In another sloppy example of government errors made in the war on drugs, Hawaii’s Department of Public Safety amazingly emailed the entire list of state authorized medical marijuana patients to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald. The paper ran a front page story mentioning how the state had provided the names, addresses, card numbers, and recommending physicians of all Hawaii’s registered patients.

Needless to say the over 4,200 people who find marijuana helpful with a doctors recommendation were not impressed with the breach.

"Nobody here was a very happy camper," said James Propotnick, the department's deputy director for law enforcement. "People started calling. ... We were notified immediately. I don't think the paper was hot off the press 15 minutes and we started getting calls."

From what the editor is saying it looks like this all arose because of someone being lazy with very secure information.

"We just wanted to know the number of people in Hawai'i County who were currently receiving medical marijuana, and they erroneously sent us the list with the actual names."

So from this perspective it seems the Department of Public Safety just sent the whole list out instead of actually counting the number of patients. The information requested clearly was not that complex and rather then taking ten minutes to answer a media inquiry, they have threatened the security of Hawaii’s patients and their medicine.

Thankfully Hawaii’s best and brightest are on the case.

"It has to do with safety," Propotnick said. "Let's say that there's a whole lot of people who want to steal marijuana and you publish the list with the names and addresses. Now what have we done?”

Thank you Captain Obvious.

A dimebag of heroin - $10
A urine test - $30
A drug testing advocate busted for heroin distribution – priceless hilarious

NORWALK, Ohio — A northern Ohio woman who encouraged Norwalk school board members to start drug testing students has been indicted on charges of heroin trafficking.

Police in Norwalk say Stephanie Broz admitted to them that her advocacy of drug testing was to take attention away from her. Norwalk Detective Todd Temple says she told police it was a scam.

Broz also faces a charge of possession of heroin.

Police arrested her in early June during a traffic stop. Officers say they found her with a large amount of heroin. [Columbus Dispatch]

Of course, it's tempting to now suggest that this is just the tip of the iceberg, that proponents of drug testing around the country are all a bunch of closeted crooks and perverts diverting attention from their own misdeeds by calling on us to collect bodily fluids from children. I bet at least one person won't even read this whole post before ironically suggesting in the comment section that we start drug testing the drug testers.

Yet, it makes no more sense to arbitrarily scrutinize them than anyone else. Few crimes they commit could do more harm than the one taking place before our eyes: stealing money from our children's education to be spent on worthless programs that don't effectively prove or disprove drug use and encourage use of more-dangerous less-detectible drugs.

Drug testing is generally only effective against marijuana anyway, so dealers of cocaine, heroin, and meth have every reason to support it.

Editor: Irina Alexander is vice president of University of Maryland SSDP. Too often, proponents of the War on Drugs pose the question, "What about the children?" in a misleading attempt to guilt those who rightfully believe today’s drug policies are a dismal failure. In reality, it is we who should be asking them this very question.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — Twelve-year-old Alexia Belen Moreno was afraid living in her father's house in Ciudad Juarez, where drug cartels are fighting a bloody war. She begged to move in with her mother just across the border in El Paso, Texas. Her parents agreed — but asked her to stay a few more weeks to finish school.

Three days later, Alexia was shot in the head blocks from her home in broad daylight. Authorities believe she was caught in the crossfire when gunmen killed two men riding with her in a car.

Alexia's death is part of an alarming trend of children dying in Mexico's drug wars.

Mexican officials say they don't track the number of child deaths from drug-gang violence. But newspaper tallies find nearly 50 kids have been killed this year — and a code of ethics in which hit men took care to avoid harming children appears to be evaporating. [Associated Press]

I just don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to come to the simple and logical conclusion that in order to put an end to these brutal consequences, we must legalize and regulate drugs. Once there is no black market for drugs, drug cartels will have no profit to fight for. Once there is no profit, they won’t be outside on the public streets forcing people to resort to barricading themselves in their homes, praying that the few inches of wall separating their family from the gunshots will be enough to keep them safe since that’s the most they can do. Simple as that. Instead, we’ve been relying on policies that sound good while overlooking what’s really happening. Of course, the entire original attempt at keeping drugs away from children has been a complete counterproductive disaster. According to the Monitoring the Future study, 86% of 12th graders reported marijuana "very easy" or "fairly easy" to get, easier than alcohol. Fancy that. Think we could convince some drug dealers to start checking ID? Poor Alexia is now one of the countless innocent victims to the War on Drugs. As if the drug war isn’t awful enough already, now it’s shooting and killing children. What kind of a person could openly support policies that have such lethal effects? I just hope one day before it’s too late, they’ll realize what they’re doing. Unfortunately for Alexia and so many others, it's already too late.