War On Drugs

[Jasonik]

Why would a grocer sell tomatoes when its not illegal to grow them in your backyard? You make the most absurd arguments.

Because it's illegal is not an argument for why it should be illegal. Do you not recognize things such as unjust laws?

Realizing you've never tried marijuana...

Do some homework.

[Ninjahedge]

Why would a grocer sell tomatoes when its not illegal to grow them in your backyard? You make the most absurd arguments.

Tomatoes /= weed.

Because it's illegal is not an argument for why it should be illegal. Do you not recognize things such as unjust laws?

Because you had one person who you thought was a fair merchant of a (now) illegal substance does not lend any weight or creedance to your argument that all would somehow be this way if it were legalized.

it had no bearing on your point other than to illustrate that some drug dealers are not as bad as others.

That was my point, not in the justness of a law that prohibits something that is, in all sense of the thing, not a fundamental need.

This is not robbing someone of their right to speak, think or do. While I still agree with you that the law is pointless, holding up a friendly dealer as a Martyr bears no weight.

Realizing you've never tried marijuana...

Yeah, like having to try it is grounds for you to be able to argue for or against a law for ALL SUBSTANCES.

So you are saying, in order to make Heroin illegal for minors, all law makers have to try it? Come on, get real.

And also realize I never said anything bad about MJ other than its odor. You are barking up the wrong kangaroo.

Do some homework.

I will leave that to the professionals.

BTW, here's your wet towel.

[Jasonik]

Travel writer Rick Steves hosts a new show based in Washington state:
“Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation,” a co-production of the Marijuana Education Project of the ACLU of Washington and the national ACLU Drug Law Reform Project.

Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation

Across the nation, people are beginning to reconsider our marijuana laws. In 2006, America set a new record by arresting over 800,000 individuals for marijuana offenses; 89% of these arrests were for simple possession only. Marijuana remains as available as ever through an unregulated illegal market. Enforcement of marijuana laws costs taxpayers billions of dollars each year – precious public safety resources that could be directed toward more important priorities and more effective policies.



The award-winning “Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation” invites viewers to consider whether these laws are working for us or against us.

• What does marijuana law enforcement cost us in tax dollars?
• How effective is prohibition at controlling marijuana use and availability?
• What are the social consequences of marijuana prohibition?
• Are the consequences of marijuana arrests and convictions fair? Are the laws applied fairly to all Americans?
• How did we end up with these laws in the first place?
• Is marijuana prohibition doing more harm than good?

Sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union and featuring noted travel writer and television host Rick Steves,
“Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation” begins a long-overdue public discussion about marijuana and marijuana prohibition.

[Jasonik]

Federal Court Rules Driving with Air Fresheners is Suspicious
Federal appeals court rules that motorists can be stopped for 30 minutes and searched if they are nervous and use an air freshener.
8/25/08

A federal appellate court ruled last week that police can delay a routine traffic stop as long as necessary to conduct a search for drugs. In its decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the validity of a thirty-minute traffic stop in Maryland because the arresting officer claimed the nervous driver had an air freshener hanging from his rear-view mirror and had previously been spotted driving in a run-down neighborhood.

The case began on October 29, 2004 when Anne Arundel County Police Officer Tim White saw Michael Lawrence Branch behind the wheel of a White Mercedes Benz sedan. White ordered Branch to pull over at 6:50pm for allegedly running a red light. Officer White remembered having stopped the same sedan less than a month before in a high-crime area, but he had nothing to link the vehicle to illegal drug activity. Nonetheless, White stuck with his hunch.

White claimed he saw an air freshener and smelled laundry detergent, so he immediately got on the radio to request a drug dog, which turned out not to be available. A second officer at the scene told White that the defendant, "knows the law... so getting in the car is going to be difficult." White replied, "10-4" and made Branch wait while he tried to call in a dog from another law enforcement agency.

During the wait, a check showed Branch was properly licensed and had no outstanding warrants, but the car's registration did not show up on the computer. The car was, in fact, properly registered to Branch's cousin. Some 27 minutes into the stop, Officer White called the owner, Christine Retz, who confirmed that Branch had permission to drive the Benz. After Branch had waited a total of thirty minutes, the drug dog arrived and Branch was handed his ticket. A two-judge majority found Officer White had a reasonable suspicion that Branch was a criminal.

"First, the presence of several air fresheners -- commonly used to mask the smell of narcotics -- hanging in the Mercedes," Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote to explain the source of probable cause. "The prior traffic stop of the Mercedes in a drug-trafficking area, Branch's evident nervousness, the presence of air fresheners, and the fact that Branch was driving a car not registered to him. These factors, in combination, could form the basis for a 'reasonable suspicion' of narcotics trafficking."

Circuit Judge Roger L. Gregory disagreed and argued that it was obvious that Officer White was dragging out the ticket writing process in order to conduct a fishing expedition with the drug sniffing dog. Judge Gregory cited the US Supreme Court decision Illinois v. Caballes as explicitly outlawing such conduct.

"A seizure that is justified solely by the interest in issuing a warning ticket to the driver can become unlawful if it is prolonged beyond the time reasonably required to complete that mission," the high court ruled.

Gregory argued further that past supreme court precedent has found fifteen minutes to be an excessive delay. He also cited testimony from Metropolitan Transportation Authority Officer Vincent Edwards who saw no air fresheners and smelled no particular odor from the vehicle. Edwards had brought the drug dog and was on the look out for air fresheners specifically because they caused his dog to give a false positive response on several occasions.

"Officer Edwards's testimony clearly contradicted that of Officer White," Judge Gregory wrote. "In sum, there is insufficient evidence to establish the presence of air fresheners and at the very least there was evidence that called into question Officer White's wavering testimony in this regard. Given that most people are nervous when pulled over by police officers, Officer White's observation that the defendant seemed nervous in conjunction with the defendant's reputation as a drug dealer does not in my opinion rise to the level of reasonable articulable suspicion that would justify a thirty minute detention during a routine traffic incident."

Judge Gregory failed to persuade his colleagues and the court upheld Branch's conviction. White's search had found cocaine base and a digital scale in a locked glove compartment. Crack cocaine and a gun were also found hidden in the back of the car. Branch was sentenced to twenty-five years in jail for multiple offenses.

A full copy of the decision is available in a 120k PDF file at the source link below.

Source: US v. Branch (US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 8/20/2008)

*****

IOW, 'if any odor is present, there is reason to suspect it is there for the sole purpose of confusing drug sniffing dogs, ergo; the vehicle or person may be searched -- even when the associated circumstances are as innocuous as being in an arbitrarily designated "drug-trafficking area" or appearing "nervous."

I ask you, who wouldn't feel nervous if pulled over with an air freshener after this ruling, what with tasers being all the rage these days...

[Ninjahedge]

Um...

Judge Gregory failed to persuade his colleagues and the court upheld Branch's conviction. White's search had found cocaine base and a digital scale in a locked glove compartment. Crack cocaine and a gun were also found hidden in the back of the car. Branch was sentenced to twenty-five years in jail for multiple offenses.

This does not help things...

I don't like the whole air freshener/nervous thing, but it does not help when these things happen, and the guy actually WAS trafficking.

[Jasonik]

Have you ever heard of the Fourth Amendment or the Exclusionary Rule?

These limits on government action are being purposely and methodically eroded -- all in the name of protecting people from 'narcotics' like the evil reefer.

Perhaps you'd prefer a police state with arbitrary and capricious checkpoints, searches, pat-downs, etc. where you must constantly prove your innocence because everyone is otherwise presumed guilty?

Your attitude gives license to this insidious authoritarian creep perpetrated by police, prosecutors and judges.

Violating drug dealer's rights is OK -- after all they're drug dealers -- Right? That's what you think isn't it?

While I don't wish illegal police behavior to be used against you -- if it is -- you deserve it.

[Ninjahedge]

Have you ever heard of the Fourth Amendment or the Exclusionary Rule?

What does that have to do with the statement I made in which the PUBLICS IMPRESSION of what happened would not bode well for the situation given that the guy WAS trafficking?

Nothing.

The point I was making is that it is hard to argue against something in defense of a freedom when an example like thi scomes up. AAMOF, this is an example that would be used by politicians to REMOVE those rights for the "safety" of the general public.

That was my point, not the ruling itself.

These limits on government action are being purposely and methodically eroded -- all in the name of protecting people from 'narcotics' like the evil reefer.

Perhaps you'd prefer a police state with arbitrary and capricious checkpoints, searches, pat-downs, etc. where you must constantly prove your innocence because everyone is otherwise presumed guilty?

No, but you would like general anarchy where people are insulted for taking a viewpoint that is not 100% in agreeance with you?

Chill.

Go re-read my statement. I was VERY CAREFUL not to criticize you or what you said. I also did not call for this situation. the ONLY thing I stated is that bringing up an example of, say for example, a pedofile keeping kids in his basement against their will is no reason for illegal search and seisure (w/o warrant) will not help the case in the eyes of the public.

In the same way, coming to court and saying that a "hunch" or a "feeling" based on something as innocuous as "feeling nervous" and "air fresheners" is no reason to hold a person for a search when that search turns up not a dime bag, but a gun, crack cocaine, a scale and other paraphenalia is not going to HELP things.

Do you think it helps the case for these rights when someone like this is caught by infringing on them?

Your attitude gives license to this insidious authoritarian creep perpetrated by police, prosecutors and judges.

No, it is not my attitude. It is YOUR perceived image of me that is governing your response. I never said that holding him was 100% right, but you have yet to tell me how this helps your case that the guy was carrying.

I am not saying guilt or innocense here, I am saying public perception and what that means to future interpretations. If this guy was innocent, there could easily be public uproar over it, but how many people are going to come out, besides yourself of course, in defense of a Crack dealer?

How will that help the Fourth Amendment or the Exclusionary Rule?

Violating drug dealer's rights is OK -- after all they're drug dealers -- Right? That's what you think isn't it?

You are putting words in my mouth.

Please stop or I will report this.

While I don't wish illegal police behavior to be used against you -- if it is -- you deserve it.

That's it, you are reported.

[Jasonik]

LOL! I really should stop clicking the View Post link next to your name... but I just can't help myself.

[lofter1]

What is thes recent rash of "I will report you" retorts & posts ?

[Ninjahedge]

What is thes recent rash of "I will report you" retorts & posts ?

Because he insulted me.

I should back off because others have done it?

BTW, I did report it. It is one thing to argue a point, it is another to put words in anothers mouth and claim they are stupid, illogical, wrong, or just plain bad because of it.

I will stand up for what I believe in and voice my opinion. The fact that Jason admitted he has me on Ignore is yet another insult. the guy is being an ass and I am insulted by it.

Maybe I should have done the OTHER thing people do on this board, yell at him, call him names and get banned for a week?




Back On Topic. The guy was a crack dealer. Siting him as a reference for violation of rights will not win you any supporters. Right or wrong, he is a bad example that actually works against the argument Jason has been posting.


Or maybe he is just fighting for the rights of Air Fresheners, I don't know. He gets so defensive when someone talks about drugs.

[Jasonik]

Mexico Pays the Price of Prohibition

(Video) Americas columnist Mary O'Grady tells Kelsey Hubbard how the U.S. War on Drugs and the demand for narcotics is taking its toll on Mexico.
(Aug. 18)

By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
August 18, 2008; Page A13

With the world fixated on Vladimir Putin's expansionist exploits in Georgia, a different sort of assault against a democracy south of the U.S. border is getting scant attention. But it is equally alarming.

Mexico is engaged in a life-or-death struggle against organized crime. Last week six more law enforcement officials were killed in the line of duty battling the country's drug cartels. This brings the death toll in President Felipe Calderón's blitz against organized crime to 4,909 since Dec. 1, 2006.

A number of the dead have been gangsters but they also include journalists, politicians, judges, police and military, and civilians. For perspective on how violent Mexico has become, consider that the total number of Americans killed in Iraq since March 2003 is 4,142.

Kidnapping and armed robbery numbers have also soared. In Tijuana, a kidnapping epidemic has provoked an exodus of upper-middle-class families across the U.S. border in search of safety.

As this column has pointed out many times, one reason that security has so deteriorated in the past decade is the demand in the U.S. for illegal narcotics, and the U.S. government's crackdown on the Caribbean trafficking route. Mexican cartels have risen up to serve the U.S. market, and their earnings have made them rich and well-armed.

The victims of last week's killing spree include the deputy police chief of the state of Michoacan and one of his men, a detective in the state of Chihuahua, and a deputy police chief in the state of Quintana Roo. As of July, 449 police and military officers have died in the Calderón offensive, further underscoring the price Mexico is paying for the U.S. "war on drugs." But the costs go well beyond the loss of life.

In a developed country like the U.S., prohibition takes a toll on the rule of law but does not overwhelm it. In Mexico, where a newly revived democracy is trying to reform institutions after 70 years of autocratic governance under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the corrupting influence of drug profits is far more pernicious.

According to Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, part of the explanation for the kidnapping surge can be traced to the success of the government's squeeze on the drug runners. He told me in February that he expected the pressure to produce a fragmentation of the cartels, turf wars and an increase in other criminal activities to replace shrinking profits in drug trafficking.

If true, the kidnapping spree might be a sign that Mr. Medina Mora's strategy is working. But when federal investigators recently fingered Mexico City police in the kidnapping and murder of 14-year-old Fernando Martí, the son of a wealthy entrepreneur, Mr. Medina Mora's theory lost some credibility. Rather than being the work of demoralized criminals, kidnapping, in the capital anyway, appears to be just one business run by a well-oiled machine with institutional links.

Ricardo Medina, a leading Mexican opinion writer and the editor of El Economista, the country's top financial daily, told me on Thursday the case shows that "independent of the shooting war on drugs there is the problem of institutions being infiltrated by criminals and corrupted."

Even captured criminals often go free, Mr. Medina says, and all branches of government share responsibility for this crisis of impunity. It is true that judges can be intimidated or bribed. But it is also true, for example, that under Mexican law kidnapping is not a federal crime, and therefore must be handled by local authorities. Often victims do not want to press charges because there is a perception that the local police and local governments are in on it.

That perception has been strengthened in the Martí case, but the problem of impunity is hardly new. As Mr. Medina wrote in El Economista on Friday, "impunity is in view of everyone, day after day. We all see it even to the point of smiling ironically or shrugging our shoulders."

Why hasn't this problem been tackled? One possible explanation in Mexico City is that the district police and the rest of the district's bureaucracy represent an important constituency for the ruling Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD). If the PRD's base prefers the status quo, there is a high political cost to challenging it.

Drug profits going to organized crime only complicate the matter. Writing in the latest issue of the Milken Institute Review, former U.S. foreign service officer Laurence Kerr takes a page out of U.S. history. "America has been in Mexico's shoes: flush with the bounty of illegal liquor sales, organized crime thoroughly penetrated the U.S. justice system during Prohibition. As long as Americans willingly bury Mexican drug traffickers in greenbacks, progress in constraining the trade is likely to be limited." Regrettably, Mexico's institutional reform will also be limited and the death toll will keep climbing.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com

*****

What side of this proxy drug war does the federal policy of prohibition support? If the intent was to corrupt and destabilize the Mexican government it would surely be heralded a success.

A notable byproduct of this uncertainty and instability has been a flood of illegal workers across the border in search of basic non-criminal economic opportunities who are often forced to coordinate with the very drug smugglers and cartels for safe passage who force them to leave the country in the first place.

Will the failed 'War on Drugs' lead to yet another layer of paramilitarism, surveillance, and thuggish bureaucracy with a 'War on Illegal Immigration?'

*****

A good video exposé on DOJ, ICE and DEA activities on the US-Mexican border:

People and Power - War on drugs - 18 June 08 - Part 1 [11.18]

People and Power - War on drugs - 18 June 08 - Part 2 [11.15]

[Ninjahedge]

BTW, what gives?

Something must be bugging you to go from a relitively civil discussion to wishing me being beaten or detained by cops.

I sense that this particular tangent has more connection to something for you than I myself have provided. Just do me a favor, don't make me the brunt of your frustration.

[NYC4Life]

CNN

Drug violence kills at least 49 in Tijuana this week



TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) -- Police have found nine more bodies dumped around the Mexican border city of Tijuana, where nearly 50 people have been killed in a week of violence related to the drug trade.

Municipal police found five of the bodies Saturday between two small shopping centers in the eastern part of the city. The people had been beaten, and their hands were bound.

The bodies of two beheaded men were found wrapped in blankets on a road elsewhere in the city, according to the Baja California state Attorney General's Office. The heads were in black plastic bags nearby.

A piece of cardboard left by the bodies read: "These are the bricklayer's people." On Monday, a message found with 12 bodies next to a Tijuana elementary school threatened "all of those who are with 'The Engineer.' "
State prosecutor Rommel Moreno has blamed the violence on warring leaders within the Arellano Felix drug gang. More than 400 people have been killed in drug-related violence in the city across from San Diego, California, this year, including at least 49 this week.

On Friday night, two men were found shot to death in the same empty lot near the elementary school where the 12 bodies were found Monday.

Execution-style killings, beheadings and shootouts have soared across Mexico since the army and federal police intensified their fight against the drug trade nearly two years ago.

In the southern city of Oaxaca, four banners purportedly signed by the Gulf Cartel blamed another drug gang, La Familia, for a September 15 grenade attack that killed eight people during Independence Day celebrations in another Mexican state capital, Morelia.

Police arrested three alleged Gulf Cartel hit men accused of throwing the grenades into crowds of revelers. Messages in the name of La Familia have blamed the Gulf Cartel for the attack.

Police quickly took down the banners. Oaxaca state police commissioner Jorge Quezadas said they were handed over to federal prosecutors for investigation.


© 2008 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[NYatKNIGHT]

Merged.

[Jasonik]

US military: 40 tons of Afghan dope destroyed

KABUL (AP): Coalition and Afghan troops hunting for Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan discovered a drug lab and destroyed more than 40 tons of hashish on Monday, officials said.

The joint force discovered the drug facility in Kandahar province's Spin Boldak district, which borders Pakistan, the U.S. military said in a statement.

``Today's discovery clearly demonstrated the links between the Taliban and drug trafficking,'' said Col. Greg Julian, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

``The huge amount of drugs destroyed today will greatly hinder the Taliban's ability to fund their ongoing, hopeless struggle to subjugate the Afghan people,'' Julian said in a statement.

Gen. Abdul Raziq, the border police commander for southern Afghanistan, said the drugs were found in the basement of a compound in Nawa Kili village. He said American military helicopters were used during the raid.

The area where the drugs were discovered is littered with small drug labs. Drug runners transporting Afghanistan's major cash crop _ opium _ over the border with Pakistan use the region as a staging ground.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the main ingredient for the production of heroin. But the country also grows large quantities of cannabis, the plant used to produce hashish and marijuana.

U.S., U.N. and other Western officials allege that some of the proceeds from the multibillion dollar drug trade _ perhaps as much as $100 million a year _ go to fund the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan. But some government officials are believed to be involved in the lucrative trade as well.

U.S. Gen. David McKiernan, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, said last month that the NATO-led military in Afghanistan can attack drug labs or drug runners when a link can be established between the narcotics trafficker and the insurgency. He called the approach a ``force protection issue.''

``That should send a very strong message to those involved in the narcotics system in Afghanistan, that where they have relations with the insurgency, that will not be acceptable and we will treat that as a security issue,'' McKiernan said.