Hillary Clinton's new anti-crime plan is a typical example of schizophrenic drug war policy-making. First, she gets it right on the crack/powder sentencing disparity:

At the federal level, Hillary will reform mandatory minimums for non-violent offenders, starting by eliminating the mandatory minimum for simple possession of crack cocaine and eliminating the disparity between crack and powder cocaine.

Then she dives headfirst into full-blown meth hysteria, buying into the absurd candy-flavored meth mythology, and proposing a federal methamphetamine sentencing disparity:

Make it a federal crime to manufacture or distribute a controlled substance – including meth – that is colored, packaged, or otherwise altered in a way designed to appeal to kids and young people. Last year, the DEA reported that drug dealers are coloring meth crystals and giving them names like "Strawberry Quick." The crystals resemble "pop rocks" and other forms of candy. One goal of dealers is to try to lure in young customers "by making meth seem less dangerous." Hillary will sternly punish any dealer or trafficker of meth that colors, packages, or otherwise alters the drug to appeal to young people.

Nevermind that the candy-meth story has been proven to a be a wild exaggeration. Nevermind that it is a textbook case of DEA fear-mongering, volleyed along from gullible reporters to political demagogues, eventually producing the intended effect of people like Clinton offering more money and power to the DEA. And nevermind that this is probably what she meant last week when she said the DEA has "more important work" to do than interfere with state medical marijuana laws.

Those things are all frustratingly true, and perfectly typical. What I find truly amazing is that Clinton literally proposes the creation of a sentencing disparity for meth, while in the same breath calling for parity in our cocaine laws. The pink meth hysteria of 2007 is every bit as absurd, if not more so, than was the great crack panic of 1986. I thought we'd all come to terms with the concept that disparate punishments for different forms of the same drug is bad policy, and yet here we are repeating the mistakes of the past just as quickly as we correct them.

(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.)

The following is an article that was published under my by-line at www.etherzone.com and www.libertyforall.net. It has received many comments and I solicit more YOU BET YOUR LIVELIHOOD - PART I

Editor's Note: Shane G. Trejo is an intern at StoptheDrugWar.org. His bio is in our "staff" section.

As touched upon in Friday’s edition of the Drug War Chronicle, United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants to reclassify marijuana as a Class B drug. This would restore its pre-2004 classification and change the penalties of marijuana possession from an already draconian two year maximum sentence to five years:

Gordon Brown said: "I believe that if we're sending out a signal, particularly to teenagers – and particular those at the most vulnerable age, young teenagers – that in any way we find cannabis acceptable, given all we know about the way that cannabis is being sold in this country, that that is not the right thing to do. "There's a stronger case now for sending out a signal that cannabis is not only illegal, it's unacceptable."

What is with all these politicians wanting to send a message to youth that certain activities are bad? It shouldn’t be the government’s job to act like the mommy and daddy of its citizens. And as always, the push for increased toughness has been sparked for no good reason and without any rationality:

The mental health charity Rethink said Mr. Brown should heed the committee's advice. The charity spokesman Paul Corry said: "Gordon Brown should put aside his personal views on cannabis and accept the fact that it does not make sense to reclassify. "Use of the drug has gone down since it was downgraded in 2004 and research by Rethink shows that only 3% of users would consider stopping on the grounds of illegality." … Steve Rolles, of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, told the Today programme reclassification was not the most effective way to alert people to the dangers associated with cannabis. He said: "Class C is still illegal. No one is saying it's harmless. I don't think increasing the prison sentence from two years to five years for possession is necessarily the way to do it. I think if we want to send out messages to young people, rather than mass criminalisation of millions of young people, I think the way to do it would be in effective, targeted public health education."

This message-sending nonsense is not only disgusting, it is ineffective. It should be common sense to know that while young people mature, some of them tend to rebel against authority. Taking a hard-line stance on marijuana is only going to make it seem cool and increase its usage amongst young people. In Switzerland, medicalization and harm reduction strategies related to heroin not only reduced crime, reduced usage and allowed addicts to be able to live functional lives but also managed to make the drug less cool to youth. From Issue #439 of the Drug War Chronicle:

And the Swiss may have succeeded in making heroin boring, the researchers suggested. "As the Swiss population supported this drug policy, this medicalization of opiate dependence changed the image of heroin use as a rebellious act to an illness that needs therapy," Drs. Nordt and Stohler wrote. "Finally," they add, "heroin seems to have become a 'loser drug,' with its attractiveness fading for young people."

You’d think politicians in general would try to become informed on the issues that they are deciding. But they often don’t, and some of them actually pride themselves on being uninformed. Here is a very telling quote from Conservative Party leader David Cameron:

"The Conservative party has a very clear view that it should be class B. People have had enough of reviews and the prime minister should stop dithering and get on and make a decision."

I am continuously shocked by the attitudes of people like these. Wouldn’t you want to wait for reviews and studies to happen before making a decision? This is a decision that will potentially put otherwise law-abiding citizens who happen to smoke pot in jail for up to five years. Wouldn’t you want to be as informed as possible before making a decision that could destroy lives and waste precious law enforcement dollars?

A disturbing trend amongst some politicians is the belief in state-enforced morality. This misguided belief keeps them from thinking rationally. Out of the issues he could possibly be worried about, PM Brown is worried about pot smokers? His moral grandstanding has made him seemingly oblivious to the fact that the result of marijuana reclassification will be potentially three more years in prison for a completely nonviolent personal act.

State-enforced morality is based on the faulty premise that the law needs to protect a societal purity. That is why that in spite of it being obvious that the war on drugs is a failure, it still continues to rage on. The message must be sent at any cost.

The only safe injection site in North America has finally been given a passing grade by a panel formed by the federal government to look into the sites value to the community and whether or not it encouraged drug use.(they actually thought that was a possibility).Health Minister Tony Clement empowered this panel and was probably hoping for a reason,any reason,to close the site down.I attended a meeting recently,in which the scientists involved with doing the studies for the site said they were convinced the government had already made up it's mind and that the 23 studies that had already been submitted should have been more than enough.The new report is positive in varying numbers as to cost of providing as opposed to cost benefits from the site.Clement told a reporter from The Province newspaper that a decision would be made as to the extension of the sites exemption from federal drug laws:"some time between now and June 30."The only negative comment came from the Vancouver police who said it was all a big waste of money and was not effective in preventing aids or overdose because it did not serve enough people.Sounds like there should be more safe injection sites but I'm sure that was not the intension.It will be difficult for Clement to close the site now as there has been nothing but positive reports since the sites inception.That hasn't stopped the government from letting the sites staff and directors swing in the wind for over a year so far.What the next three months will tell that they haven't learned since the site opened in 2003 is any ones guess?At least the report is in and there's nothing in it that would justify the sites closure.The report states:The site provides 220,000 injections a year.This is only 5% of yearly injections but is significant.

The city government just announced a 10 million dollar face lift for the infamous DTES that has housing advocates howling.The RCMP is now telling any one who'll listen that it's too easy for foreign c

it is so dumb to keep marajuana illegal , just look at how meny billions it has cost tax payers and there is more on the streets then there ever was b4 , dealers are getting rich off it and it could be the government , well except there not smart enought to see it,, just think what the government could do with all that extra money! make there pockets fater,kill more innocent people in Iran , but I really doubt if any would be used for our own homeless and starving , thats just not the way this government works

Since Scott opined yesterday about the injustice of paramilitarized policing, I thought I would follow up by referring back to a related topic I've addressed from time to time -- coordinated drug busts as taxpayer-funded lobbying by law enforcement agencies, large numbers of raids conducted together as part of statewide operations, intended to garner publicity for a funding program known as the Byrne Grants and thereby avoid Congressional budget cuts. California and Kentucky were among the guilty parties last year, though I suspect they were not the only ones. Kentucky is at again, according to libertarian SWAT-critic Radley Balko of Reason magazine, writing last week for FoxNews.com:

Last month, police in Kentucy went on a 24-hour drug raid blitz. According to local media accounts, the raids uncovered 23 methamphetamine labs, seized more than 2,400 pounds of marijuana, identified 16 drug-endangered children and arrested 565 people for illegal drug use. ... "During 'Operation Byrne Blitz,'" a local television station reported, "state police and highway patrol agencies, local police and sheriff's departments, and drug task forces throughout the country conducted undercover investigations, marijuana eradication efforts and drug interdiction activities. The collaborative effort, named for the federal grant program which funds many of the anti-drug efforts, underscored the impact that cuts to this funding could have on local and statewide drug enforcement."

Perhaps because they often are tied to drug arrest statistics, it was task funded by the Byrne grants that perpetrated the racist scandals in Tulia and Hearne, in which large numbers of minorities were rounded up and prosecuted, only for it all to turn out to be fabrication. In the Overkill report, Balko has identified the grants as one of the reasons for the overwhelming increase in the use of SWAT teams for minor drug enforcement. The Bush administration, surprisingly, has taken the lead in trying to slash Byrne funding, while Democrats have led efforts to restore it, such as NY Sen. Chuck Schumer at a press conference late last month. A letter signed by 51 senators asked the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations to restore cut Byrne funding, among them presidential contenders Clinton and Obama. To be fair to the candidates, some of our favorite senators unfortunately are on there too, such as Chris Dodd (D=CT), sponsor of the first Senate bill taking on the Higher Education Act drug penalty; Dick Durbin (D-IL); the justice-reform-minded Jim Webb (D-VA), others who've done some good things from time to time. Democrats clearly relish the support of national law enforcement unions, and it must be hard for any politician to resist getting to stand up next to law enforcement leaders at a press conference and call for more money for them. The Byrne grants fund other things besides arrests too, and the reasons for opposing the program may seem like harder sells from the point of view of a member of the "establishment" than it does for us out here. Also to be fair to the Democrats, those 51 signatories included 15 Republicans. A conservative commentator from the Heritage Foundation, Cully Stimson, also commented on FoxNews.com, but making the case for the grants, in Don't Burn the Byrne Grants, back in February. Still, if George Bush can get it right, I think it's lame for Democrats not to, especially when one of the results of this program is what happened in Tulia and Hearne, about as close to overt race-based persecution by government as can be found. I say, do burn the Byrne Grants, in fact please burn them. The fact that law enforcement groups quite transparently lobby for them by conducting massive numbers of drug busts to get attention ought to set off warning bells. Any good things the grants might also support can be funded through other channels. This program is badly structured and misdirected, and it should go.