Vomit-Worthy Reefer Madness from Lou Dobbs

Lou Dobbs continuing coverage of “The War Within” managed to top yesterday’s level of reefer madness. Considering how bad the previous segment was, this is quite an accomplishment. Smacking down all the lies, glaring omissions and outright propaganda is going to take a while but I will give it a shot.

First of all, they mention the fact that ten states allow medical marijuana and that ten states are considering allowing legal medical marijuana. They make sure to mention that the American Cancer Society does not endorse medical marijuana because of the cancer causing properties of marijuana. This is a strange stance when you consider that marijuana can be eaten, vaporized or smoked in a bong to reduce or eliminate the impact of burning plant material. THC does not cause cancer. Then they have an obnoxious voice-over spewing the oft-repeated straw man that all marijuana activists want to legalize everything. I guess they take debating lessons from the same dudes that argue that all feminists are man-hating, ugly lesbians that can’t get a man and hate sex. There are many viewpoints within the drug legalization movement and painting all activists with the same brush is a great strategy because everybody falls for it.

They do make a quick mention of a recent study that showed that AIDS patients do get pain relief from medical marijuana. But they quickly follow up with concerns about impaired cognitive functioning, respiratory infections, anxiety, impaired memory and concerns about increased cancer risk.

Dobbs introduces his interview with Stephen Dewey by stating that marijuana is a dangerously addictive, mind-altering drug and its’ long-term effects are still being studied. Again Dobbs states that activists believe that marijuana is completely harmless and non-addictive. Dewey compares cigarette-smoking to use of marijuana. Dobbs continually asks stupid questions. He asks whether the cancer-causing properties of marijuana are caused by the THC or the smoke. Dewey has no idea about the alleged cancer-causing properties of marijuana and does a good job of covering his misinformed ass.

Dewey pushes the gateway theory although he is careful not to say the words gateway theory. He makes sure to state that marijuana-smoking adolescents are more likely to use hard drugs than non-marijuana-smokers. They mention that 30% of grade 12 students have used marijuana. Dewey talks about kids that are proud of their marijuana smoking, as if teenage rebellion were a new thing. I guess he hasn’t been around teenagers enough to know that they want to shock authority figures. Going on CNN and clutching your pearls is exactly the response that they want. I guess he didn’t read the latest report that teenage marijuana use has gone down while raiding the medicine cabinet has gone up. Does Dewey consider teenagers switching to much more dangerous and addictive prescription drugs to be a good thing? Here is a clue: the reduction in marijuana use has absolutely nothing to do with education. It’s a trend just like anything else.

Just when I thought the reefer madness had reached its’ peak, it manages to get even worse. When Dobbs asks why the research about marijuana is so inconclusive, despite the fact that marijuana has been around for thirty or forty years. I guess Dewey doesn’t know that marijuana use has been around for hundreds of years in the United States and was a widely used medicine before we started the war on drugs. Dewey answers with so many mind-bogglingly stupid assertions. He claims that it is difficult to find people that only use marijuana, that the majority of users are also using other drugs such as LSD, cocaine, methamphetamine and alcohol. Apparently all marijuana users are “poly-drug-users”. I suppose that is true. I personally am a poly-drug user. Just today I ingested caffeine and ibuprofen. There were probably some other chemicals in that pop that I drank. Do you think that the ingestion of those substances would invalidate any contributions that I could make to a marijuana study? Funny thing though, just like the majority of my pot-smoking friends I didn’t have any LSD, cocaine, meth or alcohol. Just in case you are not a fan of anecdotes, read some facts about marijuana users instead of relying on trumped up reefer madness.

As far as Dewey’s so-called scientific research goes, if we have a scientist leading these studies that knows literally nothing about drug reform activism or the cannabis culture, that research is going to have no credibility at all. It’s like trusting a flat-earth creationist to study geology.

The thing that pissed me off the most about this segment was how these two blowhards kept telling us that marijuana activists all want all drugs legalized and all of us believe that marijuana is completely harmless. It is true that the majority of us repeat the facts that marijuana has never caused an overdose death, is about as addictive as caffeine and is not linked to cancer. I would also like to say that even if all the trumped up reefer madness claims made about marijuana were true, it does not justify the continuing prohibition of marijuana. It does not justify the needless deaths caused by no-knock raids, the jails over-flowing with non-violent offenders or the subsidization of criminals and thugs.

Prohibiition gets another one of the good guys

From CC:

A horrible murder caused by prohibition shocks the cannabis community

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of medicinal marijuana activist Ken Gorman of Denver, Colorado. On Saturday night, February 17th, Ken was killed in his home by armed intruders. There will be a Sunset Vigil in honor of Ken Gorman on Wednesday, February 21st in Washington Park in Denver. Everyone is welcome to attend in the garden area which is located near Downing and Kentucky. For updates on the story and to read comments, please visit the CC Forums discussion thread.

Ken will be sorely missed by the cannabis community. I was a bit stung by the coverage of Ken's death by CBS4Denver. Why did they need to include this?

A CBS4 employee recently approached Gorman with a hidden camera and told him he only wanted marijuana to get high. Gorman then filled a form designating CBS4's employee as one of his caregivers.

"When we passed the law we passed a great, great law," Gorman said to the CBS4 employee. "There are so many holes in it that for us, the patient, police can't do anything."

See? See? This is proof that medical marijuana is just a hoax so that hippies can get high! They can't cover a tragic untimely death without including the requisite dose of reefer madness. It wouldn't do to let the reefer madness take a two minute vacation while the cannabis community mourns a tragic loss.

Besides, doesn't CBS4Denver have anything more important to report on than the fact that a few peole may be bending the medical marijuana laws? After all, prohibition of this useful weed for any purpose is a horrible travesty. Why doesn't CBS4Denver report on the ruthless murders of people and family pets that are justified by this ridiculous WAR ON DRUGS? That is a story. A bunch of hippies getting high without the governments' permission is not. As much as you may hate hippies and stoners and medical marijuana patients, it does not justify murder.

Rest in peace, Ken.

Lou Dobbs: The War Within

Tune in for some nauseating reefer madness. Find out about the well-funded marijuana lobby that is trying to promote drug use to children. Find out how legalization advocates are undermining THE WAR ON DRUGS. After watching this video you might end up in the shower scrubbing yourself frantically with bleach while reciting passages from the Bible. It's that evil. Don't say I didn't warn you.

How the War on Drugs Creates Soldiers for the War in Iraq

I found this story at a bird and a bottle. In case you are uninformed, federal aid is denied to American students that have a criminal record for use or possession of drugs. We have the bloviating Mark Souder to thank for that. So even though poor people are denied a college education because of a drug conviction, they can still go into the military. The war is so unpopular that they will take any warm body that they can get.

From the AP:

The military routinely grants waivers to admit recruits who have criminal records, medical problems or low aptitude scores that would otherwise disqualify them from service. Overall the majority are moral waivers, which include some felonies, misdemeanors, and traffic and drug offenses.

The number of felony waivers granted by the Army grew from 411 in 2003 to 901 in 2006, according to the Pentagon, or about one in 10 of the moral waivers approved that year. Other misdemeanors, which could be petty theft, writing a bad check or some assaults, jumped from about 2,700 to more than 6,000 in 2006. The minor crimes represented more than three-quarters of the moral waivers granted by the Army in 2006, up from more than half in 2003.

As Bean points out, these are the same people that have lost their right to vote in elections due to their felony convictions. Go read the whole thing.

Walker Appeals Murder Conviction

Even though I believe that Kim Walker committed a crime when he murdered James Hayward, I do agree that the judge made an error when she instructed the jury that they had to find Walker guilty. I just hope that when all is said and done, Walker will still be found guilty.

According to his notice of appeal filed Friday in the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, Walker is appealing on the grounds that the trial judge erred in law in not placing the defence of self-defence before the jury for consideration.

Walker is also appealing on the grounds that Pritchard erred in instructing the jury to return a conviction only on one of three charges, that she failed to instruct the jury that it could return a verdict of not guilty and that she erred in not granting the defence motion for a mistrial after failing to instruct the jury that it could return a verdict of not guilty.

This case has resulted in a flood of LTE's in Saskatchewan newspapers and is very controversial. Links to the LTE's are here, here, here, here, here, here, here and one by yours truly.

Wingnut Victories

Did you know that when Mexico extradites 11 narco-terrorists to the United States it's a victory for the war on drugs? Because apparently, they are the only 11 people in all of Mexico that are capable of running the vast murderous Tijuana drug cartel. Thus the war on drugs is over, at least if you are gullible enough to take wingunts at their word. For some amusing, "analysis" of this victory all you have to do is head on over to my second favorite wingnut site, (next to Wingnut Daily), Human Events.

In Defense of the Drug War

I was in shock on New Years' day when I read an article on Human Events, a wingnut site, that calls for an end to the war on drugs. Luckily for us, the wingnuts came to their senses and offer us some mindless dreck, full of strawmen entitled "In Defense of the Drug War". The wingnut compares the war on drugs to the war on murder or rape. I have not the words.

Luckily for me, Pete did a fine job of smacking them down and will save me the trouble of doing it myself. Thus I will have more time to enjoy my tasty hazelnut coffee. Mmmmmmm, coffee.

Walker Family Site

I understand their plight a little better and I certainly do feel sympathetic. Our system is pretty messed up and they are victims of it. However, my feeling that it was a crime has not changed. It feels like bad taste to comment further on their situation. So I am done with this for now.

Link

Yorkton murder victim didn't deserve fate

The overwhelming support for Mr. Walker, a murderous scumbag, is wrong and the victims' side of the story is not being told. The following article is from the Globe and Mail:

Yorkton murder victim didn't deserve fate: sisters

YORKTON (CP) - The following statement was read Friday by Alana Getty of Calgary, 29, and Kendra Getty of Vancouver, 27, on the steps of the courthouse in Yorkton where Kim Walker was on trial for the killing of James Hayward.

“We are James’s stepsisters and the following statements are our thoughts and feelings about the facts and surrounding circumstances of this case.

“We are looking forward to finally seeing justice served for our family. We would like to be sure everyone knows that ALL of the delays in the last four years were requested by the defense. The defense continues to dwell on how hard it has been for the Walker family to lead a normal life during the time, but at least they have had the opportunity. No one can understand what it is like to suddenly have a son, brother or friend eliminated from your life, especially under these violent and public circumstances. Mr. Walker’s family will be able to say goodbye to him before he goes to jail, and they’ll be able to visit him there, but our family was never given the chance to say goodbye to James.

“Mr. Walker is often described as a father, a welder and a bagpiper, but not as a gun club member with a large collection of firearms, one of which he used to shoot James to death. Mr. Walker went to James’s house with the loaded gun in its holster and two extra magazines full of bullets. Mr. Walker has never expressed any regret or remorse for killing James.

“The Walkers are not the only loving and caring family members awaiting a verdict. A lot of people loved James and he had many great qualities regardless of the way he earned money. James was a caring, funny, supportive and compassionate person. Please remember that he is not here to defend himself against any accusations.

“James bodybuilding picture is from two years before he was killed. A more recent picture has not been provided by our family because we were betrayed by the media right after James’s death. It is not an accurate picture of the person Mr. Walker encountered at the door on March 17, 2003. The pathologist testified that James only weighed 160 pounds at death. Other witnesses testified that, in the months before he was shot, James was losing weight and deteriorating; he needed help, just as Jadah needed help.

“The defense has said that, by killing James, Mr. Walker rescued his daughter from a drug addict’s death. No evidence was presented to show that she was about to die from the drug use, only that she needed help. Doctors just released Jadah that Monday morning to the care of her parents. No one knows what might have happened if James had not been killed. Perhaps they BOTH could have been saved, but no one was given the opportunity to save James. Instead, Mr. Walker decided that he was already out of options and chose to kill James. How many options were truly exhausted at that point? Drug addiction is a serious and difficult problem to resolve. They had just begun to work on Jadah’s rehabilitation when Mr. Walker took this extreme action.

“James’s mother doesn’t live in Yorkton, and although she thought he was selling marijuana and didn’t approve of that, she did not know that he started taking morphine. James did NOT sell morphine and was not taking it before he knew Jadah. James was not killing people; he did not force people to do drugs or try to get them hooked. Drug dealers do not need to advertise and the people James knew would have bought marijuana elsewhere, just as they did after he was killed. Jadah CHOSE to do drugs, CHOSE to return to James’s house the day he was killed, and CHOSE not to leave with her father. Mr. Walker CHOSE to end James’s life and he deserves punishment for that.

“We will never know whether or not Mr. Walker was waiting for an excuse to carry out his desire to kill James. If he had gone to the house only intending to get Jadah out, why didn’t he try to use the gun to PERSUADE James and Jadah? Multiple witnesses testified that he pulled the gun and immediately started shooting. Mr. Walker has received tremendous support from mush of the Yorkton community and has publicly thanked them for it….

“We can’t help but wonder how public perception may have been different if this had happened in a community where James and our family were well known, and where Mr. Walker was a stranger with a gun.

“We believe that NOT convicting Mr. Walker of murder would send the message that we don’t need to care about everyone in our communities. If we don’t respect someone’s lifestyle, or if they are breaking laws, then we cannot take their life and expect that the law won’t apply to us. Parents do NOT have the right to murder anyone their child chooses to date under ANY circumstances.

Manslaughter or murder

A Yorkton man unleashed a rifle full of vigilante justice on his daughters' drug-dealing boyfriend and a jury decided his fate today.

"Our daughter is alive," said Walker, a welder and father of three, who has no criminal record.

"She's worth everything we've been through," added Walker's wife, Elizabeth.

The parents had a crystal ball with which to gaze into the future and they knew that their daughter would have died if Mr. Walker had not taken action. Maybe they should sell lottery ticket numbers too. The sympathy expressed for Mr. Walker is sickening. Did he bother to apologize to the family of the man that he murdered? I guess we all know that drug dealers aren't people with problems of their own. I have not yet heard anybody express sympathy for the victims' drug problem. Just read this bullshit from a Star Phoenix editorial.

Under normal circumstances, Canadians would consider a person who takes a gun from a locked enclosure, loads it, drives to another house and shoots someone as having committed the most egregious of crimes. It's reflected in Canadian criminal law that provides a minimum sentence of 25 years for people convicted of first degree murder.

They don't bother to mention that the daughter willingly went to see the boyfriend. She was not forced or kidnapped. Bringing a gun to get his daughter was a huge mistake and I have a hard time believing that he had no intention of using it.

I would also like to point out that this case illustrates everything that is wrong with the war on drugs. Drug dealing is extremely profitable and legalizing drugs would take away the incentive of drug-addled boyfriends to recruit new users. Make drugs available at the pharmacy and drug dealers will disappear. In the same way that ending prohibition put an end to stills, an end to the war on drugs will put an end to grow-ops and drug dealers. It's obvious that to continue to rely on law enforcement to deal with the drug problem is failing miserably.

Canada's war on drugs a failure: report

Sometimes the intertubes angrify me. I was posting a comment on this CBC article and they closed the article while I was commenting. GRRRRR!!!!! So my wise remarks are lost to the tubes of cyberspace. But luckily I have a blog that allows me to bloviate endlessly.

I was posting a response to this comment:

Larry D Abela

There is a WAR on drugs? Really? What War?

There may be policies and actions in place, but a WAR ON DRUGS? A badly regulated industry is perhaps a better descriptor.

Larry, the war on drugs is an accurate description of the current state of affairs. The police use violence to enforce the law. They can take you to jail for using and selling the wrong plants. People get killed defending their drugs. In the States, many people have been killed during no-knock raids because a snitch gave the wrong address. Law enforcement stigmatizes drug use and prevents people from getting the help they need for drug addiction. Unregulated drugs lead to accidental overdoses. Many people are being needlessly infected with diseases because harm reduction strategies are not being used to help keep addicts safe. Calling it a War on Drugs is not hyperbole. Needless death and destruction are the result of our "badly regulated industry".

Most people are not directly affected by the war on drugs, that is why it is so easy to downplay the harm caused by the war on drugs. I have been a peaceful pot smoker for over a decade and law enforcement has affected me only once. I don't have a criminal record despite my acts of civil disobedience. Otherwise I have very little trouble obtaining pot for recreational use and the law has little to no impact on my life. It is easy for me to forget that people are dying because of our misguided policies. Sure I know a lot of people that have been ticketed and jailed but I don't know anybody that has died. For people that have never used drugs calling it a war on drugs probably seems ridiculous. But I don't have to go to Iraq and personally see the war to know that a war exists. The Drug War is real, Larry, and it is a war that will never be won.

Storm brews over drug strategy

Who didn't see this coming?

VANCOUVER, OTTAWA -- The federal investment in the war on drugs has been an abject failure, according to a report to be published today.

Canada's drug strategy, renewed with much fanfare in 2003, has put too much emphasis on law enforcement instead of on means to combat illicit drug use and minimize its human toll, says the report that is to appear in the HIV/AIDS Policy and Law Review.

The criticism appears unlikely to sway the federal Conservative government from its intention, confirmed by a Health Department spokesman, to tilt the strategy even further toward pure law-enforcement measures.

The study, which found that critical programs in prevention, treatment and research are being underfunded, comes five years after Canada's Auditor-General issued a scathing report that said the country's drug strategy focused too heavily on enforcement and needed a more "balanced approach."

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We have been locking up drug users and busting grow-ops for years and yet the number of drug users and grow-ops keeps increasing. I guess Harper and his cronies are too busy to read this.

In fact, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled his plan for a national drug strategy during the last election campaign, he made no mention of treatment and prevention, promising instead to institute harsher punishments, prevent the decriminalization of marijuana, and make so-called "precursor drugs" more difficult to obtain.

Erik Waddell, spokesman for Health Minister Tony Clement, confirmed that the Conservatives will be following a different path, with even more emphasis on law enforcement.

"Our own national drug strategy is in the works. It's something we've actually been working on for some time," Mr. Waddell said. "The previous government took its own approach, which we happen to disagree with.

"In every poll, when Canadians are asked whether they want more law enforcement or less, they want more. So the bottom line is that Canada's new government will be taking a different approach."

That Canadians overwhelmingly support an increased emphasis on law enforcement proves that the public is infected with reefer madness or statistics are bullshit (or both). Of course, Harper is already in shit for his sudden turn-around on environmental issues. I doubt that changing his mind on the War on Drugs will win him any points with his Conservative base. I predict that this report, like all other reports that are in direct opposition to the War on Drugs will be shelved and ignored.

Dr. Kerr said he finds it "immensely frustrating" that so much government money is spent on law enforcement and so little on harm reduction.

"I'm paid to treat disease and death, and I don't like what I'm seeing. Canada simply does not have an evidence-based drug strategy," he said. "There's way too much ideology and politics, and not enough science and principle."

No kidding, which makes this even more interesting:

Two-thirds of Canadians don’t support a get-tough approach to illicit drug use, but the majority of those who do favor a crackdown are Conservative party supporters, according to a new national poll provided exclusively Monday to The Vancouver Sun.

So the Conservatives can wake up and realize that the War on Drugs is bad and change course and piss off all of their supporters. Or they can continue to follow the same ineffective strategy and have all the unnecessary deaths from HIV, Hepatitis C and overdose on their consciences. Maybe an election wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

New York Times covers Kathryn Johnston fiasco

Peter of Drug War Rant has an excellent analysis of the Kathryn Johnson story in the New York Times. This will save me the trouble of having to think for myself.

A Perfect Example of the Bullshit Biased Media

I have decided to bring you the following tale of a recent medical marijuana bust in Comox Valley, British Columbia. I am not going to bring my round up and analysis of events to the table because I feel this particular case is an extraordinary example of injustice against potheads. I have decided to do this round up because this case is a perfect example of the type of biased coverage that plagues pot bust stories in the media.

On Dec.22, the RCMP raided a compassion club known as the Cannabis Buyers Club of Canada. This club distributes high-quality and relatively low-cost medical marijuana to help sick people manage their pain. The founder of the club, Mark Russell is facing 6 charges of trafficking in a controlled substance.

"They came to the house at noon with a warrant and asked me to open the safe," says Russell. "They removed our medicine, documents, paperwork, client lists, everything."

Russell, who has run the Mid Island Compassion Club for the past five years and who has 85 clients, was taken to the Oceanside RCMP station in Parksville, fingerprinted and released.

"They were here for a total of about three hours," the Dashwood resident says. "I was ordered not to continue running the club or they would arrest me. I feel sick about this. Stunned."

What do you think motivated the RCMP to go after these peaceful potheads? Is arresting people for treating their medical conditions really going to make the world any safer or better? How many real crimes went uninvestigated while the cops were on a bullshit fishing expedition? Let's see what the RCMP has to say.

Comox Valley RCMP Const. Derek Kryzanowzki says the search warrant came as the result of an ongoing investigation that had been in progress for over a year.

"Essentially it was an ongoing investigation that culminated in getting a search warrant because of illegal activity going on there, which was trafficking in marijuana."

Kryzanowzki says the bust was not part of a coordinated campaign against medical marijuana compassion clubs, nor was it instigated by a complaint from the general public.

"It was self-generated through one of the members in the drug section who initiated the investigation," he says

No member of the public complained about the compassion club. The RCMP heard about the illegal activities and decided to investigate for a year before busting this club. You would think that costly year-long criminal investigations would be reserved for violent and dangerous criminals, not a bunch of sick people.

Unsurprisingly, people were outraged by the bust. The RCMP had copies of Russells' client list and are reasonably concerned that they may be targeted for arrest. The idea of the RCMP wasting a year to investigate a compassion club pisses a lot of people off and rightfully so. The Parksville Qualicum Beach News received a flood of angry LTE's decrying the actions of the RCMP. So the editorial staff decide to respond with this bit of rubbish:

DOUBLE TAKE

Our coverage of the raid of the Mid-Island Compassion Club resulted in a upsurge of letters and comments -- most of which decry the actions of police.

Blaming police for enforcing the laws ( whether you agree or not ) is an oversimplification of the issue. The use of marijuana as medicine in an age where it is seen as an illegal substance, demands better debate than berating those who disagree with a single point-of-view. If you can't debate without insulting your opponent, it's better to keep your mouth shut than prove you have no real point to make.

Dude, these potheads need to smoke a joint and mellow out. Being angry doesn't help anybody! The police were just doing their job when they spent a year investigating illegal activites that benefit people suffering from illness that the public had no complaints about. We live in such a safe and perfect society that the police need to find busy work. If the cops are that unnecessary let's put them to work as crossing guards at the local schools.

The newspaper redeemed itself by publishing some excellent LTE's that can be found here, here and here.

*I have to say I agree with what the editor said about Marc Emery's letter. I think he is better off when his letters die in the CC forums. Ugh.

Ending the Drug War is Good for the Environment

The public thinks that the government is doing a very poor job on the environment. The latest Tory cabinet shuffle seems to be an attempt to change this public perception. Harper knows there is no way he is going to get a majority government if he continues to put this issue on the back burner. This could be a good time for potheads to push their environmentally-friendly agenda.

We are always reading about the high power consumption of indoor marijuana grow ops. The lights used to grow weed are 1000 watts a piece and are often powered by stolen electricity. This is a total waste of energy when you consider that marijuana grown outside would use no electricity at all. Not that it's relevant, but outdoor weed is of much finer quality and it would put an end to all those scary grow-ops we keep hearing about. Since reducing energy consumption is one of the key goals of the Kyoto accord, letting us grow marijuana outdoors could have a significant impact on energy consumption and the environment.

The US government spent millions of dollars eradicating ditch weed also known as hemp. 200 years ago a farmer could be jailed for not growing hemp during periods of hemp shortages. Hemp used to be vital for food, fuel and fibre, especially during war. So why are the drug warriors so intent on trying to eradicate an extremely useful, hardy plant? Beats the hell out of me. Letting the ditchweed grow would allow it to use up carbon dioxide. Instead, the drug warriors use poisonous chemicals resulting in marijuana that is resistant to herbicide. Great job! I should send the DEA a thank you letter for breeding a new super weed. Maybe I should make a trip to Mexico and bring some of those herbicide resistant strains of marijuana to Saskatchewan. That would be the way to overgrow the government!

Let's hope that Elizabeth May can bring this message home, instead of trying to win points with anti-choice douchebags. Red Tory has an excellent analysis on the new green Tory government.

They're Getting Warmer

Do you think it is possible that our politicians are catching on that the War on Drugs helps the Taliban? Are they getting a clue? One article from MAP is a good start, I guess.

Vic Toews Got Bumped

There was an excellent analysis of the recent Harper cabinet shuffle in the Star Phoenix this morning. At last I have a use for the newspaper, aside from bird cage liner.

Here is a list of all the great and wonderful things Mr. Toews accomplished as Justice Minister:

He mused about the possibility of throwing kids as young as 10 in jail as part of amendments to the Young Offenders Act. It didn't happen, but it helped to shape perceptions of the Conservatives' approach to justice;

He introduced a "three strikes" bill that said anyone convicted of three sexual or violent crimes would automatically be categorized as dangerous offenders unless they could convince a judge otherwise;

He announced he would arm Canadian border guards;

He abandoned the Liberals' plan to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana;

He introduced public hearings to confirm Supreme Court judges;

He put police representatives on provincial judicial advisory committees, a move called an attempt to stack the bench with right-wing judges; and

He abolished the Law Commission of Canada, which funded research and recommendations for changes to federal laws.

Some of these measures proved to be popular with the "kids these days are no damn good lock'em up and throw away the key" set. The rest of us were unimpressed. I was especially unimpressed with his attacks on potheads. He abandoned decriminilization efforts. If he abandoned decrim in favour of legalization I would be happy. But Toews is in favour of cracking down on grow-ops, seemingly oblivious to the fact that attacking the supply of pot is not doing potheads any favours. Getting rid of Toews was a good idea considering we are probably going to have another election. Ugh, the thought of another federal election is making me queezy.

Decriminilization is a shitty idea. It just gives the cops the power to hand out fines for consuming cannabis. It does nothing to address the black market and will actually make life easier for street dealers. Decrim will not allow people to grow their own weed or have access to a cheap and safe supply. It perpetuates reefer madness by giving people the misguided idea that smoking weed is dangerous and needs to be punished. It's either full legalization or nothing. Decrim is pure shit and is a nice, easy middle road that will please nobody and let politicians pat each other on the ass and feel like they are accomplishing something. When in reality, they are using reefer madness to further their own ends. Only a garden tool would read the Senate Report and come to the conclusion that decrim will solve any of the problems caused by the War on Drugs.

Do you know what will happen if decrim passes? The street dealers will go nuts, the price of weed will go down and everybody will say "But what about the children?" Weed will be back on the shit list and will be banned again. Then any time a pissed off pothead says "Legalize Regulate Medicate Educate" some uppity jackass will say "But we already tried that and the mental institutions were packed full of junkie potheads" The giant wall of stupid will overwhelm me and I will decide blogging is a total waste of time and I will start a pothead lesbian coven and worship seagulls. That will make hell of a lot more sense than trying to explain to people why decrim is bad and legalization is good.

Matthew Yglesias: I hate the Drug War but what is the alternative?

Matthew Yglesias has a pretty weak post defending prohibition.

I mean, I'm not even clear on what question's being asked here. Do I think the status quo is preferable to total deregulation of currently prohibited drugs? I would say so. But considering how heavily regulated the use of alcohol and tobacco is, one hardly imagines that a heroin free-for-all (ads after school cartoons, for sale out of ice cream trucks) is a likely alternative policy. So, I don't know. What is the "war on drugs" exactly? Does it do more harm than good compared to what?

I have spent a lot of time railing against drug propoganda taught to children, costly drug testing in schools, the spraying of toxic chemicals in the environment and the expense associated with drug busts and imprisoning non-violent offenders. Yet I don't think that I have ever written a post about what I think would be a good alternative to the War on Some Drugs.

First of all, the war on drugs is mainly fought against marijuana. 44.2% of all drug arrests were for marijuana use, despite the fact that marijuana is by far the safest recreational drug. Marijuana has never caused an overdose death in the thousands of years of its' use for both recreational and medicinal use, is not addictive and does not lead to the use of hard drugs. There is no good reason to continue to punish marijuana users for using a drug that is far safer than tobacco, alcohol and caffeine.

In a Drug War-Free world, people would be free to grow and sell their own marijuana. I would also like to see marijuana offered for sale in the same places that currently sell tobacco with the same age restrictions. It is unrealistic to expect age restrictions to prevent teenagers from using marijuana, since age regulations hardly stop teenagers from drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes. But all the worry about teenage marijuana use is overstated anyway. I believe if most people were aware of the safety of marijuana, they would not over-react to teenage drug use. After all, if you know the gateway theory is bullshit, why freak out because your kids are smoking a bit of weed? If they are at no risk of overdose and are not at an increased risk of using hard drugs, why all the fuss about marijuana?

In a Drug War-Free world we would hopefully see reality based drug education. We would no longer try to scare kids into staying drug-free. Schools in the United States would not be compelled to use costly and ineffective drug testing. We would teach kids the truth about drugs. This would probably mean that there might be more marijuana-smoking kids but since this is not a highly addictive substance and is relatively safe, parents would not be too upset about it. It would be very difficult to know if an end to prohibition would actually mean that more people would use marijuana, since I doubt that people answer surveys honestly. We would continue to teach the dangers of meth and other hard drugs and kids would take what adults say more seriously because they haven't been lied to about marijuana.

Tomorrow (or later if I'm bored) I will post about what I think about the legalization of harder drugs such as cocaine, heroin and meth. Feel free to comment and make suggestions and bring up any missed points that I can address later.

A B.C. lawyer who needs bodyguards

Have I got a treat for you! The tale of a brave and wise female lawyer doing humanitarian works in Afghanistan. Why is she brave and wise do you ask? She is in Afghanistan doing humanitarian work while under the protection of armed bodyguards. She also has the good sense to agree with me about the futile efforts made by the Afghani government to eradicate the opium fields. It's a complete waste of time and money. It's like trying to bail out the ocean with a teaspoon. Her sensible suggestion is to legalize the opium crops and find legitimite medical uses for the crops. Since Africa is being crushed by the AIDS epidemic, finding uses for the opium crop shouldn't be too difficult. This seems to be a very reasonable solution to the bumper crop of opium in Afghanistan.

Ms. MacDonald is founder and president of the Senlis Council, a controversial think-tank. For the past two years, Ms. MacDonald has lived in Kandahar and in neighbouring Helmand province, conducting drug-policy research and writing lengthy, contentious reports that advocate the legalization and regulation of poppy farming in Afghanistan.

Her reports also condemn American-led efforts to eradicate poppy crops, claiming this merely drives desperate farmers into the arms --and control--of Taliban extremists. (Afghanistan is among the world's largest poppy-growing countries, and produces up to 90% of its opium, much of which is refined into heroin and then peddled in Europe, Russia, and North America.)

In the process, Ms. MacDonald has annoyed Afghanistan's Interior Minister. In October, his department wrote the Senlis Council a letter, demanding it not engage in activities deemed "contrary to the constitution of Afghanistan."

She has also infuriated members of the Canadian military, especially those stationed here. Ms. MacDonald is sharply critical of how the Canadian military mission in Afghanistan is being conducted.

"I'm all for the military going after the bad guys," she told CanWest News Service. "I'm not for what we're doing to ordinary Afghans. Canadian troops are calling in [American] bombers, and villages are being destroyed. Civilians are buried in rubble. When did we have the conversation in Canada that this is an acceptable strategy?"

One high-ranking Canadian officer, posted at Kandahar Air Field, dismisses Ms. MacDonald as "a nutty dilettante" who "should just get out of here."

She is learning that you can't question the military or the killing of civilians. Having an aversion to unnecessary death and destruction makes you nutty. Maybe they should call her a man-hater too.

Unfortunately, when she brought her concerns to the Standing Committee on National Defence back home in Canada, her motives are questioned by Conservative MPs.

In October, following a presentation she gave to the Standing Committee on National Defence, Ms. MacDonald was grilled by Tory members. Her sincerity and the source of her funding were called into question.

In one remarkable exchange, Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant quizzed how the Senlis Council is funded, and then asked Ms. Mac- Donald whether she was familiar with current "anti-money laundering rules" and potential exemptions for lawyers. Ms. Gallant was promptly cut off by the committee chairman; her curious line of questioning was never explained.

But it upset Ms. MacDonald. "There was an insinuation that I was involved in something inappropriate, involved in illegal activities," she told CanWest News Service during an interview here. "I was attacked and so was my organization. It was unacceptable. It was mudslinging."

Even Conservative MPs aren't immune from reefer madness. Everybody knows that the only people that would benefit from the legalization of drugs are junkies and drug dealers. They question her motives despite the fact that common sense and economics dictate that a black market drives up the price of a commodity. If you are a drug dealer, you benefit from the black market. Didn't you people bother to read the Senate Report? I guess conservative MPs have better things to do than read and learn anything useful. It is obvious that a woman who risks her life to learn about drug policy first-hand in a bloody war zone must have something to gain monetarily from the legalization of opium. This is so mind-bogglingly stupid I don't have strong enough language to disparage these people. This is who represents us in government. First they try to take away the civil rights of gays, now this.

Go and read the rest of the article. Ms. McDonald rocks and I hope she doesn't let stupid and narrow-minded Conservative MPs from deterring her mission. The Afghani people need more people like her.

I find myself agreeing with a wingnut

I am completely shocked. An intelligent criticism of the War on Drugs from a web page that also hosts articles written by Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich and Phyllis Schlafly? Impossible! But it's true. Maybe liberalism is a contagious disease.

Anyway, here is the article. Just stay away from the rest of the site. It is full of hateful bullshit.