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ONDCP Staffer Makes Threatening Phone Call to SSDP Office

Mere hours after SSDP's Tom Angell posted this amusing letter from ONDCP noting that the agency will respond to his FOIA request in 200 years, ONDCP's Assistant General Counsel Daniel R. Peterson called SSDP's office to voice his objections.

Peterson, the author of this ironic typo, accused Tom of being childish and threatened to respond with similar tactics. Incredulous, Tom replied "so does that mean you guys are going to start mentioning us in your blog?" Peterson declined.

Now I've got to admit to some sympathy for the other side here. This was a simple mistake, the severity of which pales in comparison to numerous things ONDCP does deliberately. Tom has previously humiliated the federal government with FOIA requests, so the idea of scrupulously drafting responses to perceived harassment from him must surely frustrate and distract these busy bureaucrats from their book-cooking.

Unfortunately for ONDCP, the unintentional irony of the error makes for good fun in the blogosphere. Stalling, you see, has become a trademark of the federal drug war; a necessary tactic whenever facts come in conflict with the status quo. We've seen this with regards to ASA's Data Quality Act lawsuit, MAPS's marijuana research lawsuit, sentencing reform, needle exchange and marijuana rescheduling. Heck the entire federal drug war is really just a few agencies constantly stalling in the hopes that we'll eventually stop asking so many questions and learn to live with false promises and fake progress.

So when Daniel Peterson tells SSDP that he'll respond to their FOIA appeal in 200 years, it's a perfect Freudian slip. Once again, ONDCP's most truthful and candid remarks occur entirely by accident.
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Did John Belushi die from cocaine?

Reason's Jacob Sullum posts an interesting discussion in the Hit and Run blog, reacting to a New York Times story last Sunday titled "Cocaine: Hidden in Plain Sight." The NYT article observed:
[F]or a generation that has not had its John Belushi to drive home the dangers of drug abuse, references and even use [of cocaine] are open, casual, even blatant.
Did Belushi actually die from cocaine, though? Sullum quotes addiction psychologist Stanton Peele on the topic:
John Belushi did not die from cocaine and heroin use, and our saying he did is a feeble way of trying to suppress the horrible conclusions his death suggests. This man did everything he could to guarantee he would not survive. It is at least as correct to say that he died of cigarettes, overeating, and alcohol as to blame his death on one or another—or more than one—illicit substance.
Bottom line, there is more than one way to destroy yourself -- it's not always the drugs, even if drugs are in the mix. By the way, former CASA #2 man Herb Kleber figures prominently in the NYT piece. This is a bit of minor history about Kleber from a 1996 article I put together for our original print newsletter, The Activist Guide:
In the June 2 edition of the Jellinek Quarterly, a book review of a Ph.D. dissertation on HIV among drug users in Amsterdam referred to comments made by Dr. Herbert Kleber, of the Center on Addiction & Substance Abuse at Columbia University, that the author felt were motivated by ideology and conflicted with objective scientific findings. In a speech titled "Harm Reduction or Harm Production," Kleber said that HIV rates among drug users in the Netherlands had increased, and attributed it harm reduction programs like low-threshold methadone programs, needle exchange projects that he claimed "extended the addiction." An audience member pointed that HIV among drug users in the Netherlands had gone down, not up, and cited articles published in some of the most prestigious international journals. Dr. Kleber admitted that he was not familiar with those articles.
Check back soon for a Chronicle review of the new book by continuing CASA #1 guy, Joe Califano.
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Airport Narcs Fired For Peeing on Luggage

Ok, they were dogs, but it's still funny…

Two of Thailand's top canine agents in the country's war against drugs have been fired for "unbecoming conduct" that included urinating on luggage and rubbing up against female airport passengers.

Despite having two of the highest seizure rates on record, the sniffer dogs working at an airport near the notorious "Golden Triangle" opium-producing region were fired after passengers complained about their behaviour. [CBC News]

So in Thailand, police dogs pee on luggage and get fired. Meanwhile, here in the U.S., an utterly incompetent human narc can terrorize innocent people and get off with a one-day suspension.

It's particularly galling considering that dogs are expected to pee on stuff, whereas police officers certainly aren’t expected to terrorize the innocent. Or are they? The way today's public officials react to gratuitous police violence, you could easily expect more concern from a pet owner who finds a mess on the rug.

Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the punishment for police peeing on someone's belongings during a wrong address drug raid were remarkably lenient. And unfortunately, at this pace, I'm sure we'll have a chance to find out what it is before long.

Q: Which is worse, an incontinent dog or an incompetent cop?

A: The cop. He'll shoot your dog, at which point it will inevitably release its bowels anyway.

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Stop the Drug War Against Addicts

We all need to understand that big business is behind the whole rampant spread of drugs inside the United States. Instead of exposing who the real evildoers are many American people blame drug addicts and many drug addicts become the victim of Amerika's War on Drugs.
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Mexico is Bleeding

I can't avoid writing about Mexico again this week. Last week was one of the ugliest yet in President Felipe Calderon's newly energized war on drugs, with at least 46 people killed last week, including five civilians gunned down by soldiers at a roadblock in Sinaloa. So far this year, nearly a thousand have died as the cartels fight each other and the police and the army. It's all part of President Calderon's effort to break the power of the cartels, and it's all so absolutely predictable, with outcomes that are easily foreseeable. The Mexican army and police will undoubtedly effect some big-time captures or killings, the cartels will splinter into micro-cartels, and then begin the process of reformulating themselves into new cartels, killing off rivals and buying off (or killing off) police and soldiers. That's been the case every time a Mexican president has tried to stand tall against the power of the drug traffickers. In fact, the present round of violence is the legacy of former President Fox's 2004 war on drugs, and so far, there is every indication it will end the same way. I'll be talking to as many Mexican observers as I can this week, from academics to human rights watchers, along with Mexico experts here in the US. And Mexico continues to pay the price for America's war on the drugs it loves.
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Police deliberately crash truck into car, and then steal car -- in order to search it.

Drug WarRant discusses this incident that even I almost find unbelievable... Okay, they use the word "tap," and not unfairly. But my use of the word "crash" has as much or more connection to reality than the word "conspiracy" has had in many drug cases that have put minor drug offenders in prison for decades. And even bumper taps have a small but non-zero chance of causing medical complications including death. I think all the police officers involved in this should be permanently banned from working in law enforcement or even private security. They have absolutely no reasonable concept of what constitutes responsible behavior with respect to the lives of other people. Or they had an incredibly poor judgment lapse, same difference.
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Crack Cocaine Sentencing Headed to Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court has agreed to rule on the U.S. v. Kimbrough case, in which an eastern-Virginia US District Court judge, Raymond Jackson, sentenced a crack cocaine offender -- Derrick Kimbrough -- to a below-guidelines sentence, only to be overruled following an appeal by the government to the 4th Circuit. "Guidelines" here refers to the federal sentencing guidelines (similar to, but not to be confused with the mandatory minimums), in which certain very harsh sentences require only 1/100th the amount of crack cocaine to get triggered as is required of powder cocaine. The "government" here refers to federal prosecutors, who objected that Judge Jackson had based his view that the guidelines sentence for Kimbrough's offense was unreasonable (a requirement for downward departures in the post-Booker ruling federal sentencing world, at least for now) in part on his disagreement over the policy of the harsher sentences for crack offenders. The Court of Appeals in the 4th Circuit agreed, and Kimbrough's sentence was kicked back up to the much-criticized guidelines level. Also before the Court is the case of Victor Rita, another crack cocaine defendant. And the Court has promised to pick a case that deals with the same issue as the one that was at stake in the case of Mario Claiborne, who died earlier this year (info at same link). While there are far more whites who use crack cocaine than blacks, as the Associated Press reported today, "[m]ost crack cocaine offenders in federal courts are black." Why does the 4th Circuit Appeals Court see the intellectual path a judge took to get to a finding of unreasonableness as more important than the self-evidently unreasonable nature of the draconian sentences they are defending? Both Mr. Kimbrough and Judge Jackson are African American, by the way. They are also both veterans -- Kimbrough fought in the first Gulf War; Jackson has a decades-long military career that included a stint as a JAG and includes continuing service as a colonel in the Reserves. The 4th Circuit decision, which is only two paragraphs long, is not published online (or so I've read), but visit the post made about this case on the Sentencing Law and Policy blog and scroll down to the third comment to read it. Our topical archive on the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity is online here (though it only goes back to early fall -- you have to use the search engine for earlier stories). We also have a Federal Courts archive here Last but not least, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, click here to write to Congress in support of H.R. 460, Charlie Rangel's bill to reduce crack cocaine sentences to the same level as sentences for powder cocaine.
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In The Trenches

ASA's Medical Marijuana in the News: Week Ending 6/8/07

VERMONT: Expanded Medical Marijuana Law Enacted RHODE ISLAND: Bill Vetoed, Override Certain CONNECTICUT: Medical Marijuana Bill Goes to Governor MICHIGAN: Initiative Language Approved TEXAS: State Considers Medical Marijuana COLORADO: One Case Dismissed, Another Pending CALIFORNIA: Some Cities Regulating, Some Not FEDERAL: California Crackdown Continues -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VERMONT: Expanded Medical Marijuana Law Enacted The two-year-old medical marijuana law in Vermont has now been expanded to include more medical conditions. Instead of letting doctors make the determination as to appropriate patients and conditions for medical marijuana treatment, many state lawmakers are prescribing which patients should be protected from prosecution. Medical marijuana expansion becomes law by Associated Press, Rutland Herald (VT) Vermont's medical marijuana law — which lets people with life-threatening conditions use the illegal drug without fear of prosecution — now covers people with chronic, debilitating conditions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RHODE ISLAND: Bill Vetoed, Override Certain A veto by the governor was expected in Rhode Island, since he had attempted to block the bill the legislature passed a year ago. But the success of the state program was undeniable, and the margin of support was even more overwhelming this year. Part of the reason is the advocacy of lawmakers such as Tom Slater, who championed the cause of medical marijuana patients. Medical marijuana: His name’s on the law by M. Charles Bakst, Providence Journal (RI) Decades from now, folks may notice Tom Slater’s name on a Rhode Island law allowing use of marijuana to ease the pain of cancer and other serious diseases. And they’ll wonder, admiringly I think, “Who was this guy? What was he about?” Carcieri vetoes medical marijuana by Michael McKinney, Providence Journal (RI) As expected, Governor Carcieri yesterday vetoed medical marijuana legislation. And Democratic House leader Gordon Fox said he believes state lawmakers will override that veto. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONNECTICUT: Medical Marijuana Bill Goes to Governor With a University of Connecticut poll showing 83% of voters support a medical marijuana law, legislators there have passed one, after five years of consideration. Passage was helped by a lawmaker’s account of buying marijuana illegally for her cancer-stricken husband. Cannabis Measure Passes Senate by Colin Poitras, Hartford Courant (CT) After five years of on-again, off-again debate, Connecticut lawmakers Friday passed landmark legislation allowing seriously ill people to grow marijuana at home to ease their pain or reduce unpleasant side effects of treatment. Medical marijuana bill in Rell's hand by Keith M. Phaneuf, Journal Inquirer (CT) For the last five years, state Rep. Penny Bacchiochi, R-Somers, and legislative allies from both parties have fought to legalize marijuana use for medicinal purposes. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In The Trenches

EURODRUG: EU Civil Society Contact Group Calls On the Heads of State and Government for an Effective Treaty and a Transparent and Accessible Conference

[Courtesy of the European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies] The EU Civil Society Contact Group, representing eight large European networks of NGOs, criticises plans by the Council to prepare and agree a revised EU treaty through a closed Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) with a restricted mandate. No retreat from the achievements of the convention. Throughout the convention on the Future of Europe and the Intergovernmental Conference, members of the Civil Society Contact Group campaigned for a text that reflects concerns of citizens. Following the current negotiations and debates we are deeply worried that important achievements of the convention and the draft constitution will be lost. A more coherent European project to respond to common challenges both within and outside of Europe is urgently needed. We urge the Council to take action to maintain the following points as part of a new EU treaty. We are convinced that they are crucial for the future of the EU: It is indispensable to include the Charter of Fundamental Rights in a new treaty. Only by doing so will the interests and concerns of many citizens be taken serious. Key components of part III of the draft Constitution including the reconfirmed policies on environment (III-233), the new energy chapter (III-256), the horizontal social clauses (article III 116,117,118,122) as well as the strengthening of Europe’s development policy (III 316,317,318,319) and its ability to play a responsible role in world (III-292) need to be retained in a new treaty. The principle of participatory democracy (I-47) underlies all our activities. It is important that this becomes a treaty provision. It would support the endeavours of a variety of actors who aim to strengthen democracy in the EU. The extension of qualified majority voting is essential for an EU of 27 to function. Civil society challenges Council to open up inter-governmental approach: Traditionally IGCs have been closed processes offering no possibilities for civil society to engage. A coherent and effective strategy of involving civil society is urgently needed to engage European citizens in the process and inform its outcomes. Such a strategy should include: *Regular meetings between civil society and the presidency of the Union, *A website where civil society positions on the treaty revision could be posted and accessed by all member states, *Discussions in the IGC should be public, and transmitted via the European broadcast system (Ebs) and a dedicated website. Citizens want and expect Europe to provide moral and accountable leadership. The treaty revision will be an important step in re-connecting Europeans to the EU if it takes their concerns seriously. The EU Civil Society Contact Group brings together the Platform of European Social NGOs (Social Platform), the European NGO confederation for relief and development (Concord), the Human Rights and Democracy Network, the Green 10 (environmental organisations), the European Women’s Lobby, the European Forum for the Arts and Heritage (EFAH), the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) and the European Civil Society Platform on Lifelong Learning (EUCIS-LLL). Encompassing hundreds of European NGOs and thousands of national affiliates, they work together to develop the dialogue between civil society organisations and the EU institutions as an essential part of strengthening participatory democracy. www.act4europe.org *Contact person: Regula Heggli, Coordinator Civil Society Contact Group, T: +32 2 511 17 11, F: +32 2 511 19 09, [email protected], www.act4europe.org Find the call also on _
In The Trenches

Conference: Drug Policy Alliance, New Orleans, December

Registration has opened for the 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference, convening at the Astor Crowne Plaza in New Orleans, Louisiana. The conference begins the evening of Wednesday, December 5, and runs through Saturday, December 8. Special rates are available to those who register early.

The International Drug Policy Reform Conference, hosted by the Drug Policy Alliance, is a major international gathering of people who believe the war on drugs is doing more harm than good. The conference, which this year is themed "Working Toward a New Bottom Line." This year's conference will be co-hosted by the ACLU, the Harm Reduction Coalition, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, the Marijuana Policy Project and Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

A new bottom line for drug policy would mean basing success on metrics such as prevention of overdose deaths and increased access to treatment rather than the current measure -- numbers of people arrested and incarcerated for drug use. The idea of working toward a new bottom line is particularly relevant in New Orleans, the site of the 2007 conference. Hurricane Katrina laid bare an array of problems, many of which are exacerbated by failed drug war policies. Furthermore, the state of Louisiana comes close to leading the nation in incarcerating people for drug law violations. Although the South remains a region where drug policy reform has yet to take a strong hold, choosing to hold the meeting in New Orleans could help to build momentum in an area that has the potential to make incredible progress.

Members and early-bird registrants will enjoy a significant discount off the regular registration rate:


Attendee TypeBefore Nov. 5After Nov. 5On Site
Members$275$375$400
Non-members$325$425$450
Students$150$250$275
One Day Rate$125$150$175

For further information, including details about conference programming, travel and lodging, visit http://www.drugpolicy.org/conference/.