that capacity he seeks alternatives to incarceration, including the use of drug courts and treatment instead of prisons. His influential Coalition consists of twenty-three professional organizations of lawyers, doctors, dentists, nurses, social workers, sociologists, psychologists and other behavioral scientists. Judge Burnett graduated from Howard University summa cum laude and received his law degree from New York University in 1958. He commenced his law career that year in the Attorney General's Honors Program at the United States Department of Justice in the Criminal Division. In 1965 he became an Assistant United States Attorney in Washington, D.C. where he prosecuted homicides, among other cases. In 1968 he became the first General Counsel of the Metropolitan Police Department in the District of Columbia. After serving in other distinguished positions, he was appointed by the President of the United States to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in 1987. Please join us for this special Free event on Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008, at the Prison Art Gallery, 1600 K Street NW, Suite 501, Washington, DC. For further information, please call 202-393-1511 or email [email protected].
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Blog

Vancouver man part of Alaska smuggling ring

A Vancouver man has been charged with smuggling millions of dollars worth of marijuana stashed in snow mobiles, inflatable boats and travel trailers into Alaska. The thirty-six year old was named in an indictment by a grand jury in anchorage.
Blog

Obama Pledges to Continue the Drug War

How shall I respond when a prominent politician rejects drug legalization, while in the same breath criticizing the costs and consequences of our wildly bloated criminal justice system? Should I condemn his tacit endorsement of the drug war or give him credit for at least recognizing a problem that so many still pretend doesn’t exist? I guess I'll try to do both.

Here's what Barack Obama said when a questioner pointed out how lucky he is to have avoided arrest for his past drug use and asked if he would consider ending the drug war:
"I'm not interested in legalizing drugs,'' Obama said, adding that he prefers an approach that puts more emphasis on a public health approach to drugs and less emphasis on incarceration.

He said there should be more programs to keep young people from using drugs. And he said first-time offenders should be given help to overcome their drug use instead of being locked up at massive taxpayer expense from which they emerge as unemployable ex-convicts.

"All we do is give them a master's degree in criminology,'' Obama said. [AP]
What a shame that Obama's most forward-thinking comments on criminal justice reform must be prefaced with a rejection of the one idea that has a chance of working. The inherent flaw in Obama's narrow, palatable rhetoric is revealed unintentionally by The Weekly Standard's Jonathan Last:
The only problem with this is that there are very, very few people incarcerated for first-time drug use.
Last goes on to laboriously downplay the persecution of first-time offenders in our criminal justice system. It's an outrageous attempt to argue that everyone in prison deserves to be there. But it does have the effect of reminding us how limited Obama's proposed reforms truly are.

The root of our drug war-fueled incarceration crisis lies in the practice of vigorously arresting and criminalizing people for having drugs. As long as this machinery remains in place, our prison population will continue to grow exponentially. Obama's first-time offender focused model of criminal justice reform is like trying to drain an olympic swimming pool with a pint glass.

Meanwhile, the drug war itself continues to function as a massive black market job recruitment program; a fully functional drug offender factory whose participants are often much more addicted to grocery money than drugs. Treatment-focused reform strategies don't address or even acknowledge this. Still, it remains perfectly commonplace for proponents of partial criminal justice reform to insist that we continue imprisoning suppliers while searching for ever more suppliers to imprison, all while failing entirely to disrupt supply.

The silver lining here is that important people are becoming increasingly comfortable admitting that something is wrong. When the reforms they've agreed upon fail to address the problem, they can't just go back and pretend to be cool with it. They've promised to fix our criminal justice system and if they continue to follow the trail of clues, they will eventually find themselves face to face with the war on drugs.

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Chronicle

Canada: Marc Emery to Accept Canadian Prison Time on US Charges

Marc Emery, Canada's "Prince of Pot," announced this week that he has accepted a plea deal with US federal prosecutors that will spare his associates jail time but will see him do at least five years in prison -- mostly in Canada -- for selling marijuana seeds to customers in the US. The trio had faced mandatory minimums of 10 years and the possibility of life.
Chronicle

Middle East: The Poppies Blossom in Iraq

Caught in the middle of Iraq's simmering violence, Iraqi farmers are turning to the opium poppy to make a living. Militias and warlords are behind it, says British journalist Patrick Cockburn.
Chronicle

Feature: It's Safer to Be a Cop Than a Farmer

Police deaths in the line of duty were up last year, and so was the number of cops killed by gunfire. But only handful died enforcing the drug laws, and policing remains safer than a good number of other professions.
Chronicle

Salvia Divinorum: Virginia House Passes Ban

Joining a handful of other states, Illinois made salvia divinorum illegal as of January 1. Now, Virginia wants to be next. A bill to ban it has already passed the House of Delegates and is headed to the state Senate.
Chronicle
Chronicle