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Pete Guither points out that the Republican Party’s newly released platform pledges to continue the disastrous and increasingly unpopular war on drugs:

Continuing the Fight against Illegal Drugs

The human toll of drug addiction and abuse hits all segments of American society. It is an international problem as well, with most of the narcotics in this country coming from beyond our borders. We will continue the fight against producers, traffickers, and distributors of illegal substances through the collaboration of state, federal, and local law enforcement.

In 2008, I’m beginning to doubt that anyone is going to win any votes with this kind of language. Given the risk of rubbing the libertarian crowd the wrong way, it wouldn’t have surprised me to see this rhetoric left out altogether. Of course, that would have been a conspicuous omission, I suppose, and you can bet that we’d have more than a few words to say about that.

On the plus side, Pete noticed that the section called "Locking Up Criminals" omits drug crimes from the list of offenses for which the Republicans support mandatory minimum sentencing:

We support mandatory sentencing provisions for gang conspiracy crimes, violent or sexual offenses against children, rape, and assaults resulting in serious bodily injury.

That’s really a rather positive sign, indicating that we may be moving towards a bipartisan consensus that our drug laws have gone too far.

I’m also tempted to theorize that Obama’s decision to bring Biden onto the ticket may have been a contributing factor here. Months ago, Dick Morris editorialized in favor of attacking Obama on sentencing reform, arguing that by supporting revised crack sentencing guidelines, Obama wants to let thousands of crack dealers out of jail. It’s cynical and ruthless ploy that becomes considerably harder to pull off with Biden on the ticket. Given his central role in pushing through the original sentencing disparity, and his recent evidence-based reversal, Biden has all the credibility to blow any "soft on crack" attacks back to the '80's where they belong. I’m no fan of Biden’s drug war record, but there’s an interesting dynamic here, which I'll concede to those who've argued that Biden's awful history could end up providing cover for reform.

Which brings us to the obvious question: if the democrats don’t support mandatory minimums for drug offenses, and the republicans don’t support mandatory minimums for drug offenses, who does?

(This blog post was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)

In a daring undercover investigation, anti-marijuana activist Lisa Silverman has exposed the seedy criminal underworld that lurks along the lawn at a Ziggy Marley show:

In August, Silverman attended a Ziggy Marley concert at the Del Mar Racetrack, just as she had the previous year, to see if pot smokers were as abundant as before. Sure enough, bongs, blunts and joints were ablaze.

Not only were the pot-puffing reggae fans not intimidated by security guards, they offered some to anti-marijuana crusader Silverman, 49. [San Diego Union-Tribune]

Actually, when the pot-smokers said "You want something, lady?" they weren’t really offering her a hit, they just wanted to know why she was crawling around on all fours sniffing people’s belongings and blowing out their matches.

"There were very few attendees who were not smoking marijuana," Silverman said, recounting her reconnaissance mission recently to a stunned board of directors for the fairgrounds.

The board of directors was indeed stunned by Silverman’s story, given that they’d posted signs at every entrance reminding security not to let the notorious complainer and buzzkill, Lisa Silverman, into any more reggae concerts.

At a recent concert at the Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, hip-hop superstar Snoop Dogg concluded his set by urging listeners to "smoke some chronic," slang for high-grade marijuana.

"Almost immediately, you could see the plumes of smoke go up," Kelly said.

San Diego songwriter Steve Poltz said he remembers attending an outdoor concert featuring James Taylor when the mellow superstar caught a whiff of marijuana smoke.

"Ah, yes," Taylor mused. "The fine scent of herb being carried on the evening zephyr."

At which point someone shouted "Dork!" and Taylor was struck with a flying beer can, proving yet again why people shouldn’t be allowed to use marijuana in public.

As I read through my Google News alerts each day, I usually just ignore the multitudes of petty drug arrests that made headlines for no reason. But this one jumped out at me:

Police: Winston-Salem man had ecstasy pill

Gastonia Police arrested a Winston-Salem man Saturday and charged him with having the party drug ecstasy.

Jasmon Delshon Mackey, 27, of the 2200 block of Bethabara Point in Winston-Salem, was arrested at the Kingsway convenience store at 1418 W. Garrison Blvd. He had one ecstasy pill, according to a police affidavit. [Gaston Gazette]

Who cares? Why is this in the newspaper? It shouldn’t even be a crime, but if it is, one would hope you’d have to have more than, say, one pill in order to find your name in the f#%king newspaper.

The only thing newsworthy about this is the embarrassing fact that possession of one ecstasy pill is apparently a serious crime that can only be resolved by a whole team of criminal justice professionals.

Mackey was charged with felony possession of a Schedule I controlled substance. He was jailed on a $20,000 bond.

For having a pill whose side effects include happiness, empathy, and dancing.

CNN hosted an interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday which featured democratically elected questions courtesy of the popular website Digg.com. Unsurprisingly, one of the top questions was about marijuana policy reform. Here is her response (it’s the 3rd question):



Obviously, Pelosi is very supportive of medical marijuana and despite her pessimism about achieving full-scale legalization, she didn’t actually say she opposed it. Ideologically, I’d have to say this was pretty good coming from the Speaker of the House. But, as Paul Armentano points out, Pelosi’s advice to supporters of medical marijuana just doesn’t add up. She laments Congress’ intransigence on the issue and encourages constituents to contact their representatives, as though this is all just a matter of showing politicians where the people stand.

Alas, we kinda tried that already. Public support for medical marijuana has been overwhelming for a long time. Reformers are 9-1 when it comes to passing state-level medical marijuana laws at the ballot box. State legislatures in Hawaii, New Mexico and Rhode Island have passed laws to protect patients, drawing praise from constituents. The only memorable instance of a politician being damaged for his position on medical marijuana involved Bob Barr, who lost his House seat following attacks for opposing medical marijuana. He’s come around since then.

What, other than legalizing medical marijuana in a dozen states, could the people possibly do to show the politicians in Washington, D.C. that we’re serious about this? You want us to go legalize medical marijuana everywhere else in America? We’ll do it. You want more research proving that it works? Let us know when you’re done reading what we’ve already given you, and we’ll gladly send the rest. Worried about the message to young people? Teenage use is down in states with medical marijuana laws.

You see, our feet are tired. Our throats are hoarse. Our keyboards are cracking, our sharpies are dry and we’re almost out of posterboard. With all of that in mind, Nancy Pelosi, since you do agree with us and you’re the Speaker of House now, we were hoping there might be something else you could do.