Here are some drug war items I’ve wanted to write full posts about but haven’t had the time:
– Anthony Citrano writes about the latest wave of medical marijuana raids in Los Angeles. According to Attorney General Holder’s previous statements, federal authorities wouldn’t be targeting any establishments that are complying with state law. Unfortunately, many of these raids are happening without any disclosure of what state law the establishments are being accused of violating. For Obama’s policy to provide any real protection for legal dispensaries, there needs to be that level of transparency to ensure that the DEA isn’t violating it.
– The saddest part of the attempts to raid medical marijuana dispensaries is the fact that California is desperately trying to figure out how to fix the problem of its overcrowded prisons. Even worse, Governor Schwarzenegger is still trying to increase funding to anti-drug units. I just remember back in 2003, when I was in Belgium and I told a group of people I was having drinks with that Arnold Schwarzenegger might be the next governor of California, and they were all shocked. At the time, I wasn’t as alarmed as they were that a brain-dead action movie star would be running the largest state in the country. Maybe I should have been.
– I was never much of a Michael Jackson fan, so I didn’t pay much attention to the news surrounding his death, but the fact that they may charge one of his doctors with manslaughter certainly has my attention now. How doctors treat people with chemical dependencies or how they subscribe potentially addictive opioid medications is a very touchy subject where prosecutors and judges often decide that they have better judgment than a physician. It’s still way too early to know what the doctor in this case was doing, but I have trouble believing that he could have been doing anything that warrants a manslaughter charge.
– This week’s drug war outrage comes from Florida, where a man named Donald May spent three months in jail for being in possession of breath mints. The arresting officer claimed the breath mints were crack-cocaine. The officer involved also lied in his report, claiming that the man admitted to buying crack. In the three months he was in jail, they auctioned off his car. He’s now suing. [h/t to the Crackpiper]
– Toby Nixon and Jeanne Kohl-Welles write in the Seattle Times in support the State Senate bill to decriminalize marijuana.
– In Bolivia, where President Evo Morales kicked out the DEA but still claims to oppose cocaine trafficking, there’s a new bar gaining some worldwide notoriety.