Synthetic drug operation seized in takedown
More drug war insanity."While some of the substances taken was not prohibited by the Controlled Substances Act, their similarity to illegal substances allowed authorities to seize them"
So the cops can make up on the fly what drugs are illegal and legal???
Synthetic drug operation seized in takedown
By Domenico Nicosia The Arizona Republic- 12 News Breaking News Team Tue Nov 6, 2012 4:53 PM
More than 20,000 units and 50 pounds of the synthetic drug known as Spice or K2 was seized along with more than $385,000, five vehicles and multiple firearms Monday while authorities executed a dozen search warrants in Phoenix and Scottsdale.
This was the second statewide synthetic drug investigation conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration, said Special Agent Ramona Sanchez, a public information officer with the DEA.
“We anticipate more (investigations) to come,” she said.
Officials investigated the manufacturing and distribution operation of these dangerous cannabinoids since April 2012.
The synthetic compound activates some of the same receptors in the body stimulated by cannabis. The warrants were served at locations including a manufacturing warehouse, five retail outlets and multiple homes in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Sanchez said.
“This investigation targeted the distribution and production of the synthetic drugs,” she said.
The investigation uncovered distributor ties in California Texas and New Mexico, Sanchez said.
The packages of the synthetic drug caution against human consumption and are sold as incense or a similar fragrance substance, officials said. While some of the substances taken was not prohibited by the Controlled Substances Act, their similarity to illegal substances allowed authorities to seize them.
“These drugs are not new to the DEA,” Sanchez said but they are particularly dangerous because of “the ease with which they can chemically alter and skirt the law.”
Agencies including Phoenix, Scottsdale and Gilbert police departments and their SWAT units assisted in the investigation.
Border Patrol arrests 7, finds 138 lbs. of marijuana
Source
Border Patrol arrests 7, finds 138 lbs. of marijuana
By Domenico Nicosia The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Tue Nov 6, 2012 6:17 PM
Seven suspected undocumented immigrants west of Gila Bend near the Yuma Sector of the southwest Arizona border were arrested carrying 138 pounds of marijuana Monday, border patrol officials said.
The drugs, valued at $91,000, were carried in burlap bags as the seven people were walking though the desert, officials said. Officials from the Yuma Sector’s Wellton Station seized the drugs.
Border Patrol officials saw the individuals, arrested them and turned them over to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.
Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of the evil and unconstitutional "war on drugs".
Washington voters legalize recreational marijuana use
Associated Press Tue Nov 6, 2012 10:35 PM
SEATTLE -- Washington voters legalized recreational pot use on Tuesday, setting up a showdown with a federal government that backs the drug's prohibition.
Initiative 502 sets up a system of state-licensed marijuana growers, processors and retail stores, where adults over 21 can buy up to an ounce. It also establishes a standard blood test limit for driving under the influence.
"Today the state of Washington looked at 70 years of marijuana prohibition and said it's time for a new approach," said Alison Holcomb, campaign manager for the initiative.
Legalization could help bring in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in pot taxes, reduce small-time pot-related arrests and give supporters a chance to show whether decriminalization is a viable strategy in the war on drugs.
The outcome of a related measure in Colorado appeared headed toward passage, and some news outlets in the state earlier in the night had declared that it was approved.
Another measure in Oregon was uncertain.
The Washington state measure was opposed by Derek Franklin, president of the Washington Association for Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention.
"Legalizing is going to increase marijuana use among kids and really create a mess with the federal government," Franklin said. "It's a bit of a tragedy for the state."
The sales won't start until state officials make rules to govern the legal weed industry.
Promoted by New Approach Washington, I-502 calls for a 25 percent excise tax at each stage from the growers on until it is sold in stores to adults 21 and over.
They could buy up to an ounce of dried marijuana; one pound of marijuana-infused product in solid form, such as brownies; or 72 ounces of marijuana-infused liquids.
The cannabis would be subject to testing to establish its THC content, and labeled accordingly.
State financial experts estimate it could raise nearly $2 billion in tax revenue over the next five years, with the money going toward education, health care, substance abuse prevention and basic government services.
When state and federal laws conflict, federal law takes precedence. Federal authorities could sue in an attempt to block I-502 from taking effect. The Justice Department has given no hints about its plans.
The campaign was notable for its sponsors and supporters, who ranged from public health experts to two of the DOJ's top former officials in Seattle, U.S. Attorneys John McKay and Kate Pflaumer.
The effort raised more than $6 million in contributions, with more than $2 million of that coming from Progressive Insurance Co. founder Peter Lewis, who used marijuana to treat pain from a leg amputation.
The ample fundraising allowed New Approach Washington to run television ads through the campaign's final weeks.
Meanwhile, I-502 had little organized opposition. Some in law enforcement and public health are concerned that increased access will lead to increased abuse, especially among teens.
Others who opposed the measure did so because it didn't go far enough, and that the blood test limits were arbitrary and could affect medical marijuana patients. Still others worried about a possible federal-state law clash.
For many voters, it came down to the notion that decades of marijuana prohibition have done more harm than good.
"It's ridiculous to be trying to maintain the law enforcement effort -- all the people, all that money, all those resources -- to prosecute marijuana use," supporter Karla Oman said. "Tax it, legalize it, everybody wins."
Sean Saulter, 30, of Seattle voted for the initiative because he wanted to see the issue go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
For George Cannon, 43, of Seattle, it was an issue of personal freedom. "I'm not into getting into other people's business," he said.
Coloradans say yes to recreational use of marijuana
Posted: 11/06/2012 05:04:47 PM MST
By Sadie Gurman
The Denver Post
Voters approved an amendment legalizing recreational marijuana use in Colorado on Tuesday, making this one of two states to end prohibition of the drug but also raising new legal questions and setting up potential court battles.
The historic result, projected by The Denver Post on Tuesday night, drew raucous cheers and applause from the amendment's supporters, who gathered in hundreds at Casselman's in downtown Denver.
"We won! We won!" supporters cried as the results were splashed across a giant screen.
Amendment 64 led late Tuesday night with 53.3 percent voting yes and 46.7 percent voting no, with 1,863,535 votes or about 66 percent of active voters counted, according to the Colorado Secretary of State's office.
"This is really groundbreaking," said Beau Kilmer, co-director of the Rand Drug Policy Research Center. "No modern jurisdiction has ever removed the prohibition on the production and possession of marijuana for recreational purposes. ... Since no one has done this before, there are a lot of uncertainties."
Voters in Washington state approved a similar measure Tuesday; in Oregon a legalization issue failed.
The amendment will allow those 21 and older to purchase up to one ounce of the drug at specially regulated retail stores. Possession would be legal but not public use. Adults could grow up to six marijuana plants at home. It sets up a direct challenge to federal drug law, which regulates it as an illegal substance. Federal authorities have not said how they will respond.
"This demonstrates that the people of Colorado are just as smart as we thought they were," said Mason Tvert, one of the directors of the Yes on 64 Campaign. "They were fed up with prohibition and decided they want a more sensible approach."
Tvert and other supporters of the measure have said it will generate tax revenue for state and local governments. They said it would shed light on the black market for marijuana.
Critics argued that passing the amendment would make Colorado a destination for drug tourists and prompt a federal crackdown. They cited concerns about increased use of the drug by children and more drugged driving.
Among the opponents was Gov. John Hickenlooper, who said in a statement Tuesday night that "the voters have spoken and we have to respect their will. This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug so don't break out the Cheetos or gold fish too quickly."
State criminal penalties for possessing the drug won't disappear until the election is certified, which could take up to two months.
Questions about regulation and enforcement still abound. The first recreational stores would be slated to open in January 2014 and would be separate from existing medical marijuana dispensaries. Local governments could ban marijuana sales and employers could still bar employees from using it.
The amendment doesn't spell out the details of how the commercial marijuana industry will be regulated. It leaves that up to the state Department of Revenue, which would oversee the specialty shops. Proponents envision something similar to the state's system governing medical marijuana, which involves security requirements, the monitoring of plants as they are grown and shipped and auditors who perform site checks.
"Colorado has a lot of work to do quickly in terms of setting up the appropriate rules and structures," said Rosalie Pacula, another co-director for Rand's Drug Policy Research Center. She noted that because the measure is a constitutional amendment, it will have to go back to voters for repairs if there are problems; the legislature will be unable to intervene.
The federal government's response is anyone's guess, she said, but it will likely be resistant. Other experts have said federal agents could arrest individual users, though that would be a departure from their usual focus on large-scale dealers.
In the year before the first stores open, the federal government may choose to challenge the measure in court by arguing that it is pre-empted.
Sadie Gurman: 303-954-1661, sgurman@denverpost.com or twitter.com/sgurman
Voters approve I-502 legalizing marijuana
Washington state voters made history Tuesday by legalizing the recreational use of marijuana.
By Jonathan Martin
Seattle Times staff reporter
Washington enthusiastically leapt into history Tuesday, becoming the first state, with Colorado, to reject federal drug-control policy and legalize recreational marijuana use.
Initiative 502 was winning 55 to 45 percent, with support from more than half of Washington's counties, rural and urban.
The vote puts Washington and Colorado to the left of the Netherlands on marijuana law, and makes them the nexus of a new social experiment with uncertain consequences. National and international media watched as vote counts rolled into I-502's election-night party in Seattle amid jubilant cheers.
"I'm going to go ahead and give my victory speech right now. After this I can go sit down and stop shaking," said Alison Holcomb, I-502's campaign manager and primary architect.
"Today the state of Washington looked at 75 years of national marijuana prohibition and said it is time for a new approach," she said.
As of Dec. 6, it will no longer be illegal for adults 21 and over to possess an ounce of marijuana. A new "drugged driving" law for marijuana impairment also kicks in then.
Tuesday's vote also begins a yearlong process for the state Liquor Control Board to set rules for heavily taxed and regulated sales at state-licensed marijuana stores, which are estimated to raise $1.9 billion in new revenue over five years.
Many legal experts expect the U.S. Justice Department, which remained silent during presidential-year politics, to push back and perhaps sue to block I-502 based on federal supremacy.
But Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes said Seattle's U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan told him Tuesday the federal government "has no plans, except to talk."
Initiative 502 ran a disciplined campaign with a tightly focused message, criticizing what it called the failed "war on drugs" without endorsing marijuana use itself.
A study, released late in the campaign, found more than 67,000 arrests for low-level marijuana possession in the past five years in Washington, with African Americans and Latinos arrested at widely disproportionate rates.
I-502 spent heavily, raising more than $6 million, including more than $2 million from Peter B. Lewis of Ohio, chairman of Progressive Insurance.
A broad group of mainstream leaders — including former top federal law-enforcement officials, the King County sheriff, the entire Seattle City Council, public-health experts, African-American leaders and the state labor council — backed the measure. John McKay, U.S. attorney in Seattle under the George W. Bush administration, became a public face of the campaign.
The initiative faced surprisingly little organized opposition. The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs and a state drug-treatment-prevention group were opposed, but did not raise money to counter I-502's $2.8 million TV-ad spending in October.
At debates, police and treatment providers predicted I-502 would lead to marijuana use, especially among teenagers. "It is a grave social injustice to trade the right of a minority to get 'high' for the right of youth to grow up drug free," said Derek Franklin, president of the drug-treatment group.
The loudest opposition came from some in the medical-marijuana industry, who said they feared being ensnared by I-502's DUI law, which does not exempt patients.
The DUI law also sets a zero-tolerance level for marijuana for drivers under 21, significantly stiffening current law.
Initiative 502 does not change the medical-marijuana law, leading to allegations that opposition from the industry was self-serving.
Tuesday's result was quickly hailed by activists such as Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He called I-502 "the single most important thing in the marijuana legalization movement in the last 75 years," and predicted it will become a template for other states to confront the federal ban on marijuana.
"That's exactly what happened at the end of alcohol prohibition. I think that's exactly what's going to happen here," Stroup said.
Staff reporter Katherine Long and news researcher Gene Balk contributed.
Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @jmartin206.
Oregon stays put on pot while other states may make historic changes
Harry Esteve, The Oregonian By Harry Esteve, The Oregonian
on November 06, 2012 at 10:39 PM
Oregon voters rejected a broad legalization of marijuana Tuesday, but Washington and Colorado went the other way, granting historic freedoms to buy and use pot.
Meanwhile, in Washington and two other states, voters were giving their blessing to same-sex marriages, marking a big leap forward for gay rights. Although a handful of states recognize marriage between homosexual couples, no state had ever approved it outright through a public vote.
Combined, the results were ground-shaking, reflective of a new attitude toward the role of government and personal freedoms.
"It's an absolutely huge message that the citizens are sending to the federal government," said Anthony Martinelli, spokesman for Sensible Washington, which promoted the state's marijuana measure. "We're stating that our cannabis policy has failed beyond any meaning of the word."
In addition to Washington, where Referendum 74 was leading by just under 4 percentage points, Maine and Maryland were passing same-sex marriage measures. In Minnesota, a measure to ban same-sex marriages was too close to call.
Gay rights groups considered the results a huge victory for the cause.
"That's amazing," said Jeana Frazzini, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, when she heard the results. "It's a further indication that this country and our state are moving forward on this issue.
Frazzini also noted that an openly gay senator was elected in Wisconsin and that a president who supports same-sex marriage was re-elected.
Basic Rights Oregon, which advocates for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues, got some flak for not sponsoring a marriage measure this year. Frazzini said it's too soon to say whether they'll try in 2014.
"We have a lot to digest from tonight," she said. "We need some time to understand the landscape."
Oregon also soundly rejected an effort to expand gambling by allowing a private casino development outside Portland. Gambling expansion measures in Rhode Island and Maryland were winning.
If the marriage, marijuana and pro-gambling votes hold up in other states, it could be a national red-letter day for libertarian-minded voters who want more elbow room to decide what to do with their private lives. The measures would amount to a dramatic rewrite of long-standing social policy.
Oregon's rejection of legalized marijuana and private casinos, on the other hand, could mark the state as increasingly provincial and resistant to the kind of change that once gave it maverick status.
"We are starting to look a little stodgy, aren't we?" said Paul Gronke, political science professor at Reed College. One reason may be that Oregon is still dusting itself off from the recession and is wary about change, he said. "It tends to take a little of the sheen off being a maverick."
Oregon's Measure 80, which would have allowed private manufacturing, possession and use of marijuana, trailed by 10 percentage points. The measure, considered the least restrictive of the three, also would have set up an Oregon Cannabis Commission that would license, sell and tax marijuana through a network of state-run stores, much like liquor is sold in the state.
Supporters said it would have generated revenue for the state and saved money by reducing the amount of police time and jail space devoted to marijuana possession crimes. Opponents, mostly sheriffs and district attorneys in the state, said the measure would have led to more intoxicated driving and other problems associated with freely accessible pot.
Paul Stanford, the main force behind Oregon's measure, said it failed not because of Oregon's attitude toward marijuana but because of a lack of money and bad press.
"We're really proud of what happened in Washington state and Colorado," Stanford said. He said he expects a number of marijuana legalization measures to surface when the Legislature convenes in February.
"If we don't win in the Legislature, we'll be back with another ballot measure in 2014," he said.
Washington's Initiative 502 sets up a state-licensed system for growing, producing and selling marijuana to adults over 21. But it would limit personal possession to up to an ounce and does not permit residents to grow their own crops.
The measure was leading 55 percent to 45 percent late Tuesday. Despite the big margin, supporters expect a legal fight before it actually takes effect. Federal laws prohibit marijuana possession and use.
"Based on the federal conflict, it's likely the federal government will take us to court," said Martinelli, the campaign spokesman. Under the measure, possession of up to an ounce of pot becomes legal on Dec. 6. Because of the potential lawsuit and other logistics, he predicted it would be at least a year before Washington residents could start buying marijuana at state-licensed stores.
-- Harry Esteve
Comienzan a absolver en Washington casos de posesión de marihuana
En previsión a implementación de la ley 502.
Autoridades de tres condados en el estado de Washington comenzaron a absolver casos de detenidos por posesión de pequeñas cantidades de marihuana, en previsión a la implementación de la ley 502 que autoriza el consumo "recreativo".
El procurador de distrito en el condado de Clack, Tony Golik, informó que su oficina empezó a absolver casos de detenidos que tienen por lo menos 21 años de edad y que habían sido detenidos por posesión de hasta una onza (30 gramos) de marihuana.
La Iniciativa 502 que permite por primera vez en el país el consumo "recreativo" de la droga fue aprobada en la elección del pasado 6 de noviembre y entrará en vigor el próximo 6 de diciembre.
Golik dijo carecer de un número estimado de detenidos que saldrían libres al absolverles por cargos de posesión de pequeñas cantidades de marihuana.
Washington y Colorado, los primeros
El vocero de la gobernadora, Cory Curtis, dijo al diario The Seattle Times que Gregoire viaja a Washington para atender otros asuntos pero desea recibir consejo del subprocurador general sobre la ley que aprobó el electorado en la elección de hace una semana.
"Necesitamos de su dirección. Nuestro objetivo es respetar la decisión de los electores, pero necesitamos que nos den claridad" con relación a la implementación de la ley, dijo Curtis.
Los estados de Washington y Colorado se convirtieron el martes en los primeros en la historia estadounidense en aprobar leyes que autorizan el consumo de marihuana con fines "recreativos", es decir sin la justificación de consumir la droga como terapia.
La Agencia Federal Antidrogas (DEA) advirtió en breves reacciones que a las iniciativas estatales prevalece la ley federal de control de sustancias controladas y la marihuana sigue siendo una substancia controlada.
Gay marriage, marijuana backed in historic votes
DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer
Updated 7:16 a.m., Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Altering the course of U.S social policy, Maine and Maryland became the first states to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote, while Washington state and Colorado set up a showdown with federal authorities by legalizing recreational use of marijuana.
The outcomes for those ballot measures Tuesday were a milestone for persistent but often thwarted advocacy groups and activists who for decades have pressed the causes of gay rights and drug decriminalization.
"Today the state of Washington looked at 70 years of marijuana prohibition and said it's time for a new approach," said Alison Holcomb, manager of the campaign that won passage of Initiative 502 in Washington.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who opposed legalization, was less enthused. "Federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug, so don't break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly," he said.
The results in Maine and Maryland broke a 32-state streak, dating to 1998, in which gay marriage had been rebuffed by every state that voted on it. They will become the seventh and eighth states to allow same-sex couples to marry.
In another gay-rights victory, Minnesota voters defeated a proposed constitutional amendment that would banned same-sex marriage in the state. Similar measures were approved in 30 other states, most recently in North Carolina in May.
"The tide has turned — when voters have the opportunity to really hear directly from loving, committed same-sex couples and their families, they voted for fairness," said Rick Jacobs of the Courage Campaign, a California-based gay rights group. "Those who oppose the freedom to marry for committed couples are clearly on the wrong side of history."
Washington state also voted on a measure to legalize same-sex marriage, though results were not expected until Wednesday at the soonest.
The outcomes of the marriage votes could influence the U.S. Supreme Court, which will soon consider whether to take up cases challenging the law that denies federal recognition to same-sex marriages. The gay-rights victories come on the heels of numerous national polls that, for the first time, show a majority of Americans supporting same-sex marriage.
Maine's referendum marked the first time that gay-rights supporters put same-sex marriage to a popular vote. They collected enough signatures to schedule the vote, hoping to reverse a 2009 referendum that quashed a gay-marriage law enacted by the Legislature.
In Maryland and Washington, gay-marriage laws were approved by lawmakers and signed by the governors this year, but opponents gathered enough signatures to challenge the laws.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who campaigned vigorously for the marriage measure, spoke to a jubilant crowd in Baltimore. Christopher Wold, 31, danced with his partner of four years after the result became clear. He said they would like to marry now that it's legal in Maryland.
"It feels so good to be accepted by so many people of all different backgrounds," he said. "It just feels wonderful."
The president of the most active advocacy group opposing same-sex marriage, Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage, insisted Tuesday's results did not mark a watershed moment.
"At the end of the day, we're still at 32 victories," he said. "Just because two extreme blue states vote for gay marriage doesn't mean the Supreme Court will create a constitutional right for it out of thin air."
Heading into the election, gay marriage was legal in six states and the District of Columbia — in each case the result of legislation or court orders, not by a vote of the people.
The marijuana measures in Colorado and Washington will likely pose a headache for the U.S. Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration, which consider pot an illegal drug. The DOJ has declined to say how it would respond if the measures were approved.
Colorado's Amendment 64 will allow adults over 21 to possess up to an ounce of marijuana, though using the drug publicly would be banned. The amendment would allow people to grow up to six marijuana plants in a private, secure area.
Washington's measure establishes a system of state-licensed marijuana growers, processors and stores, where adults can buy up to an ounce. It also establishes a standard blood test limit for driving under the influence.
The Washington measure was notable for its sponsors and supporters, who ranged from public health experts and wealthy high-tech executives to two former top Justice Department's officials in Seattle, U.S. Attorneys John McKay and Kate Pflaumer.
"Marijuana policy reform remains an issue where the people lead and the politicians follow," said Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, which opposes the co-called "war on drugs." ''But Washington state shows that many politicians are beginning to catch up."
Estimates show pot taxes could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars a year, but the sales won't start until state officials make rules to govern the legal weed industry.
The Washington measure was opposed by Derek Franklin, president of the Washington Association for Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention.
"Legalizing is going to increase marijuana use among kids and really create a mess with the federal government," Franklin said. "It's a bit of a tragedy for the state."
In Oregon, a marijuana-legalization measure was defeated. In Massachusetts, voters approved a measure to allow marijuana use for medical reasons, joining 17 other states. Arkansas voters rejected a similar measure.
In all, 176 measures were on the ballots Tuesday in 38 states, according to the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California.
Other notable results:
—In California, voters approved Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to raise income taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year and sales taxes on everyone to help balance the state budget and avoid about $6 billion in cuts, mostly to schools. Voters rejected an attempt to curb union clout at the statehouse by limiting paycheck deductions for political activities, and defeated a proposal to require the labeling of genetically modified foods.
—Maryland voters approved a measure allowing illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition, provided they attended a state high school for three years and can show they filed state income tax returns during that time. About a dozen other states have similar laws, but Maryland's is the first to be approved by voters.
—In Oklahoma, voters approved a Republican-backed measure that wipes out all affirmative action programs in state government hiring, education and contracting practices. Similar steps have been taken previously in Arizona, California, Michigan, Nebraska and Washington.
—In Michigan, labor unions suffered a big loss. Voters rejected a first-of-its-kind ballot initiative that would have put collective bargaining rights in the state constitution.
___
Contributing to this report were Brian Witte in Annapolis, Md.; Eric Tucker in Baltimore; Md.; Nicholas K. Geranios and Gene Johnson in Seattle; Clarke Canfield in Portland, Maine, and Kristen Wyatt in Denver.
___
Follow David Crary on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CraryAP
California cities curb marijuana industry
By Lee Romney, Los Angeles Times
November 8, 2012
While voters in Colorado and Washington opted to legalize recreational marijuana use, a host of California communities moved instead to curtail the booming cannabis industry.
In San Diego County on Tuesday, measures to permit and regulate medical marijuana dispensaries were rejected in Del Mar, Solana Beach, Lemon Grove and Imperial Beach. The closest of the measures was in Del Mar, supported by 44% of voters.
In the Bay Area, a proposal that would have allowed up to three dispensaries in Palo Alto went down to defeat as well. Members of the City Council had argued that the stores would increase criminal activity and send children the wrong message, and 62% of voters sided with them.
In Northern California, voters in the Siskiyou County town of Dunsmuir rejected an attempt to roll back broad restrictions that were placed on medical marijuana growers last year.
The measure, rejected by 53% of voters, would have permitted cultivation on property that is not the grower's primary residence — as well as outdoors, in public view, inside enclosed garages, in Dunsmuir's historic district and in close proximity to youth-oriented activities. Opponents argued that the rail town-turned-outdoor recreational hub was emerging from an economic downturn and could not afford to be labeled a marijuana haven.
And the Humboldt County town of Arcata, 69% of voters sent their own message to growers, requiring those cultivating indoors and guzzling electricity to pay a premium utility tax.
The 45% tax will apply to residential electric bills that are six times above the baseline level set by the state. Nearly 7% of homes in Arcata, located in the heart of the Emerald Triangle, have bills that high, suggesting they are "grow houses."
Over the last year, federal prosecutors in California have cracked down on dispensaries near schools and parks, those operating for profit — in violation of state law — and those deemed "super stores" likely to be serving people who have no medical need.
In other contests Tuesday, labor unions were able to secure better conditions for workers.
A living-wage measure for Long Beach hotel workers, the third of its kind in California, was backed by 63% of the electorate there. It requires the city's 17 non-unionized hotels with more than 100 rooms to pay all workers at least $13 an hour.
And nearly 59% of voters in San Jose agreed to raise the hourly minimum wage to $10 — $2 above the mandated statewide rate. Proponents had argued that the measure was necessary for low-income people to survive in an increasingly pricey, tech-based city.
San Jose joins San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Santa Fe and Albuquerque, N.M., as the only municipalities in the nation to set a minimum wage.
In Long Beach and San Jose, business interests opposed the measures, saying they would lead to layoffs and closures, as well as saddle consumers with higher costs.
In other California balloting, San Francisco voters rejected a proposition that would have required the city to craft an $8-million plan to demolish the dam that created the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite and find alternative sources of hydropower and water storage.
And in Berkeley, a controversial measure that would have banned sitting and lying on sidewalks in the city's commercial areas between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. appeared to suffer a narrow defeat after leading in early results.
lee.romney@latimes.com
Romney reported from San Francisco. Times staff writers Tony Perry in San Diego and Wesley Lowery in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
The cops and prosecutors tell us they would rather let 100 guilty people get away then have one innocent person be sent to prison.
But that is a bunch of BS.
Sadly it seems to be exactly the opposite of that and for every 100 innocent people that are railroaded by the cops and falsely sent to prison 1 guilty person gets away. And of course that statement is based on the large number of cases where DNA is proving innocent people were railroaded by the cops and sent to death row for crimes they didn't commit. They often spend 10, 20 or 30 years in prison before DNA tests prove they are innocent.
A little over a month ago on September 28, 2012,
Damon Thibodeaux, a Louisiana death row inmate,
was the 300th prisoner free from prison because DNA test proved he was framed for murder.
One interesting question for a lawsuit would be to ask does Will Humbles team of doctor goons review all the other prescriptions written by doctors for narcotics to see that the doctors are not writing invalid prescriptions.
I suspect that Will Humble and Jan Brewer are singling out people with marijuana prescriptions or recommendations as they are called.
Medical-marijuana report offers insight into users, doctors
By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Nov 8, 2012 10:54 PM
Arizona health officials want to strengthen the controversial medical-marijuana program to crack down on physicians who improperly recommend marijuana, train physicians who write most certifications and make it easier to revoke patient cards if health officials suspect wrongdoing.
Health officials also want to study how effective marijuana is in treating debilitating conditions, such as cancer, and examine whether marijuana affects opiate dependency, impacts vehicle-traffic injuries and impacts pregnancy outcomes and breastfeeding. Such studies would require changes to the law, which restricts the scope of information state health officials can obtain from physicians and patients. [And of course the politicians are NOT allowed to make any changes to the law because of a prior voter initiative which was passed after the politicians passed a law revoking Arizona's first medical marijuana law. So the question is why is Will Humble wasting our tax dollars doing these studies?]
The recommendations are contained in the state’s inaugural report of the medical-marijuana program, approved by voters in 2010 to allow people with certain debilitating medical conditions, to use marijuana. They must obtain a recommendation from a physician and register with the state, which issues identification cards to qualified patients and caregivers.
The new report covers April 2011 through June and includes for the first time, in a comprehensive format, a detailed breakdown of the types of physicians that are recommending medical marijuana.
During that time period, the Department of Health Services received 41,476 applications — both renewals and new submissions — and approved about 98 percent. Because of the report’s time frame of more than a year, some cardholders may have been counted twice in that number —when they initially applied and when they renewed their annual card.
There were 29,804 total active cardholders reported, which included 28,977 qualifying patients and 827 caregivers.
Most patients cited one medical condition while less than a quarter reported two or more conditions. About 70 percent of patients cited “severe and chronic pain” as their only medical condition.
The report states that 475 physicians recommended marijuana for the 28,977 patients. Ten of those physicians certified nearly half of all patients.
Eighty naturopaths, who combine traditional medicine and natural medical approaches to treat patients, certified 18,057 patients while 332 medical doctors certified 8,574 patients. Sixty-one osteopaths certified 2,329 patients and two homeopaths certified 17 patients.
“I had hoped that we wouldn’t have this tight concentration of specialties who are writing these,” he said.
Humble said the numbers raise concerns that patients are seeking recommendations from “certification mills” instead of primary-care doctors who are generally more well-versed about individual patients’ medical histories. He said medical doctors may be less willing to write marijuana certifications because they didn’t study marijuana as a treatment in medical school. [And of course medical schools don't teach doctors how and when to prescribe marijuana because it's still and illegal drug per Federal law, so we have a Catch 22 here. And I suspect Will Humble hopes that that Catch 22 can be used prevent doctors from writing medical marijuana prescriptions]
Humble also wants to explore the idea of temporarily suspending patients’ cards if officials suspect wrongdoing and want to investigate. [So Will Humble wants patients to be assumed guilty till they prove their innocence. That's typical of government tyrants!] Currently, cards remain active until a final decision is made, “thus, providing immunity to potential misuse” of the law, the report says.
His agency will soon spend more than $1.2 million to, in part, weed out physicians who improperly recommend marijuana to patients as well as to help train marijuana-dispensary staff, hire private accountants or auditors to examine dispensary financial statements and hire private attorneys to assist the department with legal issues arising from the program. [Wow, it seems like Will Humble is doing everything possible to flush Prop 203 which is Arizona's medical marijuana law down the toilet]
The ADHS will also continue to fund a $200,000 contract with the University of Arizona College of Public Health to, in part, review published research about the effectiveness of marijuana in treating medical conditions.
Humble believes the expenses will help the state keep the medical-marijuana program as “medical” as possible.
Mexico says marijuana legalization in U.S. could change anti-drug strategies
By William Booth, Published: November 8
MEXICO CITY — The decision by voters in Colorado and Washington state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana has left Mexican President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto and his team scrambling to reformulate their anti-drug strategies in light of what one senior aide said was a referendum that “changes the rules of the game.”
It is too early to know what Mexico’s response to the successful ballot measures will be, but a top aide said Peña Nieto and members of his incoming administration will discuss the issue with President Obama and congressional leaders in Washington this month. The legalization votes, however, are expected to spark a broad debate in Mexico about the direction and costs of the U.S.-backed drug war here.
Mexico spends billions of dollars
[given to Mexico by the USA] each year confronting violent trafficking organizations that threaten the security of the country but whose main market is the United States, the largest consumer of drugs in the world.
With Washington’s urging and support, Mexican soldiers roam the mountains burning clandestine plantations filled with marijuana destined for the United States. Mexico’s police and military last year seized almost as much marijuana as did U.S. agents working the Southwest border region.
About 60,000 Mexicans have been killed in drug-related violence, and tens of thousands have been arrested and incarcerated. The drug violence and the state response to narcotics trafficking and organized crime have consumed the administration of outgoing President Felipe Calderon.
“The legalization of marijuana forces us to think very hard about our strategy to combat criminal organizations, mainly because the largest consumer in the world has liberalized its laws,” said Manlio Fabio Beltrones, leader of Peña Nieto’s party in Mexico’s Congress.
Peña Nieto’s top adviser, Luis Videgaray, said Thursday that his boss did not believe that legalization was the answer. But Videgaray said Mexico’s drug strategies must be reviewed in light of the legalization votes.
“Obviously, we can’t handle a product that is illegal in Mexico, trying to stop its transfer to the United States, when in the United States, at least in part of the United States, it now has a different status,” Videgaray told a radio station Wednesday.
Videgaray added that legalization “changes the rules of the game in the relationship with the United States” in regards to anti-drug efforts.
“I think more and more Mexicans will respond in a similar fashion, as we ask ourselves why are Mexican troops up in the mountains of Sinaloa and Guerrero and Durango looking for marijuana, and why are we searching for tunnels, patrolling the borders, when once this product reaches Colorado it becomes legal,” said Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister of Mexico and an advocate for ending what he calls an “absurd war.”
Peña Nieto has pledged to work closely with the U.S. government against powerful transnational crime organizations when he takes office next month. But he has stressed that his main goal is not to confront smugglers but to reduce the sensational violence and rampant crime — such as extortion, kidnapping and theft — that have soared in Mexico during Calderon’s six years in office.
Jonathan Caulkins, an expert on the drug trade and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, said the beginning of marijuana legalization in the United States could allow Peña Nieto to resist U.S. pressure to maintain a hard line against smuggling groups.
Advocates for marijuana legalization in the United States and Mexico have often argued that ending the prohibition on pot would deny Mexican traffickers a key source of revenue. Analysts generally agree that about half of all the marijuana consumed in the United States comes from Mexico.
If all marijuana consumers in Colorado and Washington state buy the drug legally, then revenue to Mexican drug cartels would probably decrease. But not by much.
U.S. experts who produced a landmark Rand Corp. study in 2010 when California voters were considering the legalization of recreational marijuana use (the measure did not pass) concluded that Mexican cartels earn no more than $2 billion moving marijuana across the Southwest border and that the groups derive 15 to 26 percent of their revenue from marijuana sales.
The study authors estimated that legal marijuana use in California, a state that consumes about one-seventh of all the pot smoked in the United States, would cost the cartels 2 to 4 percent of their revenue. So losing consumers in states such as Washington and Colorado that have a smaller population might not affect the cartel bottom line by much.
U.S. government estimates of drug cartel profits, however, are much higher.
“Marijuana is an important part of their business, but not the most important. Most people agree it’s about 20 percent of their revenues, and so two small U.S. states legalizing marijuana won’t really impact their market share very much,” said Eric Olson, associate director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington.
But Olson said the incoming Mexican president will be watching closely.
“There is a sense of frustration throughout Latin America about the steep costs of confronting drug trafficking. And these votes in the United States, and the reaction to them, might signal a willingness for the countries to think outside of the box on drug policy.”
Whether the loss of some marijuana revenue will reduce killings in Mexico is even more uncertain, as much of the worst violence is attributed to crime rings that have branched out from drug smuggling to human trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, oil theft and DVD piracy.
Colo., Wash. await federal marijuana response
Associated Press Fri Nov 9, 2012 10:13 AM
DENVER — Two states that approved recreational use of marijuana could learn Friday whether the federal government intends to file a lawsuit to block the measures from taking effect.
Governors in Colorado and Washington said they planned to talk by phone with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder about the measures that contradict federal law banning the use of pot.
Seventeen states and Washington, D.C., already allow marijuana use by people with certain medical conditions. Still, federal drug law outlaws use of the drug in all circumstances.
Voters in Colorado and Washington pushed the limits even further when they approved ballot measures Tuesday allowing adults over 21 to possess small amounts of marijuana under state regulation and taxation.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has said Colorado will respect the will of voters but added that he was awaiting word from the U.S. Department of Justice on how to proceed.
[It sounds like he doesn't respect the voters at ALL if he is waiting for the goons in the U.S. Department of Justice to tell him how to proceed. He was elected by the people of Colorado, not by the US government.]
“In a situation like this, where our law is at loggerheads with federal law, my primary job is to listen first,” the governor said.
[I guess Gov. John Hickenlooper could care less about the 10th Amendment which says when the Feds are not given a power in the US Constitution that power is reserved for the people and the states!]
Hickenlooper opposed the ballot measure and has downplayed the likelihood of a commercial marijuana market materializing in Colorado.
[Which is why he is probably kissing the asses of the bureaucrats in DC then supporting the will of the people in Colorado]
“Based on federal law, if it’s still illegal under federal law, I can’t imagine that 7-Eleven is ever going to sell it,” he said. [Why not? In Los Angeles there are more "medical marijuana dispensaries" then their are 7-Elevens]
Marijuana advocates hope the federal government maintains its current posture of mostly ignoring states that flout federal law by allowing medical use under certain circumstances.
The U.S. government has cracked down during the past two years on more than 500 marijuana dispensaries in several states, but no one has faced federal prosecution for personal use.
“It would certainly be a travesty if the Obama administration used its power to impose marijuana prohibition upon a state whose people have declared, through the democratic process, that they want it to end,” said Brian Vicente, co-author of Colorado’s marijuana measure.
Earlier this week, Justice Department spokeswoman Nanda Chitri said enforcement of the federal Controlled Substances Act remained unchanged.
“In enacting the Controlled Substances Act, Congress determined that marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance,” Chitri said. “We are reviewing the ballot initiative and have no additional comment at this time.”
Eric Brown, a spokesman for Hickenlooper, would not say whether the governor planned to disclose the details of his call with Holder.
If Colorado’s marijuana ballot measure is not blocked, it would take effect by Jan. 5, the deadline for the governor to add the amendment to the state constitution. The measure allows adults to possess up to an ounce of marijuana, and six marijuana plants, though public use of the drug and driving while intoxicated are prohibited.
Colorado’s measure also directs lawmakers to write regulations on how pot can be sold, with commercial sales possible by 2014.
Pot legalization puts bankers in a pickle
By Brett Wolf | Reuters
ST. LOUIS, Nov 8 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - Colorado and Washington may have voted to legalize recreational marijuana, but it is far from a green light for banks to provide accounts or other services to the pot industry in those states.
Financial institutions across the country still face legal risks if they do business with marijuana shops because pot remains illegal under federal law.
"If financial institutions are federally licensed or insured, they must comply with federal regulations, and those regulations are clear about conducting financial transactions with money generated by the sale of narcotics," said Jim Dowling, a former Internal Revenue Service special agent who also acted as an anti-money laundering advisor to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
The ballot measures on Tuesday made Colorado and Washington the first states to permit recreational marijuana sale and use. Medical-marijuana laws have been around in some states for more than a decade.
California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. With the addition of Massachusetts, which passed a medical-marijuana ballot initiative on Tuesday, 18 states and the District of Columbia now have such laws on their books.
The medical marijuana business was worth $1.7 billion in 2011 and growing, according to a study by financial-analysis firm See Change Strategy.
The federal government does not recognize states' authority to legalize marijuana under any circumstances, however. It has targeted some medical-pot businesses for violations of the 40-year-old Controlled Substances Act, which classifies the drug a Schedule 1 narcotic, meaning it is considered addictive and with no medical value.
The Justice Department on Wednesday said its marijuana enforcement policies remained unchanged. "We are reviewing the ballot initiatives and have no additional comment at this time," its public statement said.
A Justice Department spokeswoman did not respond to a request for additional comment related to banking activity.
DEA WARNS BANKS
Under President Barack Obama, federal authorities have focused enforcement efforts on large commercial medical marijuana operations that generate a lot of money. In some cases, federal money-laundering and forfeiture laws have been used against such businesses.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) began warning banks and credit card companies away from medical marijuana businesses four years ago, and many, if not all, have responded by closing the businesses' accounts. Even small regional banks that once publicly embraced the industry have abandoned it.
Some medical marijuana businesses pose as traditional medical clinics to open bank accounts, or clandestinely misuse existing personal or business accounts.
U.S. attorneys offices in states with medical marijuana laws have had a large degree of autonomy in determining when to bring criminal prosecutions for marijuana-related infractions of the Controlled Substances Act.
In 2010, Californians considered legalizing the recreational use of marijuana. While the measure ultimately failed, prior to the vote U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder vowed to aggressively prosecute "organizations that possess, manufacture or distribute marijuana for recreational use".
After Tuesday's votes, the Justice Department and individual U.S. attorneys offices will have to clarify their intentions with regard to enforcing the federal marijuana ban in Colorado and Washington, former federal enforcement officials said.
The recreational marijuana measures in both states will allow pot to be sold at state-licensed stores.
However, former Justice Department officials said that financial institutions, even those in Colorado and Washington State risk possible criminal or civil penalties for doing business with pot shops.
Once the states have begun their licensing processes, financial institutions may need to update their reviews on existing business customers by ensuring they are not on lists of state-licensed marijuana stores, the sources said.
(This article was produced by the Compliance Complete service of Thomson Reuters Accelus
(http://accelus.thomsonreuters.com/) .
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(Editing by Randall Mikkelsen and Andrew Hay)
Arpaio tries mending rift with Latinos
By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Nov 9, 2012 11:34 PM
As it became apparent Tuesday that Sheriff Joe Arpaio was going to secure a sixth term in office, he was his usual brash self, taunting the media and promising to run again in four years.
Then, surprisingly, he did something he doesn’t often do. He made a peace offering to his most ardent critics. He said he hoped to repair relations with a Latino community angered by his hard-line policy of arresting undocumented immigrants, his frequent criticisms of Hispanic advocacy groups and allegations by the U.S. Justice Department that his agency engaged in racial profiling.
Can his attempt at diplomacy work?
Carlos Sierra, a Republican who helped organize a coalition that sought to register Hispanic voters and oust Arpaio, said the olive branch offered on Election Night was broken from the start.
“You remember exactly what he said: ‘As long as they don’t yell at me.’ If he’s trying to reach out, he already kind of insulted us by saying we only shout at him,” Sierra said. “I think the damage is done. I’m sure there are some people in the Hispanic community who might meet with him. He’s not bringing anything to the table for us. He’s already said he’s not going to change.”
Arpaio said the problem comes down to communication — and his inability to accurately get his message out. He believes local media are biased against him and are twisting his words.
In a wide-ranging post-election interview, Arpaio said the past two years have presented challenges that made his sixth general-election victory his most satisfying. And though the sheriff admitted making mistakes in recent years, mainly in his management choices, he does not think his approach to immigration enforcement is one of them.
Arpaio still believes that mass deportation of undocumented immigrants would work if the country’s leaders put their minds to it and that his rigid enforcement of state laws targeting identity theft and human smuggling is a reasonable solution.
If given the chance, Arpaio said, he also could explain past statements that seem to portray undocumented immigrants as dirty and disease-prone drains on society — words that could thwart his chances for reconciliation with the Hispanic community.
“That’s exactly why I want to talk to them,” he said. “I can explain the swine-flu furor that occurred in the media. That’s why I want to communicate, to let them know why we are doing things — not through the media and demonstrations.
“They may come up with an idea and say, ‘Wait a minute, maybe we can do this … maybe we can deal with the Mexican ambassador, Sheriff, if we have this medical problem. Maybe we can work through customs and everything else.’ Great. OK. Let’s do it.”
But he said their willingness to meet him “is not there.”
“The hatred with certain groups, it’s hard to negotiate,” Arpaio said.
There is a healthy amount of distrust on both sides.
The Rev. Warren Stewart co-founded the Black/Brown Coalition of Arizona with Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox earlier this year. Stewart was also among a group of Black leaders who wrote a letter to Arpaio in December asking the sheriff to resign after a jail death dovetailed with the release of a Justice Department report saying the Sheriff’s Office was involved in some of the most egregious examples of racial profiling investigators had encountered.
Arpaio mocked and ignored the group’s request.
Stewart said that if Arpaio is serious about rebuilding relationships with his critics in minority communities, he could start by writing a letter to the Black/Brown Coalition with an offer to meet.
“His desire to reach out could be an answer to a prayer for reconciliation and for cooperation in Maricopa County as it relates to the immigration issue and to people of color,” Stewart said. “One of my Christian duties is to reach out to those who are opponents, those who could be labeled as enemies, to bring peace. Our goal is peace. It’s never been anti-Arpaio. It’s been anti-Arpaio because he’s disturbing the peace.”
The Rev. Oscar Tillman, president of the Maricopa County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, joined Stewart last December on the steps of the federal courthouse in downtown Phoenix, where they called for Arpaio’s resignation.
Tillman, who for years has had a professional relationship with Arpaio and other sheriff’s administrators, said his decision to join was driven in part by Arpaio going out of town instead of tending to more pressing matters at home when an inmate died after a scuffle with officers in the Fourth Avenue Jail.
On Wednesday, Tillman called to congratulate Arpaio on winning re-election and to deliver a message: “You’ve got to deal with me for another four years,” Tillman said.
“There are people today congratulating (President Barack) Obama who hated him. When you deal with reality, you don’t have time to deal with secondary issues.
“If you want to make changes and create some type of cooperation, you cannot say that too much bad blood has been there. Let’s face it, if we said that to Japan or Germany, where would we be?”
Peace and reconciliation are words that politicians often use after elections. But beyond the ethical or moral desire to foster a more tranquil environment, there is some question as to whether Arpaio could secure a seventh term without votes from the Hispanic community.
With several hundred thousand votes remaining to be counted late this week, Arpaio maintained a lead of more than 80,000 votes over his Democratic challenger, Paul Penzone. While comfortable, that margin is a far cry from Arpaio’s 2008 defeat of Dan Saban, whom he bested by 172,000 votes.
When his declining margins come up, Arpaio is quick to produce typewritten notes on results of all six of his campaigns.
“I always hover around 52, 56 (percent),” Arpaio said. “What’s changed? This is a landslide.”
According to exit polls, the percentage of Hispanic voters in Arizona crept higher this year compared with the previous presidential election, rising to 18 percent from 16 percent, Tucson-based pollster Margaret Kenski said.
“Eighteen percent isn’t too staggering compared to the huge base of conservatives he has. Rather than the percent of Hispanics, I would look at the changing attitudes on immigration that have been found in the polls lately,” Kenski said. “To me, that’s more important than the percentage of Hispanics.
“That means it isn’t a fight between the Hispanics and the authorities. There are allies out there in the White community who think a hard line against all illegal aliens is not going to be a productive route to go.”
With that in mind, Kenski said, Hispanic leaders should look carefully at Arpaio’s offer to improve relations. If those leaders refuse to meet, it can make them appear intractable and alienate some in the community who might otherwise support them, she said.
“No matter how obnoxious he may have been, I think it’s a mistake for Latino leaders to say, ‘We’re not coming to the table,’” Kenski said. “It’s always better to talk. What’s their alternative? Wait for him to die?”
Sierra offered another option that might disappoint those hoping Arpaio’s victory and discussions of comprehensive federal immigration reform would bring a detente after years of political warfare.
“We’re not giving up,” Sierra said. “We’re still marching. No one wants to give up. I think if there is a possibility to recall him, I would be very surprised if we didn’t start working on that.”
Sierra noted that the campaign for sheriff had cost Arpaio most of the $8million he raised to run. “At the very least, we left him broke,” he said.
24 doctors certify most in Arizona's medical pot program
Posted: Friday, November 9, 2012 5:09 pm
Associated Press
A report released Friday by the Arizona Department of Health Services raises questions about whether the program is being abused.
The report says 24 doctors certified almost 75 percent of all cardholders from the inception of Arizona’s medical marijuana program in April 2011 to June 2012.
In all, 475 doctors have certified nearly 29,000 patients.
The report said the most frequently cited reasons for getting a medical pot card was severe and chronic pain.
It also noted the largest per capita share of marijuana patients was in Gila County, followed by Yavapai and Coconino counties.
Legalized marijuana initiatives leave federal government wrestling with policy
By Sari Horwitz, Published: November 9
Senior administration officials acknowledged Friday that they are wrestling with how to respond to the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington, which directly violates federal drug law and is sparking a broad debate about the direction of U.S. drug policy.
The most likely outcome will be that the Justice Department will prevent the laws from going into effect by announcing that federal law preempts the state initiatives, which would make marijuana legal for recreational use, law enforcement sources said. But the White House and the Justice Department have not made a decision yet, senior officials said.
“I really don’t know what we’re going to do,” said one high-ranking law enforcement official involved in the decision who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Washington state and Colorado approved initiatives on Tuesday to decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana. Oregon defeated a similar measure. Up to this point, the Justice Department and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy have been mute about the ballot initiatives. Before the election, the Justice Department did not respond to nine former administrators of the Drug Enforcement Administration who wrote a letter urging the administration to take a stance on the ballot proposals in all three states.
One administration official Friday suggested that the administration’s silence was a deliberate strategy to avoid antagonizing liberal voters in Colorado, a crucial swing state.
“It was a battleground state,” said the administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly.
In similar instances, officials have made the administration stance clear ahead of votes. In 2010, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that the administration opposed a pending California measure to legalize marijuana. That same year, the Justice Department sued Arizona to block its law cracking down on illegal immigrants because the administration said it violated federal statutes and was unconstitutional.
Rafael Lemaitre, spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said he could not comment on the marijuana initiatives or discuss how the administration will respond. He deferred questions to the Justice Department. Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said at the press briefing Friday only that the Justice Department was reviewing both initiatives. Justice spokeswoman Nanda Chitre would not comment except to say that the department is “reviewing the ballot initiatives.”
The Colorado and Washington laws go beyond provisions for the medical use of marijuana. The District and 18 states have passed laws making it legal to manufacture, distribute and possess marijuana for medicinal purposes.
While the Justice Department figures out how to respond, state and local officials in Colorado, Washington — and Mexico — are confused about how to proceed. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) and the state’s attorney general spoke to Holder on Friday.
“They emphasized the need for the federal government to articulate what its position will be related to Amendment 64,” said Eric Brown, the governor’s spokesman. “Everyone shared a sense of urgency and agreed to continue talking about the issue.”
Washington state Gov. Chris Gregoire (D) has not scheduled a call with Holder but said her state is “entering uncharted waters.”
The law there goes into effect Dec. 9. Gregoire’s spokesman, Cory Curtis, said the governor has questions about what Washington should do in the next month.
Colorado Amendment 64 would take effect 30 days after the secretary of state certifies the initiative, which will be Jan. 5, according to Brown.
Marijuana distribution is the largest source of revenue for the Mexican cartels, according to law enforcement officials.
Lawrence Payne, DEA spokesman, said that more marijuana is seized at the southwest border than any other illegal drug from Mexico. Last year, 1,962,285 kilos of marijuana were seized compared with 23 ,797 kilos of cocaine and 1,308 kilos of heroin.
Supporters of the measures argue that hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted on a failed war against marijuana. They contend that decriminalization would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue, with the funds used for education, health care and other government services.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy strongly opposes the legalization of marijuana and the federal Controlled Substances Act prohibits the production, possession and sale of marijuana.
“According to scientists at the National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest source of drug abuse research, marijuana use is associated with addiction, respiratory disease and cognitive impairment,” ONDCP director Gil Kerlikowske wrote in a White House document.
[Well then why don't they make tobacco illegal. It kills more people every year then all other drugs, illegal and legal combined!!!!]
“Studies also reveal that marijuana potency has almost tripled over the last 20 years, raising serious concerns about what this means for public health,” wrote Kerlikowske, who is often referred to as the country’s “drug czar.”
The president’s 2012 National Drug Control Strategy also states that “the legalization of drugs will not be considered.”
“Making drugs more available and more accessible will not reduce drug use and its adverse consequences for public health and safety,” according to the 61-page policy. “We will continue to educate young people and all Americans about the science on the harmful health effects of marijuana use.” [Educate??? You mean arrest and lock in prison. The drug war is all about locking people in prison, not educating them.]
The Wacky Pot Law That Failed in Oregon
By Chris Good | ABC OTUS News
Washington and Colorado became the first states to legalize pot - but why not Oregon?
All three voted on marijuana-legalization ballot initiatives, and Washington and Colorado passed them by 10-percentage-point margins. But Oregon, which is bluer than Colorado, was the only state to vote against legalized pot on Tuesday, turning down Measure 80 54 percent to 46 percent. Some Election-Night observers are scratching their heads.
Part of the difference was that Oregon's initiative failed to gather support from big-time donors. In January, the Associated Press reported on the troubled financial history of Paul Stanford, the initiative's main backer, who makes a business of connecting medical-pot patients with sympathetic doctors.
Perhaps it's also that Oregon's law was kind of wacky: It would have turned the state, effectively, into a pot dealer.
What's the "fiscal cliff" and how would it affect you? See the answer in our infographic HERE.
The new laws in Washington and Colorado direct state boards to license and regulate commercial pot growers, processors, and sellers, with the states reaping tax revenues from the new commerce. (If those laws are implemented, that is; there are still doubts over whether the federal government will seek to block them). The laws loosely followed models suggested elsewhere, and both were supported financially by the Drug Policy Alliance, a national drug-policy-reform group.
In Oregon, had Measure 80 passed, the state would have licensed sellers and processors - but instead of regulating its sale, the state would have bought the weed, packaged it, stamped it with a state seal and a potency grade, and sold it to customers at a profit.
This all would have been done by something like ABC stores in liquor-controlled states: An Oregon Cannabis Commission (OCC) would have run all ends of the process, finally selling it at OCC stores. Profits would have gone to purchases, testing, grading, shipping, promotion of Oregon hemp and hemp-made biodiesel, and back to the state's general fund. Like an actual drug dealer, the state could have stopped selling it to any legal, 21-and-over buyers who became pot-addled derelicts (failing to live up to "statutory or common-law dut[ies]").
But the oddest thing about Oregon's failed law was its preamble, which jumped quickly to a history lesson about George Washington's cannabis growth and the preference of "Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, who spoke at the U.S. Constitutional Convention in 1787 more than any other delegate" for marijuana over tobacco. It also called marijuana's legal ban "liberticidal."
Paul Stanford, for his part, has vowed to push the law again in 2014, unless the state legislature passes it first.
Suspected illegal immigrants arrested in pot bust
The Republic | azcentral Sat Nov 10, 2012 4:43 PM
Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office reported Saturday the arrest of three undocumented immigrants, who authorities allege were transporting 3,500 pounds of marijuana in a vehicle.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio said the increasing number of drug smugglers and the danger they pose to his deputies has prompted him “to issue automatic weapons in the near future to all my deputies, including those detectives who work in the higher drug traffic areas like the desert in the near future.”
Deputies estimated the latest seizure of marijuana to be worth $2 million.
The sheriff’s office did not say in its press release when or where the traffic stop and arrests were made.
Deputies arrested Melchicedec Nini-Cabrera, 41, Eucario Salano-Nino, 49, and Jesus Ismael-Birgen, 30, all from Mexico.
All three were booked into Fourth Avenue Jail, facing felony charges of possession and transportation of marijuana, officials said.
The arrests resulted after a week of investigating by the Sheriff’s Office Drug Suppression Task Force.
Of course everybody else is a winner, because we don't spend billions on arresting, prosecution and jailing people for a harmless, victimless crime.
Unlikely allies behind marijuana votes in Washington, Colorado
By Matt Pearce, Los Angeles Times
November 11, 2012, 5:00 a.m.
Weed is now a winner.
The politics of marijuana legalization have gone from the fringes to the mainstream, catching opponents off guard and even startling some proponents with their own success.
Voters in Colorado and Washington easily passed ballot initiatives — 55% to 45% in each state — to legalize the possession and sale of marijuana.
So how did this happen? A third legalization measure stumbled badly in Oregon despite the state's progressive leanings, with some supporters pointing to a disorganized and underfunded campaign.
What transpired in Colorado and Washington were disciplined efforts that forged alliances between liberals and tea party conservatives, often using public health arguments to advance their cause.
Proponents and analysts said both states benefited from existing medical marijuana statutes, money from national liberalization supporters and a sometimes disorganized opposition.
Tuesday's vote on the measure in Colorado amounted to a popular revolt against the establishment. Despite opposition from the governor, attorney general and Denver's mayor, 1.3 million Coloradans voted for Amendment 64 — which as of last count had received 50,000 more votes of approval than President Obama, who won the state by 5 percentage points.
"I think that the opponents of the amendment were taken by surprise by the degree of support and did not organize themselves until very late in the game," said Peter Hanson, assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver. Hanson added that the presidential campaign probably boosted the pro-marijuana youth vote and directed conservatives' attention elsewhere.
"I'm just speculating here, but I suspect that if this amendment had been on the ballot in another year, it would have gotten more attention and the opposition would have been mobilized much more quickly," Hanson said.
According to data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, pro-marijuana political action committees out-raised opponents 8 to 1 in Colorado. The Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project and Ohio-based Progressive Insurance executive Peter B. Lewis contributed almost $2.1 million of $2.4 million in pro-pot donations.
The cause benefited from a high-profile endorsement from former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Republican and tea party favorite in a state where libertarian attitudes resonate with voters.
Mason Tvert, a sponsor of past legalization initiatives in Colorado, said he changed his strategy years ago while looking at polling data showing that people who found marijuana to be safe were more likely to support legalization.
"Our mission was to educate the public about the very simple fact that marijuana is objectively less harmful than alcohol," said Tvert, co-director of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.
Polling and public-health messaging also played a crucial role in the successful but notably different effort in Washington, where backers of Initiative 502 scrupulously cultivated endorsements from prominent public officials. Seattle City Atty. Pete Holmes took the unusual step of endorsing the legalization initiative, and he first broke the decision to his wife.
"She said, 'Oh, jeez, do you really want to do this? You know it's going to be controversial.' But I decided it was the right thing to do," Holmes said. When he first took office on a promise to stop prosecuting marijuana possession, he said, he found that 59% of the cases were against African Americans in a city where blacks make up 7% of the population. After he stopped prosecuting such cases, crime rates still went down in Seattle.
As election day neared, organizers kept a wary eye on U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., who in 2010 had helped torpedo Proposition 19, a measure to legalize marijuana in California, by coming out against the initiative shortly before the vote.
"We were holding our breath for the entire month of October," said Alison Holcomb, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney and one of the architects behind Washington state's legalization effort. "We were looking at exactly the dates that he had weighed in on Prop. 19 in the last election. I even remember the dates. We even knew the day of the week.
"It was a Friday," she added quickly.
But this year the dates came and went, and Holder stayed silent about the initiatives, which openly conflict with federal law. Some speculated that the Obama administration, facing a tough presidential battle, opted not to risk alienating the youth vote.
So instead of a stern warning from the federal government, Washington residents heard pro-legalization appeals from a phalanx of former U.S. attorneys and law enforcement agents, health officials and a locally beloved travel writer — not exactly the stereotype of hippies in hemp necklaces and tie-dye.
The campaign hammered home three messages that seemed to have broad appeal: Police could focus on more serious crimes, marijuana taxation would raise money for the state, and regulating its sale and growth would hurt violent cartels and make the marijuana business safer.
"There was something in our messaging that resonated with Republicans, and I would say that that was a surprise," Holcomb said. "We certainly didn't get majority support from them, but marijuana legalization turned out to be a less polarizing issue than marriage equality."
Holmes said it was a struggle to persuade some colleagues that legalizing marijuana had a public safety benefit, but in the end that message did get out.
When told that Washington's winning marijuana measure had almost received more votes than Obama as of Thursday night, Holmes replied, "Wow, wow, wow."
matt.pearce@latimes.com
Of course the "drug war" is also a government welfare program and a jobs program for the businesses that put on these so call drug rehabilitation programs.
Of course if drugs were legalized all these problems caused by drugs being illegal would disappear over night.
Drug court: Addicts kick habit, charges
Marisa Lagos
Updated 10:45 p.m., Sunday, November 11, 2012
Elley Fore could have been serving a life sentence in state prison.
But instead, on a recent weekday, he found himself inside a packed San Francisco courtroom with tears in his eyes as he received a standing ovation.
He could see the police chief and public defender in the crowd,
several deputy district attorneys and Superior Court Judge Angela Bradstreet.
But it was the sight of his children, grandchild, fiancee and ex-wife that got to him.
For three decades Fore was addicted to crack cocaine,
and he did a lot of things he wasn't proud of.
But in 2010, police picked him up on a charge,
drug possession with intent to sell, that was one too many under California's
"three strikes and you're out" law. If convicted, he could be looking at 25 years to life behind bars.
Instead, the San Francisco district attorney's office threw him a lifesaver: drug court.
The idea behind the 17-year-old program,
for Fore and others like him, is to get clean in exchange for having charges dropped.
[So it sounds like the 3 strikes law is selectively enforced.]
"I was not ready to stop using drugs," Fore, 50, admits now. "I wanted a 'Get out of jail free' card."
Fore underwent two months of treatment at the drug court's center,
then completed a three-month residential program at one of
dozens of private treatment centers that partner with the city.
He relapsed but returned for help.
It took him two years, instead of the typical one year, to complete the program,
but he says it worked: He's been off drugs since Jan. 6, and the city was drug-testing him to be sure.
Learning to care
On a recent day last month, Fore was one of 21 people who "graduated" from drug court in a courtroom ceremony during which his felony charge was officially dismissed. He's now looking for a job and continuing his treatment.
"I've been drug court's probably longest-running client," Fore said as the crowd laughed. "In the journey of being an addict, we burn many bridges, tear up lives, hurt the people we love - and we don't care. Today, I care. ... My journey is not over just because I've got some sobriety. I am not fixed. But today, I am learning how to grow up and be a man."
The program is offered to nonviolent drug and alcohol addicts facing criminal charges and is one of the centerpieces of San Francisco's rehabilitative approach to criminal justice that some experts say is the kind of model program other California counties should consider embracing now that Gov. Jerry Brown's realignment program is in full swing.
Saving taxpayers money
Studies show the diversion program helps reduce recidivism by up to 87 percent for graduates, thus saving taxpayers more than $14,000 per participant.
[If it's saving the taxpayers $14,000 per person, I am afraid to ask how much is it costing the taxpayers before and after the savings!!!]
"Having somebody who's been used to having drugs, getting drugs,
using drugs every day of their lives -
and now they are drug free and have legal income and have a place to live -
provides them with some wonderful tools to go forward and live a crime-free existence," said Bradstreet, the judge who oversees the court.
Bradstreet said such programs are imperative in light of state data, recently reported by The Chronicle and California Watch, that indicate that a majority of third-strikers serving 25-years-to-life sentences are addicted to drugs or alcohol.
[That sounds about right. I believe that about two thirds, or 66 percent of the people in American prisons are there for non-violent victimless drug war crimes that didn't hurt anybody!!!!]
Most of the drug court's recent graduates were cocaine and methamphetamine addicts, with alcohol being the other primary substance of choice; on average, the participants were age 45 and had been using since they were 20 years old.
Now, they're drug free and have housing; 52 percent are employed.
The others are receiving legal income, such as disability benefits.
["legal income" a politically correct term for "government welfare"???]
Part of the drug court's success, Bradstreet and others said,
stems from the acknowledgement by all sides that drug addicts are likely to relapse or trip up during treatment.
[Translation - the program doesn't work!!!!]
Her job at court hearings the participants must attend every other
week is a mix of "giving them tools and feedback and encouragement and, sometimes, tough love."
It's not unusual for her to order a participant who has relapsed into community detox and
tell them to come back in three days for another hearing.
Reconnecting with family
Fore and the other participants said they were well aware of the rare break they received,
although many admitted that like Fore they agreed to the program initially because they were more interested in avoiding jail than getting sober.
"What I love about drug court is that it didn't give up on me when I gave up on myself," Fore said.
Their case managers, drug counselors and fellow participants helped steer them to recovery. In addition to those people, the recent graduates expressed gratitude to the city, for giving them this chance. They said that sobriety has allowed them to reconnect with family members who were driven away by their addiction. And finally, they stressed that the graduation is not the end, but the beginning, of their work.
One graduate said he has made mistakes all over the country, and was arrested the day he got to San Francisco. "No other place gave me a chance like this," he said.
Marisa Lagos is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mlagos@sfchronicle.com
California left behind on pot, marriage
Joe Garofoli
Updated 10:45 p.m., Sunday, November 11, 2012
Everybody knows California is where cutting-edge change begins. Waves form here, and then the rest of America jumps aboard and rides them across the country.
Still, why was it Washington state that on Tuesday legalized same-sex marriage and recreational marijuana use rather than the home of Harvey Milk and Oaksterdam?
Maine and Maryland also legalized gay nuptials, while Colorado voters gave the green light to recreational weed.
"It's going to force California to look hard at what worked" in those states, said Diane Goldstein, a retired Redondo Beach Police Department lieutenant who supports the legalization of marijuana.
California voters have had their say on both issues. But they supported Proposition 8's ban on same-sex marriage in 2008 and voted against legalizing pot in 2010.
But California hasn't lost its edginess. Politics are just more complicated here.
Besides, when voters elsewhere legalized same-sex marriage and marijuana last week, those outcomes were made possible by groundbreaking work done on previous failures in California.
"Prop. 8 is the best thing to ever happen to the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community," said Rick Jacobs, founder of the Courage Campaign, a liberal, 750,000-member online network that has been at the forefront of the fight for same-sex marriage.
"Prop. 19 was on the leading edge - it set up these campaigns," said Richard Lee, the founder of Oakland's cannabis education center known as Oaksterdam University and the primary funder of the California initiative.
Winning a campaign in the nation's most populous and diverse state requires a unified front, a smart campaign, weak opposition and a ton of cash. Those factors weren't in place when Californians cast ballots on marriage and pot.
Money smoothed road
The road to victory was decidedly easier this year in their fellow Western states. Opponents of the Washington marijuana measure raised barely $16,000, while proponents raised more than $6 million.
In California, there have been seven marijuana-related initiatives filed since January 2011. All of them failed to qualify except one, which was withdrawn by the proponent, according to the secretary of state's office. It costs at least $2 million to collect enough signatures to qualify an initiative in the state.
"One of the issues in California was that there were so many ballot initiatives (this year) that the funders weren't willing to fund one," Goldstein said. "They put their money in Washington and Colorado."
In Seattle, the candidates for sheriff of King County were virtually tripping over themselves to say who was more in favor of legalizing pot.
Two years ago in California, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca co-chaired the main committee opposed to Prop. 19, while U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder promised in the final days of the campaign to "vigorously enforce" federal drug laws even if Californians passed the measure. This year, Holder was silent on legalization measures.
Law enforcement firm
Should legalization come to California's ballot again, "law enforcement would continue to oppose it," said John Lovell, a lobbyist for California law enforcement organizations that led opposition to Prop. 19.
In Washington this year, the Catholic Church was divided in its opposition to same-sex marriage, far less unified than it was in California four years ago.
One thousand Catholics placed their names on a full-page ad in the Seattle Times publicly supporting same-sex marriage. At the same time, the Church of Latter-day Saints played virtually no role in opposing marriage in Washington, which wasn't the case in the fight over Prop. 8 in California.
Washington state's leading corporate voices, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, donated millions of dollars to the campaign to legalize same-sex marriage, seven times what opponents gave.
"We didn't have that kind of corporate support during Prop. 8," said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco. "It would be different next time here."
No it wouldn't, said Frank Schubert, the Sacramento strategist who led the opposition to same-sex marriage in California four years ago and in the four states where it was on the ballot last week. He said the same coalition stands ready for the next California battle.
Proponents of same-sex marriage and legal marijuana in California are preparing to put both issues before voters again - perhaps as early as 2014.
In the meantime, the U.S. Supreme Court is to decide in the next month whether to hear the case involving Prop. 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that barred federal marital benefits such as joint tax filing, Social Security survivors' payments and immigration sponsorship to same-sex spouses.
Unconstitutional
Federal appeals courts have found both laws to be unconstitutional acts of discrimination. If the high court were to reject same-sex marriage, backers said they would put a measure before voters again.
With a Democratic supermajority looming in the California Legislature as a result of Tuesday's election and Gov. Jerry Brown's support for gay rights, Jacobs said, "We might not even have to spend our money getting it on the ballot. We could pass it legislatively."
Pot advocates in California probably won't have that option, and they are waiting to see how federal law enforcement officials treat the discrepancy between federal and state laws in Colorado and Washington.
In any case, a pot legalization initiative will need campaign donors. But Oaksterdam University's Lee said he won't be one of them.
"Nope," Lee said. "I spent all mine on Prop. 19."
Joe Garofoli is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
When ever I am stopped by the police I always tell them I am taking the 5th and refusing to answer their questions.
I have never met a cop that said "Yes sir, we will honor your 5th Amendment right and cease questioning you".
Instead the cops have always lied and told me I didn't have any 5th Amendment rights until I am "arrested" and continued to question e. Of course when I refuse to answer their questions they always make up threats that if I don't flush my Fifth Amendment rights down the toilet they will do some real nasty things to me.
So the fact that the San Mateo pigs refused to honor this guys request for a lawyer isn't surprising to me at all.
If this guy is guilty and walks, you can blame it on the corrupt San Mateo piggies who refused to honor his 5th Amendment rights!!
Police ignored San Mateo murder suspect's requests for attorney, judge and experts say
By Joshua Melvin
jmelvin@bayareanewsgroup.com
Posted: 11/11/2012 06:24:08 PM PST
REDWOOD CITY -- A judge's dismissal of murder charges against a man believed to have gunned down an East Palo Alto activist, according to legal experts, was a tough call that revealed some troubling police tactics.
However, it's highly likely prosecutors will either appeal the decision or again file charges against Gregory Elarms, 60, of Pittsburg, in the killing of David Lewis, 54. District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe's office is expected to announce its decision at a Tuesday court hearing on the case, which stems from the June 2010 shooting in a parking lot behind Hillsdale Shopping Center in San Mateo.
The turbulence in the case started last Tuesday when San Mateo Superior Court Judge Stephen Hall threw out the murder charge during pretrial motions. Because police ignored or brushed off Elarms' repeated requests for a lawyer and attempts to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights, the judge ruled that Elarms' confession to the killing was not admissible evidence.
Several experts from Santa Clara University Law School said Hall's decision was a close call.
Normally police have to inform suspects of their rights to remain silent and an attorney -- better known as Miranda rights -- when they are taken into custody. But for Elarms that moment is vague. He is the one who contacted police Dec. 18, 2010, and told them he had information about the killing. Elarms then asked San Mateo detectives, who told him he was not under arrest, to pick him up so they could protect him.
It was only after Elarms confessed to the killing, after hours of police questioning, that he was read his rights.
Santa Clara Law professor Gerald Uelmen said Miranda rights apply to people in police custody, and Elarms was apparently free to go. Yet police completely ignored his requests for a lawyer or changed the subject when he brought it up. At one point Elarms said he needed "legal advice" but Lt. David Peruzzaro and Sgt. Rick Decker responded by saying they had been working the case hard for the past six months.
"Really ignoring his statements, as if they were never made, is not appropriate," Uelmen said. "They were playing games with this guy."
Prosecutors say police legally collected the confession and added they have additional evidence against Elarms. Chief Deputy District Attorney Karen Guidotti said Elarms' son testified before a San Mateo County grand jury that his father confessed the killing to him. That evidence alone, she said, should allow the case to proceed.
Prosecutors have also argued that Elarms guided the contact with police. Elarms called police, said he had information about Lewis' killing and stated his life was in danger. He wanted police to protect him from "would-be conspirators and assassins," Hall wrote. Elarms was later committed to Napa State Hospital for months because of mental competency issues, though doctors decided in the spring he was well enough for trial.
Lewis was shot once in the abdomen as he walked from his parked car toward the mall entrance on the evening of June 9, 2010. As Lewis lay dying, Officer Steve Robinson recorded him saying his killer was named "Greg." The pressure to solve the slaying, which occurred in the relatively safe Peninsula city, was intense. Though Lewis was a former junkie and stickup man, he later cofounded a revolutionary drug treatment center in East Palo Alto called Free at Last.
Elarms is being held without bail.
Contact Joshua Melvin at 650-348-4335. Follow him at Twitter.com/melvinreport.
God provided marijuana
Nov. 13, 2012 12:00 AM
Regarding the "Medical-pot prescriptions studied" article last week:
I'm endlessly amazed at the state government's audacity against the will of its citizens when it comes to marijuana. The last thing the government has is the right to look at its citizens' medical records. There are laws against it.
If we're going to update the law, let's remove the restriction where patients won't be allowed to continue growing their plant medicine when the courts finally allow a dispensary to open within 25 miles of their location.
It's a plant, folks. We have an endocannabinoid receptor system for the THC and CBD molecules. It means we have a symbiotic relationship with the plant. Look it up.
Wonder when we're going to realize it's a vitamin that God has provided for us. For free. The peaceful plant is coming home. Prepare.
-- Mike Templeton, Mesa
I think this article was in last weeks Tempe or Chandler Arizona Republic.
I couldn't find the online version of the article.
Sound Off
Arizona Republic
November, 2012
Is Arizona spending the right amount of money on prisons, and why?
In as much as a substantial portion of those in prison are there for committing victimless crimes, it is probable that the state spends too much on prisons.
For instance, the laws against marijuana make crimes out of consensual behavior. Marijuana consumption is no more harmful than alcohol consumption. Criminalizing it creates victimless crimes.
The expense of enforcing the laws against this substance is unnecessary and wasteful. Not only are taxpayers burdened with funding this misguided policy, but lives are needlessly wrecked. Decriminalizing marijuana use would save lives and reduce the cost of operating state prisons.
John Semmens, lifelong non-toker.
These self proclaimed "do gooders" cause nothing but problems for the rest of us when they stick their noses in our business and get the government to pass silly laws protecting us from ourselves.
These same "do gooders" are the idiots that caused America's failed war on booze which was called the Prohibition.
If you ask me this issue should be treated the same way that the abortion issue is.
If a woman wants to have an abortion he should be her choice,
not the choice of some government nanny or some "do gooder" at the
American Academy of Pediatrics.
The same should be true if a woman wants to use marijuana.
It should be her choice,
not the choice of some government nanny or some "do gooder" at the
American Academy of Pediatrics.
New fear: Medical marijuana, pregnancy
By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Nov 13, 2012 10:29 PM
Arizona pediatricians are concerned that the state’s medical-marijuana law is being used to treat the ailments of pregnant women, potentially harming fetuses.
Members of the Arizona chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics want to stop the practice and point to one incident in which a mother in labor told hospital officials that she had received a medical-marijuana card during pregnancy and had been using the drug.
The mother later told her baby’s pediatrician, Kara Tiffany, that a physician who was aware of her pregnancy recommended the marijuana. The mother showed the pediatrician her medical-marijuana-certification documents, which indicated that a naturopath made the marijuana recommendation.
“I was appalled,” Tiffany told The Arizona Republic, adding that the mother told her the naturopath researched marijuana use during pregnancy and “thought it would be OK.”
Recommending marijuana to pregnant women appears to be legal under Arizona’s medical-marijuana law, passed by voters in 2010.
The law allows people with certain debilitating medical conditions — such as severe nausea, chronic pain and cancer — to use marijuana. Patients must obtain a recommendation from a physician and register with the state, which issues identification cards to qualified patients and caregivers. Patients can obtain up to 2½ ounces of marijuana every two weeks.
Program rules require physicians to perform a physical exam, a review of a year’s worth of medical records and a review of a state database that tracks certain prescription-drug use. Physicians are not required to ask patients if they are pregnant.
“It’s totally up to their physician,” said Department of Health Services Director Will Humble, who oversees the state’s medical-marijuana program. “If the physician signs off on a series of attestations that we ask for, then, by our rules, that’s a certification for medical marijuana.”
A woman’s decision to use medical marijuana while pregnant, even if she has a card, could affect her parental rights, however.
Depending on the physician and the hospital, state Child Protective Services is contacted if use of certain substances — such as marijuana, alcohol and other drugs — is suspected, said Susan Stephens, medical director for the health plan that covers children in the state’s foster-care program. In those instances, CPS can open an investigation and immediately visit the child in the hospital and the home to assess his or her safety.
No one tracks the number of pregnant women who may have received recommendations for medical marijuana.
Physicians and the lobbyist for the Arizona chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics said the issue has lit up the organization’s LISTSERV, with other physicians who say they, too, have encountered pregnant women obtaining medical-marijuana recommendations.
The Arizona chapter plans to work with lawmakers to introduce legislation in the coming session that, if approved, would prevent pregnant women from receiving recommendations for marijuana; require physicians who recommend marijuana to ask patients if they are pregnant; and require women to submit to pregnancy tests when seeking recommendations.
Such changes would require approval by a supermajority of the Legislature because it would alter a voter-approved law and a revision of program rules by state health officials.
The group also wants lawmakers to earmark a portion of money raised through the program to pay for developmental testing on the effects of marijuana on babies and breast milk. The effects of marijuana on fetuses are unclear; studies have contradicted each other on the effects, such as low birth weight and memory problems.
“All women need to be informed that the effects of marijuana on a developing baby are not known, and, therefore, it should not be used,” said Sue Braga, executive director of American Academy of Pediatrics’ local chapter. “This is an unintended consequence of this law — I want to believe —and it needs to be corrected.”
Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies at the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., said none of the 18 states and Washington, D.C., with medical-marijuana laws explicitly ban pregnant women from obtaining marijuana recommendations.
Andrew Meyers, campaign manager for the organization that got the program on the Arizona ballot, said “it was never intended that pregnant women would access the program.” He said supporters approached the drafting of the law with the idea of trusting physicians to make appropriate medical decisions for patients.
“I cannot imagine that an ethical physician would not consider the well-being of a fetus if a pregnant woman was seeking a medical-marijuana card,” Meyers said. “If this is a serious problem … it’s something that needs to be worked on.”
But Meyers said the best way to approach the issue is through education at the licensing-board level — not through legislation.
Medical regulatory boards are typically at the forefront of such issues. In Colorado, for example, a doctor last year surrendered his medical license after the state’s medical board accused him of failing to meet expected standards of care because he did not perform a physical exam on a patient, review her medical history or ask if she was pregnant before recommending marijuana. At one point, the doctor disputed whether using marijuana during pregnancy was harmful, according to public records.
The Arizona Naturopathic Physicians Medical Board, which regulates naturopaths in Arizona, has not received complaints related to the practice of recommending the drug to pregnant women, Deputy Director Gail Anthony said. Naturopaths, according to a new state report on the program, are the physicians who most often recommend medical marijuana to patients.
The Arizona Medical Board regulates pediatricians, obstetricians, gynecologists and all other medical doctors and has had one case involving a pregnant woman who was recommended medical marijuana as well as prescribed opioids, which are clinically known to be dangerous to fetuses, Executive Director Lisa Wynn said. Ultimately, the doctor was disciplined for prescribing the OxyContin.
“It goes against the standard of care for a doctor to prescribe narcotics to a pregnant woman,” Wynn said. “However, the standard of care for recommending medical marijuana is evolving … as well as voter-driven.”
Instant facial recognition tech a two-edged sword
Retailers can use FaceFirst surveillance software to quickly identify potential shoplifters. But such technology raises privacy concerns.
By Laura J. Nelson, Los Angeles Times
November 14, 2012
By the time Joe Rosenkrantz took his seat in his company's conference room, a video camera had already handled the introductions.
An image of Rosenkrantz taken as he walked toward his chair instantly popped up on a nearby TV screen.
"FaceFirst has found a possible match," the caption read. "Joe Rosenkrantz, Founder and CEO."
The process took less than a second, a demonstration of a capability that developer FaceFirst says could transform facial-recognition technology into an everyday security tool.
It addresses one of the key drawbacks in the current generation of video surveillance systems. Such identification technology has been limited to airports and casinos, where security officials have to wait several minutes for the software to identify terrorists or card counters.
But the technology is too expensive for most businesses and too slow to alert store owners or building owners about shoplifters or unwelcome visitors.
"It doesn't do me any good if I'm able to look at a face with a camera and five minutes later, there's a match," said Paul Benne, a security consultant who has recommended that his clients use FaceFirst in high-security areas. "By then, the person's gone."
FaceFirst hopes to leverage the speed of its software to gain military contracts, Chairman Peter Wollons said. But the company's main target is retailers. The software can be installed in almost any high-definition video camera, making it easy for stores to identify potential shoplifters — as well as big spenders.
And that is worrying privacy advocates. Although it isn't much different from retailers pulling personal shopping information from credit cards, the added feature of having a face instantly attached to that data is worrisome, said Jennifer Lynch, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"I see no reason for retail to know everything about us," Lynch said. "People who show their face in public aren't thinking about how their image is being stored or connected with other data."
FaceFirst's technology marks a dramatic advancement for an industry that 10 years ago seemed like it would never make the transition from science fiction to real life. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, officials in Tampa, Fla., and at Boston's Logan International Airport installed cameras designed to identify criminals. Within a year, both had scrapped their systems.
It took five more years before facial-recognition technology was reliable enough to be used for security measures, but such systems have been mainly limited to law enforcement and government use. More than 70% of biometrics spending comes from law enforcement, the military and the government.
This year, the industry is projected to gross an estimated $6.58 billion, according to data from IGB, a biometrics analysis company. But that amount is expected to grow to $9.37 billion by 2014 as the technology becomes more affordable, faster and adaptable for nongovernmental uses.
FaceFirst founder Rosenkrantz started developing biometric technology as a way to remember a friend who was on one of the hijacked planes in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Several of the terrorists were later identified in an airport surveillance video.
"I couldn't stop thinking about ways this could have been avoided," Rosenkrantz said. "I realized that with the right technology, we could have saved lives."
He tinkered with existing algorithms and operating systems for more than two years in his Calabasas garage before founding FaceFirst. The company is a subsidiary of Camarillo military contractor Airborne Biometrics Group Inc. Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, an $18-billion investment company in Los Angeles, has invested in the development of the FaceFirst technology.
The company's success depends on the wide availability and decreasing prices of computer processors, Rosenkrantz said.
The software program takes a number of steps in less than a second to make an identification, starting with a freeze-frame of the live video feed. The software zooms in on the face, using the distance between the eyes as a guide.
Then an algorithm encodes the face based on distinct patterns and textures. The software cross-references that information with a database of similarly encoded images, which it can comb through at a rate of 1 million comparisons a second.
The database could include Homeland Security's terrorist watch list or a proprietary file generated by the user. When the system finds a match, it sends an alert to desktop computers and mobile devices.
National chains are particularly interested in using the technology, said Wollons, FaceFirst's chairman, because it helps them identify shoplifters. The retail industry lost an estimated $34.5 billion to shoplifting last year.
Other clients include security and surveillance companies, with whom FaceFirst has signed nondisclosure agreements, Wollons said. But inside FaceFirst's conference room, a row of baseball caps shows the agencies he's talked to: LAPD, U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Navy, Department of Defense.
Last year FaceFirst installed cameras at the Panama City, Panama, airport that tap into FBI and Interpol databases to identify suspected murderers and drug dealers. A law enforcement agency in San Diego now issues hand-held devices with cameras that use FaceFirst to match suspects against a database shared among 51 federal, state and local law agencies.
In addition, FaceFirst has signed a deal with Samsung that will make it the official provider of facial-recognition services on Samsung's surveillance cameras.
But as business grows, so do questions over how companies deal with biometric information and privacy concerns.
Privacy laws are the same for facial-recognition cameras as normal surveillance cameras, said Lynch of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. People have a reasonable expectation of privacy in places that aren't open to the public, such as bathrooms, hotel rooms and their own homes. Anywhere else is fair game.
The Federal Trade Commission issued guidelines last month telling companies to be more transparent about how they collect and store information. No such guidelines exist for law enforcement agencies.
FaceFirst doesn't provide the "watch list" databases. Its system only stores information about people when they register as a match.
At a Senate privacy hearing this summer, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said he was worried that law enforcement would be able to use new technology — like the facial-recognition binoculars that the Justice Department is developing — to identify protesters and suppress free speech.
"You don't need a warrant to use this technology on someone," Franken said. "You might not even need to have a reasonable suspicion that they're involved in a crime."
Benne, the security consultant, often doesn't tell his clients that he's using FaceFirst technology because they don't always want to know. The level of sophistication is hard for people to swallow, he said.
"Bad things will happen, and the public will cry out for more to be done," Benne said. "A lot of it may not be very palatable right now, but as perpetrators try to do more things in more ways, we have to be prepared."
laura.nelson@latimes.com
And of course the last thing these well paid government bureaucrats want to do
is legalize marijuana which will end their high paying jobs.
Sadly the "war on drugs" is not about protecting Americans from drug uses,
but it's a government welfare program for the government bureaucrats that
arrest, jail and pretend to rehabilitate people who commit the victimless crime
of smoking or selling marijuana.
Marijuana legalization: States send message, feds aren't listening
By Dan Turner
November 13, 2012, 9:42 a.m.
Voters in Washington and Colorado didn't just pass historic measures legalizing recreational marijuana use last week, they blew smoke in the face of Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and, by extension, President Obama. The bud stops at your desks, gentlemen.
Since the vote, legal experts and media analysts have focused speculation on how the feds will crack down on these two rogue states and show them who's boss. Will the Department of Justice file a lawsuit, seeking a ruling that federal law prevails and nullifying the results of the election? Or will the Drug Enforcement Agency start breaking down doors of pot shops in Denver and Seattle?
We'll probably get the answers in the next few weeks, but meanwhile I have a better question: When is the federal government going to get the message that the states are so desperately trying to send it?
Growing national acceptance of same-sex marriage attracts a lot of discussion, but the trend's got nothing on the changing attitudes on marijuana; although nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized gay unions, 26 states have either legalized medical marijuana use or passed laws minimizing or eliminating penalties for possession of small amounts of cannabis, or both. In Alaska, for example, it's legal to keep up to 4 ounces of marijuana in one's home (as a service for non-potheads, that represents a lot more weed than the average person could smoke in a month) and to cultivate up to 24 plants.
A Gallup poll last year, meanwhile, found that 50% of Americans think marijuana should be legalized for adult use. That's up 4% from the previous year and the highest percentage since Gallup starting tracking public attitudes on cannabis in 1969.
What's happening in the states is a backlash against federal cannabis laws seen as draconian and counterproductive in that, like the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s, they have created a non-taxed underground industry and clogged prisons while doing little to decrease marijuana consumption.
Most absurd of all is that under the U.S. Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is classified as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning it has no accepted medical uses and is as dangerous and addictive as heroin.
If there was ever a justification for this, it ended decades ago. Although cannabis is hardly the wonder cure that medical marijuana enthusiasts claim, there is ample evidence that it has valuable curative properties, particularly when it comes to appetite stimulation for cancer and HIV patients. Moreover, it's widely considered less addictive than alcohol or tobacco and less dangerous to consume.
With roughly half the country supporting at least a loosening of federal marijuana laws, you'd think politicians would be eager to act. Yet Congress is about as willing to discuss marijuana policy as it is to ban assault weapons. The only major federal attempt to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana was introduced in 2008, only to be quickly shelved. The latest version, H.R. 2306 from Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), has been stuck in committee since June 2011.
Why aren't representatives of the states that have already acted in defiance of the federal government pushing harder? For that matter, why was Obama silent on marijuana during his campaign and disengaged from the issue during his first four years in office? Counting up the electoral votes from the 26 states that have loosened marijuana laws, it comes to 271 — one more than the number needed to elect a president.
If that's not a mandate, I don't know what is.
In the article LAPD Police Chief Charlie Beck seems more concerned that his cops are being fired because they committed perjury, then the fact that his cops tried to illegally frame Guillermo Alarcon after illegally searching him.
2 LAPD officers guilty of perjury in drug case
Jury finds former Officer Evan Samuel and suspended Officer Richard Amio lied in court. A mistrial is declared on a third officer's charges.
By Andrew Khouri, Los Angeles Times
November 14, 2012, 5:37 a.m.
Two Los Angeles Police Department officers lied under oath during a drug possession case four years ago, a Los Angeles County jury decided Tuesday.
The trial revolved around competing interpretations of a grainy, black and white video that the prosecution argued sharply contradicted sworn testimony from three officers regarding the discovery of cocaine. The video, the prosecution argued, showed the officers conspired to convict Guillermo Alarcon Jr. on drug charges.
"It's always tragic when police officers throw away their freedom and careers." LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said after the jury's verdict. "They lost sight of the fact that the ends never justify the means and that they must always police constitutionally… That is the great slippery slope of policing. It always has been and likely always will be."
As the verdict was read, former Officer Evan Samuel and suspended Officer Richard Amio showed no reaction. After the jury left the downtown Los Angeles courtroom, Samuel's mother blew her nose into a white tissue, her eyes filled with tears.
The jury found the two officers guilty on one count of conspiracy each and multiple counts of perjury. Samuel faces a maximum prison sentence of more than five years, while Amio faces more than four years.
Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 12.
The jury deadlocked on conspiracy and perjury charges against a third officer, Manuel Ortiz, voting 11 to 1 for a guilty verdict. Judge Kathleen A. Kennedy declared a mistrial on those charges. Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to retry Ortiz, who has also been suspended.
Amio and Samuel testified in 2008 that while on patrol the previous year, they recognized Alarcon, a suspected gang member, in front of his East Hollywood apartment. The two officers said they chased him into the building's carport, where he threw a small black box against a trash bin. When it hit the ground, they said, the object cracked open and Samuel picked it up. Inside, they testified, they found rock and powder cocaine.
But in the video — which begins after Alarcon is in custody — officers search for more than 20 minutes before finding an object that prosecutors contended held the cocaine.
After the prolonged search, officers also appear to discuss opening the object and later say it contains cocaine.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Geoffrey Rendon told jurors during closing arguments that the officers conspired to deliver Alarcon to the court system "based on a set of lies."
The prosecution's key evidence was the video. At one point in the video, an officer tells another to "be creative in your writing," after the box was recovered, apparently alluding to an arrest report that would be written.
"Oh yeah, don't worry, sin duda ('no doubt')," comes the reply from another officer.
"The video," Rendon said, "doesn't lie."
Defense attorneys for the officers disputed that notion, saying the video didn't capture the entire story.
Attorney Ira Salzman, who represents Samuel, told jurors last week that the officers had already recovered the drugs when the video begins. The tape came from a security camera at the building managed by Alarcon's mother.
In the video, the officers were simply looking for additional evidence and the object recovered in the video was a piece broken off the black box that was recovered earlier, the defense argued.
Outside court Tuesday, Salzman said the video was either started too late or intentionally edited to obscure the portion where he said his client recovered the drugs.
But jurors rejected that argument.
"It just shows the power of video," Salzman said.
Outside of court, Alarcon's civil attorney Luis Carrillo hailed the verdict and said his client was not a gang member.
"It's a good day for justice all around the country," he said. "This verdict upholds the principle of equal justice under the law for everybody."
andrew.khouri@latimes.com
Times staff writer Joel Rubin contributed to this report.
And remember Tom Horne is the jerk who asked Jan Brewer to flush Prop 203 down the toilet so he could continue sending pot smokers to prison.
E-mail: Horne allies weighed tracking rival donors
By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Nov 14, 2012 9:43 PM
On Nov. 22, 2010, Charles “Chuck” Johnson, now an assistant attorney general, e-mailed Horne confidante Carmen Chenal and three other women about creating a spreadsheet of employees who donated to Felecia Rotellini’s campaign.
The document was contained in a new batch of investigative records the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office released Wednesday to The Arizona Republic.
The records stem from the agency’s joint investigation with the FBI into allegations that Horne illegally coordinated with an independent expenditure committee run by his political ally and current employee Kathleen Winn during the 2010 election.
Each has denied wrongdoing.
Separately, Horne has disputed statements his former human-resources adviser Susan Schmaltz made to the FBI that Horne was preoccupied with the political loyalties of his employees.
Schmaltz told investigators that Horne kept lists of employees’ political affiliations and campaign contributions to Rotellini and that he directed staff to hire some supporters.
But Johnson’s e-mail suggests some of those closest to Horne were intent on tracking employees’ political affiliations. Horne was not copied on the e-mail.
The e-mail reads:
“Can you do a spread sheet of each State employee who contributed to Felecia’s campaign? I can do it manually (either cut & paste or original typing), but just wondered if you could do it electronically, faster, more detailed, & more reliable. By date, amount (in kind or dollars), name & position would be helpful.
“This is very confidential stuff. We don’t want anyone to get the misimpression that such contributions will get a person fired, but it is just one management tool to be utilized in determining who may have divided loyalties in light of Felecia’s announcement that she’ll be running against Tom in 2014 & actively campaigning for something/someone in 2012.”
It is unclear whether the spreadsheet was ever created and, if it was, by whom. In a statement, Horne said he never “possessed any list of employee party affiliation.” He stated that employees did not face retaliation because of their contributions to Rotellini and that “many” employees who supported her have been promoted, adding that names of campaign contributors are public record.
Johnson worked for former Attorney General Terry Goddard but was fired for reasons not disclosed to the public. Johnson helped Horne in his effort to become attorney general, and Horne hired him. Copied on the e-mail were Chenal; Linnea Heap, the attorney-general employee whose car Horne was driving during a March 27 fender bender; Special Agent Lauren Buhrow; and project specialist Mila Makal.
The other records released Wednesday largely focused on personal e-mails to and from campaign workers regarding the 2010 election, as well as opposition research against Rotellini.
That research could again come into play.
Both Rotellini and Horne last week told The Republic that they are considering running for attorney general in 2014.
But they may have competition from Goddard, who confirmed to The Republic on Wednesday that he, too, is considering a potential return to the state prosecutor’s office.
Border Patrol under scrutiny for deadly force
Associated Press Wed Nov 14, 2012 7:39 PM
NOGALES, Ariz. — A pair of Mexican drug smugglers in camouflage pants, bundles of marijuana strapped to their backs, scaled a 25 foot-high fence in the middle of the night, slipped quietly into the United States and dashed into the darkness.
U.S. Border Patrol agents and local police gave chase on foot — from bushes to behind homes, then back to the fence.
The conflict escalated. Authorities say they were being pelted with rocks. An agent responded by aiming a gun into Mexico and firing multiple shots at the assailant, killing a 16-year-old boy whose family says was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Oct. 10 shooting has prompted renewed outcry over the Border Patrol’s use-of-force policies and angered human rights activists and Mexican officials who believe the incident has become part of a disturbing trend along the border — gunning down rock-throwers rather than using non-lethal weapons.
The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General has launched a probe of the agency’s policies, the first such broad look at the tactics of an organization with 18,500 agents deployed to the Southwest region alone. The Mexican government has pleaded with the U.S. to change its ways. And the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has questioned the excessive use of force by Border Patrol.
At least 16 people have been killed by agents along the Mexico border since 2010, eight in cases where federal authorities said they were being attacked with rocks, said Vicki Gaubeca, director of the ACLU’s Regional Center for Border Rights in Las Cruces, N.M.
The Border Patrol says sometimes lethal force is necessary: Its agents were assaulted with rocks 249 times in the 2012 fiscal year, causing injuries ranging from minor abrasions to major head contusions.
It is a common occurrence along the border for rocks to be thrown from Mexico at agents in the U.S. by people trying to distract them from making arrests or merely to harass them — particularly in areas that are heavily trafficked by drug smugglers and illegal immigrants.
Still, Gaubeca balks at what she and others deem the unequal “use of force to use a bullet against a rock.”
“There has not been a single death of a Border Patrol agent caused by a rock,” she said. “Why aren’t they doing something to protect their agents, like giving them helmets and shields?”
The Border Patrol has declined to discuss its use of lethal force policy, but notes agents may protect themselves and their colleagues when their lives are threatened, and rocks are considered deadly weapons.
Kent Lundgren, chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, recalled a time in the 1970s when he was hit in the head while patrolling the border near El Paso, Texas.
“It put me on my knees,” Lundgren said. “Had that rock caught me in the temple, it would have been lethal, I have no doubt.”
It is extremely rare for U.S. border authorities to face criminal charges for deaths or injuries to migrants. In April, federal prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to pursue charges against a Border Patrol agent in the 2010 shooting death of a 15-year-old Mexican in Texas.
In 2008, a case was dismissed against a Border Patrol agent facing a murder charge after two mistrials. Witnesses testified the agent shot a man without provocation but defense attorneys contended the Mexican migrant tried to hit the agent with a rock.
Mexican families have filed multiple wrongful death lawsuits, and the U.S. government, while admitting no wrongdoing, has paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars. Last year, the family of the illegal immigrant killed by the agent whose murder case was dismissed reached an $850,000 settlement. The agent remains employed by Border Patrol.
Even the Mexican government has asked for a change in policy, to no avail, though Border Patrol points out that Mexico has put up no barriers in its country and does little to stop the rock throwers.
“We have insisted to the United States government by multiple channels and at all levels that it is indispensable they revise and adjust Border Patrol’s standard operating procedures,” Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said in a written statement.
Elsewhere around the world, lethal force is often a last resort in such cases. Israeli police, for instance, typically use rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas to disperse rock-throwers.
“There is no such crowd incident that will occur where the Israeli police will use live fire unless it’s a critical situation where warning shots have to be fired in the air,” said Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
Border Patrol agents since 2002 have been provided weapons that can launch pepper-spray projectiles up to 250 feet away. The agency did not provide statistics on how many times they have been used, but officials are quick to note agents along the U.S.-Mexico border operate in vastly different scenarios than authorities in other countries.
They often patrol wide swaths of desert alone — unlike protest situations elsewhere where authorities gather en masse clad in riot gear.
Experts say there’s little that can be done to stop the violence, given the delicacies of the diplomacy and the fact that no international law specifically covers such instances.
“Ultimately, the politics of the wider U.S.-Mexico relationship are going to play a much bigger role than the law,” said Kal Raustiala, professor of law and director of the Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA. “The interests are just too high on both sides to let outrage from Mexico, which is totally understandable, determine the outcome here.”
Officials at the Border Patrol’s training academy in Artesia, N.M., refused comment on all questions about rock-throwing and use of force.
At the sprawling 220-acre desert compound, prospective agents spend at least 59 days at the academy, learning everything from immigration law to off-road driving, defense tactics and marksmanship.
“We’re going to teach them … the mechanics of the weapon that they’re going to use, the weapons systems, make them good marksmen, put them in scenarios where they have to make that judgment, shoot or not shoot,” said the training academy’s Assistant Chief Patrol Agent James Cox.
In the latest scenario, the two smugglers were attempting to climb the fence back into Mexico, while Border Patrol agents and Nogales Police Department officers ordered them down.
“Don’t worry, they can’t hurt us up here!” one suspect yelled to the other. Then came the rocks.
The police officers took cover, but a Border Patrol agent opened fire through the fence on Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, who was shot at least seven times, according to Mexican authorities. A Mexican official with direct knowledge of the investigation said the teenager was shot in the back. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the case.
The Border Patrol has revealed little information as probes unfold on both sides of the fence that separates Nogales, Ariz., from Nogales, Sonora. The FBI is investigating, as is standard with all Border Patrol shootings, and the agency won’t comment “out of respect for the investigative process,” said U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Michael Friel.
Marco Gonzalez lives in Nogales, Ariz., just across the road from the border fence. He called police to report seeing suspicious men in dark clothes running through his neighborhood.
He didn’t see the shooting, but he heard the gunshots. His kids thought they were fireworks.
“It affects me a lot,” Gonzalez said in Spanish. “Nothing like this has happened since I’ve lived here. It causes a lot of fear.”
The teen’s mother claims her son was just walking past the area a few blocks from home and got caught in the crossfire. None of the training, political maneuvering or diplomatic tip-toeing matters to her. She just wants her boy back. She just wants answers.
“Put yourself in my place,” Araceli Rodriguez told the Nogales International. “A child is what you most love in life. It’s what you get up in the morning for, what you work for. They took away a piece of my heart.”
———
Associated Press writer Brady McCombs contributed to this report from Phoenix. Josef Federman contributed from Israel.
And why do nurses steal drugs from their patients?
Because the "drug war" has created a black market for
drugs, which has made the drugs outrageously expensive.
Of course if drugs were legal they would be dirt cheap and
these nurses would not have to steal drugs from their patients to
get their fixes.
Jail nurses arrested for stealing inmate drugs
Updated 5:40 a.m., Wednesday, November 14, 2012
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Investigators say two nurses at a California jail have been arrested for stealing prescription drugs intended for the medical care of inmates.
The San Jose Mercury News (http://bit.ly/TYGH7Z) says 50-year-old Elmer Alegado and 54-year-old Rodolfo Idian were working at the Santa Clara County Jail when the drugs were pilfered.
An investigation began late last month because narcotics were missing from jail's prescription stockpiles.
The nurses were booked and released.
There are no other details.
Reps. Ron Paul, Barney Frank Ask Obama To Respect Pot Legalization Laws
by Eyder Peralta
November 14, 2012 4:25 PM
Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) are asking the White House to respect the voters of Colorado and Washington, who decided that recreational marijuana use should be legal.
In a letter sent to President Obama, they wrote:
"Respect for the rights of states to set policies on those matters that primarily affect their own residents argues for federal noninterference in this case, as does respect for the wishes of the voters – again, on matters that primarily affect those in the relevant electorate. Additionally, we believe that scarce federal resources – law enforcement, prosecutorial, judicial, and penal – should not be expended in opposition to the wishes of the voters of Colorado and Washington, given the responsibility of all federal officials to find ways to withhold unwise or unnecessary expenditures."
In an interview with Rolling Stone Obama said he can't simply ignore federal law when it comes to pot.
"What I specifically said was that we were not going to prioritize prosecutions of persons who are using medical marijuana," he told the magazine. "I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana — and the reason is, because it's against federal law. I can't nullify congressional law.
"I can't ask the Justice Department to say, 'Ignore completely a federal law that's on the books. What I can say is, 'Use your prosecutorial discretion and properly prioritize your resources to go after things that are really doing folks damage. As a consequence there haven't been prosecutions of users of marijuana for medical purposes."
Sadly, I suspect the states that legalize marijuana will go for raising revenue,
rather then keeping the public safe from stoned drivers and
set a ridiculously low DUI standard for people that smoke marijuana.
When drunk driving first became a crime in the early 1900's
most states set the standard at .15,
and at that level I certainly am too drunk to operate anything.
For me that is about 5 beers on an empty stomach.
And I am real drunk after drinking 5 beers.
Next most states lowered the limit to .10 at the request of
the Federal government that gave them bribes.
At .10 it takes me 3 beers to get legally drunk on an empty stomach.
With 3 beers I consider myself to be slightly drunk.
I have a little buzz, but I am not smashed out of my mind.
Last most states again lowered the limit to .08 again a result of the Federal government giving them money or bribes. With that standard I am legally drunk after having 2 beers. I serious doubt that my driving is impaired after having two beers, although I suspect if I was tested my reaction times might be a bit lower. But my reaction times would be lower if I had a headache, and I don't think it is right for the government to arrest me for DUI because I have a headache.
Currently the DUI standards for people in Arizona who use illegal drugs are also draconian and all about raising revenue and have absolutely nothing to do with safety. In Arizona if they find any measurable trace of any illegal drug in your body you are consider DUI or DWI.
However Arizona's medical marijuana law is pretty reasonable and doesn't assume you are guilt of DUI or DWI just because you have marijuana in your body. It says:
"A REGISTERED QUALIFYING PATIENT SHALL NOT BE CONSIDERED TO BE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF MARIJUANA SOLELY BECAUSE OF THE PRESENCE OF METABOLITES OR COMPONENTS OF MARIJUANA THAT APPEAR IN INSUFFICIENT CONCENTRATION TO CAUSE IMPAIRMENT"
Of course Prop 203 was written by real live human beings
who think people should be allowed to smoke marijuana,
not government bureaucrats who have a vested interest
in jailing people and stealing their money when they catch them smoking pot.
With pot legal, police worry about road safety
Associated Press Thu Nov 15, 2012 10:50 AM
DENVER — It’s settled.
Pot, at least certain amounts of it, will soon be legal under state laws in Washington and Colorado.
Now, officials in both states are trying to figure out how to keep stoned drivers off the road.
Colorado’s measure doesn’t make any changes to the state’s driving-under-the-influence laws,
leaving lawmakers and police to worry about its effect on road safety.
“We’re going to have more impaired drivers,”
warned John Jackson, police chief in the Denver suburb of Greenwood Village.
Washington’s law does change driving under the influence provisions
by setting a new blood-test limit for marijuana —
a limit police are training to enforce,
and which some lawyers are already gearing up to challenge.
“We’ve had decades of studies and experience with alcohol,”
said Washington State Patrol spokesman Dan Coon.
[That is true, but the alcohol standard
has been set artificially low to raise revenue,
rather then keep drunk people off of the road.
The current standard is in most states is .08,
but when DUI was first invented in the early 1900's the
standard was .15 which is much more realistic]
“Marijuana is new, so it’s going to take some time to figure
out how the courts and prosecutors are going to handle it.
But the key is impairment:
We will arrest drivers who drive impaired, whether it be drugs or alcohol.”
Drugged driving is illegal, and nothing in the measures that Washington
and Colorado voters passed this month to tax and regulate the sale of pot for recreational use by adults over 21 changes that.
But law enforcement officials wonder about whether
the ability to buy or possess marijuana legally will bring about an increase of marijuana users on the roads.
Statistics gathered for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that in 2009,
a third of fatally injured drivers with known drug test results were positive for drugs other than alcohol.
Among randomly stopped weekend nighttime drivers in 2007,
more than 16 percent were positive for drugs.
[And those test are very misleading.
A person who smoke regularly can test positive for marijuana
literally a month after they last used it. On the other hand a
person who doesn't use marijuana on a regular basis will only
test positive for a few days after the last time they smoked pot.
A person who smoke pot will only be impaired for 4 or 5 hours while
they will test positive for marijuana for days or months.]
Marijuana can cause dizziness and slowed reaction time,
and drivers are more likely to drift and swerve while they’re high.
Marijuana legalization activists agree people shouldn’t smoke and drive.
But setting a standard comparable to blood-alcohol limits has sparked intense disagreement,
said Betty Aldworth, outreach director for Colorado’s Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.
Most convictions for drugged driving currently are based on police observations,
followed later by a blood test.
“There is not yet a consensus about the standard rate for THC impairment,”
Aldworth said, referring to the psychoactive chemical in marijuana.
Unlike portable breath tests for alcohol,
there’s no easily available way to determine
whether someone is impaired from recent pot use.
There are different types of tests for marijuana.
Many workplaces test for an inactive THC metabolite
that can be stored in body fat and remain detectable weeks after use.
But tests for current impairment measure for active THC in the blood,
and those levels typically drop within hours.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says
peak THC concentrations are reached during the act of smoking,
and within three hours,
they generally fall to less than 5 nanograms per milliliter of blood
— the same standard in Washington’s law,
one supporters describe as roughly equivalent to the .08 limit for alcohol.
[And sadly that .08 alcohol limit is more about raising revenue for the government then about safety. When DUI was first invented the legal limit was .15 in most states, and over the years has been lowered to .08 in most states at the request of the Feds who gave and still give states that lowered the limit money]
Two other states — Ohio and the medical marijuana state of Nevada —
have a limit of 2 nanograms of THC per milliliter.
Pennsylvania’s health department has a 5-nanogram guideline
that can be introduced in driving violation cases,
and a dozen states, including Illinois, Arizona, and Rhode Island,
have zero-tolerance policies.
[But for Arizona medical marijuana patients there is no set standard.
Cops have to prove they are DUI with other means]
In Washington, police still have to observe signs of impaired driving
before pulling someone over, Coon said.
The blood would be drawn by a medical professional,
and tests above 5 nanograms would automatically subject the driver to a DUI conviction.
Supporters of Washington’s measure
said they included the standard to allay
fears that legalization could prompt a drugged-driving epidemic,
but critics call it arbitrarily strict.
They insist that medical patients who regularly use
cannabis would likely fail even if they weren’t impaired.
They also worry about the law’s zero-tolerance policy for those under 21.
College students who wind up convicted
even if they weren’t impaired could lose college loans, they argue.
Pot legalization proceeds in key states with Feds mostly silent
By Alex Dobuzinskis and Alina Selyukh
(Reuters) - The Obama administration's relative silence on moves to legalize recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington has left officials in those Western states unsure how to move forward without running afoul of the U.S. federal government.
But change is already afoot when it comes to how the two states and local authorities deal with marijuana.
Prosecutors in Washington state's two most populous counties, encompassing Seattle and Tacoma, and in Colorado's Boulder County are already dropping pot possession cases after state voters chose to legalize pot for recreational adult use.
Washington and Colorado became the first states in the nation to legalize recreational marijuana on November 6, putting both on a possible collision course with the federal government, which says pot remains an illegal narcotic under U.S. law. A similar move to legalize pot in Oregon failed.
Elsewhere, a pair of lawmakers in Maine and Rhode Island plan to introduce legislation to regulate and tax pot sales.
Colorado and Washington could eventually be forced to spend millions of dollars combined to establish bureaucracies to oversee marijuana sales - funds that might be at risk in any federal crackdown. But if legalization goes ahead, the states could also reap a tax windfall.
Because the drug remains illegal under federal law, state officials say they are looking to the U.S. Department of Justice for guidance.
"I think they're taking it seriously, and my hope is they really do say something definitive," Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said in a phone interview.
Suthers, a Republican, said one of the Obama administration's options would be to tell Colorado officials to "proceed at your own risk" with legalization, but he added that would put his state in a tough spot if the federal government later changes course.
"It would be an expenditure of time and effort that I prefer not to do, if in fact the federal government is going to take an aggressive posture," Suthers said.
In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, and Suthers asked if the federal government would sue to block legalization or if U.S. officials would view state employees who oversee the pot trade as "acting in violation of federal law."
Washington's Democratic Governor Chris Gregoire, who opted not to run for re-election and whose term ends in January, said she met this week with Deputy Attorney General James Cole to discuss legalization in her state.
END OF POSSESSION BANS
The pot measures approved in Washington state and Colorado would each allow personal possession of up to an ounce of marijuana, a provision set to go into effect within three weeks. They would also set up systems to regulate and tax the sale of pot at special stores to adults aged 21 and older.
But the initiatives allow lawmakers in each state to spend much of 2013 creating rules and regulations for state-sanctioned pot growing and sales operations.
The Department of Justice has said that marijuana remains a controlled substance and that the department was "reviewing the ballot initiatives." Federal officials have said little publicly beyond that statement.
Jodie Underwood, special agent in the Drug Enforcement Administration Seattle field division, said her office would not change the way it targets criminal operations. "The state law is not going to change how the DEA operates," she said.
The DEA has about 5,000 special agents and is tasked with stopping illegal narcotics from being smuggled into the United States and from being produced and distributed within the country itself.
"They want to focus on international traffickers and they want local police to do this stuff in the cities, and when a state like Colorado or Washington says we're not going to do this anymore, the feds, they're panicking," said Tim Lynch, director of the Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice.
Beau Kilmer, co-director of the RAND Corporation's Drug Policy Research Center, said many branches of the federal government could be involved in dealing with pot legalization, including the Internal Revenue Service, which could deny deductions or credits to businesses that sell recreational pot.
Even before the recreational legalization votes, both Colorado and Washington were among 18 states that allow medical pot, and both have private dispensaries of the drug.
In Washington state, the Office of Financial Management has estimated that taxes on marijuana could generate $532 million in fiscal year 2015, the first full year of legalized sales if they are not blocked by the federal government.
Up-front costs of legalization are expected to exceed $3 million, according to the Office of Financial Management.
In Colorado, questions linger after Suthers said the state cannot collect taxes of up to 15 percent on pot sales without further voter approval, casting doubt on how quickly legalization can be implemented.
State officials said the Department of Revenue would need $1.3 million in the fiscal year beginning in July 2013 for licensing, regulation and enforcement costs.
Anti-drug groups say any taxes states might collect from marijuana would fail to compensate for the increased health, drug treatment and public safety costs that legalization would cause due to increased use of the drug.
(Alex Dobuzinskis reported from Los Angeles and Alina Selyukh reported from Washington DC; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
Marijuana prosecutions dropped in anticipation of legalization
By Jonathan Martin
Prosecutors and police in Washington moved Friday to swiftly back away from enforcing marijuana prohibition, even though the drug remains illegal for another month.
On Friday, the elected prosecutors of King and Pierce counties, the state's two largest, announced they will dismiss more than 220 pending misdemeanor marijuana-possession cases, retroactively applying provisions of Initiative 502 that kick in Dec. 6.
In King County, Dan Satterberg said his staff will dismiss about 40 pending criminal charges, and will not file charges in another 135 pending cases. Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist said he will dismiss about four dozen cases in which simple marijuana possession was the only offense.
"I think when the people voted to change the policy, they weren't focused on when the effective date of the new policy would be. They spoke loudly and clearly that we should not treat small amounts of marijuana as an offense," Satterberg said.
The Seattle police and King County sheriff also announced Friday their departments would no longer arrest people for having an ounce or less of marijuana, the amount decriminalized by Initiative 502, which passed Tuesday.
The quick pivot by law enforcement reflects Tuesday's unambiguous vote in which 20 of the state's 39 counties endorsed I-502, 55 to 45 percent.
Misdemeanor marijuana possession had not been a police priority in Seattle for years, but a study released in October found it was elsewhere: more than 241,000 people statewide were arrested for possession over the past 25 years, at an estimated cost of more than $305 million.
I-502 campaign manager Alison Holcomb said the decision by police and prosecutors affirms the campaign's argument that legalization would shift law-enforcement priorities.
"If 502 hadn't passed, we'd see the same amount of marijuana possession cases every year," said Holcomb. "What makes a difference is changing the law."
"People have spoken"
In interviews, Satterberg and Lindquist said their decisions do not amount to a free pass for marijuana, and the number of cases were so small that it won't save much money. But both said their decision reflected the voters' intent in passing I-502's decriminalization of marijuana for people 21 and over, and for an ounce or less.
The affected cases in King County involve arrests in unincorporated King County, on state highways or at the University of Washington. Satterberg said his staff will continue to prosecute felony marijuana cases, but found, "There is no point in continuing to seek criminal penalties for conduct that will be legal next month."
Lindquist agreed. "The people have spoken through this initiative," he said. "And as a practical matter, I don't think you could sell a simple marijuana case to a jury after this initiative passed."
The maximum penalties for misdemeanor marijuana possession are 90 days in jail, with one day mandatory, and a $1,000 fine, although most cases are resolved for less.
Snohomish County Prosecutor Mark Roe said in an email that his staff had put marijuana cases "on hold" before the election, and will decide how to handle them after speaking with other prosecutors at an upcoming meeting.
After budget cuts, Roe said his staff has focused on more serious cases. "It simply hasn't been a big part of our work," he said.
"Equitable decision"
Prosecutors across the state will decide whether charging possession cases would be contrary to "the new known intent of the law," said Tom McBride, executive director of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys.
He doubted that prosecutors would agree to overturn existing marijuana possession convictions, and prosecutors could clearly enforce existing law up until Dec. 6. "It is an equitable decision, not necessarily a legal one," he said.
Other agencies are also sorting out I-502's implications. The UW and Western Washington University reaffirmed that marijuana use on campus would still be banned, even after Dec. 6, because of zero-tolerance strings attached to federal funding.
"While Western abides by all state laws, it also must follow all federal laws and I-502 creates a conflict between the two," WWU said in a statement. "When state and federal laws are in conflict, federal law takes precedence."
Because of that conflict, Satterberg said he expects federal authorities to sue to stop Washington from issuing marijuana retailing and growing licenses.
"It's the kind of issue the U.S. Supreme Court will have a final word on," Satterberg said. "It's an important states' rights issue."
Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com.
On Twitter @jmartin206.
What does marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington mean for college athletes?
By Percy Allen
Seattle Times staff reporter
College athletes in Washington and Colorado may want to refrain from the use of marijuana even after both states became the first in the nation to legalize recreational use of the drug.
Marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law, is still a banned substance by the NCAA, which makes it off-limits for players.
"The legalizing of marijuana in Colorado and Washington does not impact the NCAA drug-testing rules," the NCAA said in a statement released last week. "The NCAA banned-drug and testing policies are not tied to whether a substance is legal for general population use, but rather whether the substance is considered a threat to student-athlete health and safety or the integrity of the game."
Several over-the-counter items such as Muscle Milk, Sudafed, Midol, Airborne and some flavors of Vitamin Water are banned by the NCAA.
"It's the same reason why tobacco isn't allowed," Washington athletic director Scott Woodward said. "There's a prohibition of tobacco by the NCAA. We have strict standards for that as well."
Professional football and basketball players in the two states aren't free to use the drug, either. In separate statements to USA Today, spokesmen from the NFL and NBA said marijuana remains a prohibited substance in their leagues' collectively bargained anti-drug policies.
Those policies are at odds with the sentiment of voters in Washington and Colorado, who approved constitutional amendments last week legalizing recreational marijuana.
In Washington, Initiative 502 legalizes the possession of up to an ounce of the drug for people 21 and over. It also creates rules for heavily taxed and regulated sale at state-licensed marijuana stores.
Colorado's Amendment 64 allows individuals over the age of 21 to possess up to one ounce of marijuana and grow up to six plants in their home.
The Pac-12 has no jurisdiction over its conference schools regarding drug testing, and it falls upon each school to police itself in accordance to NCAA policies.
Still, Washington's new marijuana law could have an impact on the number of incidents that are reported.
Take, for instance, the Washington State men's basketball team, which has a recent history of players running afoul of the state's old drug laws.
Reggie Moore was cited early in 2011 for marijuana possession on campus and served a one-game suspension.
Klay Thompson was suspended from one game in March 2011 following his arrest and citation for marijuana possession.
DeAngelo Casto also received a misdemeanor marijuana citation in March 2011. He was initially suspended, but it was lifted by the school.
In the latest incident, sophomore Brett Kingma was arrested last month for possession of marijuana. He's been suspended indefinitely and coach Ken Bone was unsure if he would return to the team.
"In many ways this goes beyond being a student-athletes issue and it's an issue for each school and its students," said Pac-12 spokesman Eric Hardenberg.
Before last Tuesday's election, WSU spokesman Darin Watkins told the Murrow News Service the school would maintain its current policies.
"We can't do anything that would threaten federal funding," he said, referencing to a 1989 federal law that bans marijuana on college campuses. Schools that allow the banned substances can lose federal funding.
Woodward said Washington's new state law on marijuana will not have an impact on how UW will test and enforce its drug policies.
"Not one bit," he said. "We're obviously governed by the NCAA. We have our own rules. We will continue to maintain them, and I don't foresee any changes."
Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or pallen@seattletimes.com
Colorado prosecutor latest to drop marijuana cases
BOULDER, Colo. —
The home county of the University of Colorado is the latest to drop pending marijuana possession cases in the wake of a public vote to legalize the drug.
Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett told the Daily Camera newspaper Wednesday his office would drop possession cases under an ounce for adults (http://bit.ly/X8NnEf). He said the effect would be minimal because his office already considers marijuana a low priority.
Garnett said overwhelming support in Boulder County for Colorado's Amendment 64 would make it highly unlikely a jury would ever reach a guilty verdict in any of those cases.
"You've seen an end to mere possession cases in Boulder County under my office," Garnett said.
At least three prosecutors in Washington state announced plans last week to drop similar possession cases.
The measure approved by Colorado voters allows adults over 21 to possess up to an ounce of the drug. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law.
"It was an ethical decision," Garnett said. "The standard for beginning or continuing criminal prosecution is whether a prosecutor has reasonable belief they can get a unanimous conviction by a jury."
Boulder police Chief Mark Beckner said his department would also stop issuing tickets or making arrests for mere marijuana possession less than an ounce and paraphernalia.
"We had already told our officers it was a waste of time to issue summonses for those offenses anyway, given the passage of the amendment. We are in a wait-and-see mode on how the state will regulate sales and possibly use in public places," Beckner said.
Garnett said his decision will have no impact on enforcement by the University of Colorado, which until this year was home to the nation's largest April 20 pro-marijuana holiday protest.
Garnett said his office will continue to prosecute cases for those under 21 and in instances where dealing is suspected and DUI offenses involving marijuana.
"Those continue to be a real high priority," Garnett said. "We will continue to come after those cases very hard."
Arizona licenses first medical-marijuana dispensary
By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Nov 15, 2012 9:42 PM
The Arizona Department of Health Services has licensed the state’s first medical-marijuana dispensary.
Arizona Organix passed a detailed inspection of its facility in Glendale, with surveyors examining everything from security to inventory control and medical credentials.
The license allows the dispensary to begin selling medical marijuana.
The dispensary operators haven’t yet decided when they will open, said Ryan Hurley, their attorney.
“They’re ready to open as soon as they want to,” he said. “It’s not going to be tomorrow.”
As of today, state health officials will stop issuing cards that allow people to grow medical marijuana in their homes if they live within 25 miles of the Glendale facility at 5301 W. Glendale Ave. The voter-approved law prohibits individuals from growing if a licensed dispensary is near patient homes.
State health officials will not revoke grow cards from patients or caregivers who currently have permission to grow in their homes.
However, health officials will not renew their grow cards, theoretically forcing people to purchase from regulated dispensaries and other qualified patients.
Voters in 2010 passed the state’s medical-marijuana law, allowing people with certain debilitating conditions to use the drug upon recommendations from physicians and approval by the health department.
State health officials have issued 97 dispensary-registration certificates, giving them the opportunity to sell marijuana and operate cultivation sites following inspections by health inspectors.
Some who have received dispensary-registration certificates have told The Arizona Republic that they are waiting to move forward with inspection requests until a Maricopa County Superior Court judge settles a challenge to the state’s medical-marijuana law.
Surveyors will inspect a Tucson dispensary Tuesday.
And remember Tom Horne is the jerk who asked Az Governor Jan Brewer to
declare Prop 203 null and void so he could continue throwing people that
smoke medical marijuana in prison.
Tom Horne legal proceedings to begin Jan. 22
By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:51 PM
According to a notice from the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings, proceedings before Judge Tammy Eigenheer are expected to conclude by Jan. 29. The proceedings are Horne and Winn’s opportunity to present their sides of the case.
Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery has accused Winn and Horne, the state’s top law-enforcement official, of deliberately breaking campaign-finance laws during Horne’s 2010 bid for office by coordinating with an independent expenditure committee Winn oversaw. Montgomery’s conclusion came after a 14-month investigation by county investigators and the FBI.
Montgomery has said investigators found e-mails and phone records showing Horne, a Republican, was involved with Business Leaders for Arizona, which raised and spent more than $500,000 to run TV ads blasting Horne's Democratic opponent, Felecia Rotellini, in the closing days of the tight race.
Coordination between candidates and independent expenditure committees is illegal.
Horne and Winn have denied all of the accusations against them and have said they will be vindicated through legal proceedings.
Woman with child drives onto Phoenix runway
By Chris Cole The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Fri Nov 16, 2012 8:13 AM
A woman with a child in her car drove a car out onto a runway at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport late Thursday night, authorities said.
The driver rammed her 1997 Saturn into an airport gate and drove onto an active runway about 10 p.m., according to the Phoenix Police Department.
Phoenix police responded quickly by stopping the car and taking the woman into custody, police said.
Authorities believe the driver was showing signs of impairment, police said.
The driver and the child weren’t injured, police said.
Airport operations were shut down for a couple minutes, but flights didn’t experience delays or any danger because of the driver’s actions, said Deborah Ostreicher, Deputy Aviation Director for Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
All security procedures were followed exactly as they should have been, Ostricher said.
The investigation is ongoing, police said.
Univision show: Glendale police were racially profiling
By D.S. Woodfill, Bob Ortega and Melissa Blasius The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team
Fri Nov 16, 2012 9:57 PM
The Glendale Police Department is denying a 30-year veteran officer racially profiled a news producer as the Spanish-language Univision Network reported.
The network stood by its news segment that aired on the nationally televised show Primer Impacto on Monday. It was intended to illustrate if there were police officers in the Valley who were engaging in racial profiling.
The news piece interviewed several Hispanic residents who said profiling is a fact of life for them.
Police in September began enforcing a portion of Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, which requires officers engaged in a lawful stop, detention or arrest shall, when practicable, ask about a person’s legal status when reasonable suspicion exists that the person is in the U.S. illegally.
Andrea Sambuccetti, the reporter in the segment, told viewers that she put one of her producers in a beat-up red sedan and sent him out onto the streets to see if he would be pulled over.
Sambuccetti said during her narration, which was in Spanish, that the producer had a clean driving record and the car’s registration was up to date.
According to the broadcast, about a minute into videotaping on Oct.30, the decoy car was pulled over by a Glendale police officer after stopping at a stop sign at 59th and Glendale avenues.
“We have all the papers in order, and the evidence that we haven’t committed any traffic violation is recorded on our cameras,” Sambuccetti told viewers.
Sambuccetti and a camera operator confronted the officer and asked him the reason for the traffic stop.
The officer, who Glendale police said was Jamie Nowatzki, told Sambuccetti he pulled the driver over because he sat at the stop sign for an extended period of time and was impeding other vehicles from passing through the intersection, which a written statement from the department repeated.
“From Officer Nowatzki’s vantage point, he clearly observed a red sedan at a stop sign for an unreasonable amount of time, causing two cars to drive into the opposing lane to get around the vehicle,” the statement said.
It went on to say he was impeding traffic “for several minutes” and that other drivers were blocked, including one who honked his horn. Nowatzki issued a warning and let the driver go.
Police officials said the news footage that appeared on TV “appeared to be heavily edited and did not show the entire incident, including the amount of time the red sedan impeded traffic.”
Pilar Campos, an executive producer of Primer Impacto, said he reviewed raw footage of the video and the vehicle was only stopped at the stop sign for a couple of seconds.
“We don’t see it in the video,” he said.
Police officials said they stand behind Nowatzki and the segment was “misleading, inflammatory, and apparently intends to portray the Glendale Police Department in a negative light by suggesting we engage in racial profiling.”
Sheriff’s deputies find nearly $3 million in marijuana
By Grant Francis The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Fri Nov 16, 2012 4:42 PM
Maricopa County Sheriff’s Deputies seized another haul of marijuana on Thursday in what they are calling a significantly high amount of drug busts in the last week, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department said.
Deputies said Thursday’s seizure was valued at around $800,000, bringing the total to almost $3 million in the last week.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio said the task force responsible for the bust arrested two men and two women in connection with the drugs, during a search of a home in the 4200 block of North 63rd Drive in Phoenix. The four were booked into the Fourth Avenue Jail on felony drug charges, authorities said.
Deputies said they found 70 bundles of marijuana weighing around 1,500 pounds, and almost $50,000 sealed in vacuum bags.
On Nov. 9, deputies on the Sheriff’s task force arrested three other men who allegedly tried to transport an estimated $2 million worth of marijuana.
Look I think the UN sucks, just like I think any other government that rules by force sucks.
But I think former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan is right about changing our approach to the war on drugs.
Anti-drug policies have failed- Annan
Updated: 16:24, Friday October 19, 2012
Anti-drug policies have failed- Annan
Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has called for a discussion on decriminalisation of drugs, criticising the crackdown on traffickers in Mexico led by outgoing President Felipe Calderon.
'When you look at the results of Calderon's efforts, most people will tell you it has not worked. He's got lots of people killed,' Annan said on Thursday at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
'There is need for change in policy, but it has to start with a debate and discussion because there are very strong emotions on either side,' Annan said.
Annan served last year on a global commission headed by former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso that recommended decriminalisation of drugs. He reiterated on Thursday that drug laws 'have not worked'.
'We have applied them (the laws) for decades. It's got the prisons filled with lots of young people who sometimes come out destroyed for having an ounce, or whatever,' he said.
'We should approach it through education, health issues, rather than a brutal reaction,' he said.
Annan also called more attention to curbing demand for drugs - which in Mexico's case comes largely from the United States - rather than just cutting down on supply.
Some 60,000 people are estimated to have died in Mexico's vicious drug war since the military launched a crackdown in 2006.
In a major blow to drug traffickers, Mexican authorities announced this month that they killed Heriberto Lazcano, the leader of the Zetas cartel and Mexico's second-most wanted man.
But authorities were quickly embarrassed afterward after the body of the man known as 'El Lazca' was stolen from a funeral parlour.
Annan, who led the United Nations for an often turbulent 10 years starting in 1997, was visiting Washington as he promotes his memoir, Interventions: A Life in War and Peace.
Annan says anti-drug policies have failed
(AFP) – Oct 18, 2012
WASHINGTON — Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan called Thursday for a discussion on decriminalization of drugs, criticizing the crackdown on traffickers in Mexico led by outgoing President Felipe Calderon.
"When you look at the results of Calderon's efforts, most people will tell you it has not worked. He's got lots of people killed," Annan said at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
"There is need for change in policy, but it has to start with a debate and discussion because there are very strong emotions on either side," Annan said.
Annan served last year on a global commission headed by former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso that recommended decriminalization of drugs. He reiterated Thursday that drug laws "have not worked."
"We have applied them (the laws) for decades. It's got the prisons filled with lots of young people who sometimes come out destroyed for having an ounce, or whatever," he said.
"We should approach it through education, health issues, rather than a brutal reaction," he said.
Annan also called more attention to curbing demand for drugs -- which in Mexico's case comes largely from the United States -- rather than just cutting down on supply.
Some 60,000 people are estimated to have died in Mexico's vicious drug war since the military launched a crackdown in 2006.
In a major blow to drug traffickers, Mexican authorities announced this month that they killed Heriberto Lazcano, the leader of the Zetas cartel and Mexico's second-most wanted man.
But authorities were quickly embarrassed afterward after the body of the man known as "El Lazca" was stolen from a funeral parlor.
Annan, who led the United Nations for an often turbulent 10 years starting in 1997, was visiting Washington as he promotes his memoir, "Interventions: A Life in War and Peace."
Kofi Annan aboga por despenalizar las drogas y critica estrategia de Calderón
Oct. 18, 2012 06:44 PM
Agencia EFE
Washington, 18 oct (EFE).- El exsecretario general de la ONU Kofi Annan pidió hoy un cambio de estrategia en la guerra contra las drogas centrado en la despenalización y opinó que la táctica del presidente mexicano, Felipe Calderón, "no ha funcionado".
"Cuando uno mira a los resultados de la estrategia de Calderón, la mayoría de la gente dirá que no ha funcionado. Ha muerto demasiada gente", dijo Annan en una conferencia en el centro de estudios Brookings de Washington.
El diplomático ghanés recordó que, el año pasado, formó parte de la elaboración de un informe de la Comisión Global de Políticas sobre Drogas dirigida por el expresidente de Brasil Fernando Henrique Cardoso, que recomendó regular el consumo de marihuana y despenalizar el uso de otras sustancias.
"Nuestra principal conclusión fue recomendar la descriminalización -no la legalización- porque hemos llenado las prisiones de gente joven cuyas vidas salen destrozadas por una onza (de droga)", apuntó.
"Es necesario un cambio de política, pero tiene que hacerse con cuidado, porque hay emociones muy fuertes en ambos lados. Pero tenemos que empezar el debate, hay que revisar todo el enfoque", añadió.
El exsecretario general de la ONU recordó que los Gobiernos "se enfocan demasiado a menudo en el lado del suministro y olvidan el de la demanda, y esos dos aspectos tienen que trabajar juntos".
"Hay que enfrentar esto a través de la educación y la salud, en lugar de con acciones brutales", consideró Annan, quien también se mostró preocupado por "las tiendas de armas en la frontera (entre EE.UU. y México), que están llenando de armas el norte (de México)".
Annan acudió a la conferencia para presentar su libro de memorias "Interventions: A Life in War and Peace", publicado el pasado 4 de septiembre y en el que describe desde su niñez en Ghana hasta su entrada en el mundo diplomático en Ginebra y, sobre todo, su periodo al frente de la ONU (1997-2006).
Insiste Annan: México debe pensar en despenalizar las drogas
MÉXICO, D.F. (apro).- El exsecretario de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU), Kofi Annan, insistió en que México debe considerar la posibilidad de despenalizar las drogas; y volvió a criticar la estrategia contra el crimen organizado implementada por el presidente Felipe Calderón.
Como lo hizo el pasado 18 de octubre durante la presentación de un informe de la Comisión Global de Políticas sobre las Drogas, en Washington, Annan señaló que con la estrategia contra el narcotráfico “ha muerto demasiada gente”.
Esta vez, durante la inauguración del Continuity Forum 2012 del Americas Business Council (ABC), también en Washington, volvió a tocar el tema. Reiteró que “la mayoría de la gente diría que no ha funcionado” la estrategia del presidente Calderón contra el crimen organizado.
Annan recordó que el día de la presentación del informe de la Comisión Global de Políticas sobre las Drogas que dirigió el expresidente de Brasil Fernando Henrique Cardoso, se recomendó la regulación del consumo de mariguana y la despenalización de otras sustancias.
“Nuestra principal conclusión fue recomendar la descriminalización, no la legalización, porque hemos llenado las prisiones de gente joven, cuyas vidas salen destrozadas por una onza de droga”, subrayó Annan.
Durante su participación en el Continuity Forum 2012, este día, el exsecretario general de la ONU hizo algunas recomendaciones a la administración federal entrante, que encabezará el priista Enrique Peña Nieto, en específico en lo tocante a la transparencia con la que se debe conducir.
“Es muy positivo que exista una rotación democrática, creo que debe de continuar con las reformas faltantes, con la construcción de instituciones sólidas y, sobre todo, con transparencia en las áreas cuestionadas; debe de apoyar a la población joven que tiene. En cuanto a la crisis de la droga, habría que pensar en una despenalización pero no en la legalización, que es diferente”, puntualizó.
Annan añadió que el cambio de estrategia debe ir acompañada en todo momento de un reforzamiento en las áreas de educación y salud.
Annan: México debe despenalizar, no legalizar la droga
Manifestó que se debe de tomar en cuenta la propuesta de despenalización del ex presidente de Brasil, pero incluyendo en todo momento una acompañamiento de educación y salud.
"México tiene problemas, pero hay que reconocer que ha avanzado en su soluciones", consideró, consideró Kofi Annan, el ex secretario general de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU), durante la inauguración de foro Continuity Forum 2012 del Americas Business Council (abc).
El ex secretario de la ONU expresó algunas recomendaciones a la nueva administración federal entrante en México, se refirió sobre todo a la transparencia con la que se debe de conducir.
"Es muy positivo que exista una rotación democrática, creo que debe de continuar con las reformas faltantes, con la construcción de instituciones sólidas y sobre todo con transparencia en las áreas cuestionadas, debe de apoyar a la población joven que tiene, en cuanto a la crisis de la droga, habría que pensar en una despenalización pero no en la legalización, que es diferente", aseguró.
Sobre el tema de las drogas, manifestó que se debe de tomar en cuenta la propuesta de despenalización del ex presidente de Brasil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, pero incluyendo en todo momento una acompañamiento de educación y salud.
Annan dijo que la inversión privada debe de apoyar objetivos públicos pues los gobiernos necesitan un sector privado vigoroso para que ambas partes trabajen en beneficio de sus comunidades.
En este sentido, el ex funcionario de la ONU dijo que naciones como Brasil, Chile o Perú, tienen marcos legales fuertes y claros que apoyan a las instituciones privadas, "una sociedad y una democracia sana debe de garantizar, estabilidad sustentable, desarrollo social y económico, respeto por la ley y por los derechos humanos", subrayó.
Insistió en que la iniciativa privada debe de hacer sinergia con la sociedad civil y con los gobiernos federales y locales para solucionar los problemas que aqueja a la humanidad, consideró que el más grave de todos sería el garantizar no sólo el derecho a la alimentación sino a la nutrición a nivel global.
Por otra parte, presidente de grupo Televisa, Emilia Azcarraga, comentó con El Universal que el desarrollo de México se dará en la medida que la iniciativa privada se involucre en proyectos que apoyen a la sociedad civil o a instituciones públicas.
"Nosotros pensamos que Kofi Annan tiene razón en decir que la IP se debe de involucrar más y que debe de trabajar con los gobiernos, nosotros siempre hemos trabajado a través de Fundación Televisa en estas causas y lo seguiremos haciendo porque entendimos que así debe de ser", puntualizó.
Por ultimo, Kofi Annan se preguntó, "¿cuáles son lo mayores retos y obstáculos que enfrentamos para alcanzar la meta de abatir el hambre mundial en un 50%?, y enlistó lo que consideró como los grandes lastres de la humanidad, violencia, guerras civiles, genocidios, pobreza, enfermedades, seguridad alimentaria y nutricional, armas, nucleares, bilógicas y químicas, terrorismo y delincuencia organizada que incluye el narcotráfico y la trata de personas.
Durante el foro organizado por la abc, se darán a conocer los proyectos que serán apoyados por la fundación en distintas ramas del desarrollo y la sustentabilidad, de 100 proyectos 32 recibirán el apoyo.
Critican a Patrulla Fronteriza por muerte de joven
por BRIAN SKOLOFF - 11/14/2012
The Associated Press
NOGALES, Arizona, EE.UU. - Dos mexicanos, vestidos con pantalones camuflados y cargando paquetes de marihuana ceñidos a sus espaldas, treparon una cerca de 7,5 metros (25 pies) de altura, que marca la frontera. A la mitad de la noche, se adentraron silenciosos en territorio estadounidense.
Agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza y de la policía local los persiguieron a pie entre arbustos y casas, hasta volver al muro fronterizo.
El conflicto se intensificó. Los agentes estadounidenses dicen que fueron agredidos a pedradas. Uno respondió apuntando su arma hacia territorio mexicano y haciendo varios disparos contra el presunto atacante.
Mató a un adolescente de 16 años, que según su familia simplemente estaba en el lugar y momento equivocados.
Los hechos del 10 de octubre han reavivado las críticas a las políticas de la Patrulla Fronteriza sobre el uso de la fuerza, y han indignado a defensores de los derechos humanos, lo mismo que a funcionarios mexicanos, quienes consideran que el caso es parte de una tendencia preocupante en la frontera: disparar contra quienes lanzan piedras en vez de dispersarlos por medios no letales.
La Oficina del Inspector General del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional ha abierto una investigación sobre las políticas de la agencia. Se trata de la primera indagación de este tipo sobre las tácticas de una organización que tiene emplazados a 18.500 agentes tan sólo en el suroeste del país.
El gobierno mexicano ha instado a las autoridades estadounidenses a modificar sus métodos de operación. Y la Oficina del Alto Comisionado de Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos (OACDH) ha cuestionado los excesos en el uso de la fuerza por parte de la Patrulla Fronteriza.
Al menos 16 personas han muerto a manos de los agentes en la frontera mexicana desde 2010, incluidas ocho en casos en que las autoridades federales señalan que fueron atacadas con piedras, dijo Vicki Gaubeca, directora del Centro de Derechos en la Frontera en Las Cruces, Nuevo México. Esa organización es parte de la Asociación Nacional para la Defensa de Derechos Civiles (ACLU, por sus siglas en inglés).
La Patrulla Fronteriza asegura que a veces resulta necesario el uso de fuerza potencialmente letal. Sus agentes fueron atacados a pedradas en 249 ocasiones durante el año fiscal 2012. Muchos sufrieron desde pequeñas laceraciones hasta golpes graves en la cabeza.
En la frontera, es común que la gente lance piedras contra los agentes estadounidenses, en busca de intimidarlos o distraerlos para que no realicen arrestos, particularmente en zonas muy utilizadas por los traficantes de drogas o inmigrantes.
Pero Gaubeca y otros activistas destacan una inequidad en el uso de la fuerza cuando "se emplea una bala contra una piedra".
"No ha habido una sola muerte de un agente de la Patrulla Fronteriza a consecuencia de una piedra", aseguró Gaubeca. "¿Por qué no se hace algo para proteger a los agentes, como dotarlos de cascos y escudos?"
La Patrulla Fronteriza se niega a discutir a detalle sus políticas de uso de fuerza potencialmente mortal, pero destaca que los agentes deben protegerse y cuidar a sus colegas cuando sus vidas están en riesgo. Considera que las rocas son armas letales.
Kent Lundgren, presidente de la Asociación Nacional de Ex Agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza, recordó que en la década de 1970 fue alcanzado por una piedra en la cabeza cuando realizaba un recorrido de vigilancia cerca de El Paso, Texas.
"Caí de rodillas", dijo Lundgren. "Si esa piedra me hubiera golpeado en la sien, el golpe habría sido fatal, sin duda".
Es sumamente raro que los agentes fronterizos estadounidenses enfrenten cargos penales por lesiones o muertes de inmigrantes. En abril, los fiscales federales consideraron que no había evidencias suficientes para fincarle cargos a un agente de la Patrulla Fronteriza por la muerte a tiros de un mexicano de 15 años en Texas.
En 2008, se desechó un caso que vinculaba a un agente de la Patrulla Fronteriza con una muerte, después de dos juicios nulos. Algunos testigos declararon que el agente baleó a un hombre sin provocación alguna, pero la defensa respondió que el inmigrante mexicano trató de propinar una pedrada al acusado.
En tanto, familias mexicanas han presentado múltiples demandas por muertes derivadas de actos considerados imprudentes, y el gobierno estadounidense, aun sin admitir actos indebidos, ha pagado cientos de miles de dólares para dejar atrás esos casos. El año pasado, la familia del inmigrante sin permiso de residencia en Estados Unidos que fue muerto por el agente en el caso desechado llegó a un arreglo por 850.000 dólares. El agente sigue trabajando para la Patrulla Fronteriza.
Incluso el gobierno mexicano ha pedido sin éxito un cambio en las políticas. La Patrulla Fronteriza ha criticado que las autoridades mexicanas no erijan barreras en su lado de la frontera y emprendan pocas acciones para evitar las agresiones a los agentes.
En un comunicado, la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores de México afirmó que ha insistido ante el gobierno estadounidense, mediante diversos canales y a todos los niveles, para que se realice una revisión "indispensable" de los procedimientos y estándares operativos de la Patrulla Fronteriza.
En otros lugares del mundo, la fuerza letal suele considerarse un último recurso. Por ejemplo, la policía israelí suele emplear balas de goma, chorros de agua a presión y gases lacrimógenos para dispersar a las muchedumbres que les lanzan piedras.
Micky Rosenfeld, vocero de la policía israelí, dijo que los agentes abren fuego sólo como un último recurso y después de hacer disparos al aire.
Desde 2002, los agentes fronterizos estadounidenses han recibido armas capaces de disparar proyectiles que rocían gas pimienta, incluso a 75 metros (250 pies) de distancia. La agencia no dio estadísticas sobre cuántas veces se han usado esos proyectiles. Sin embargo, los funcionarios estadounidenses destacan que los agentes en la frontera con México operan en escenarios muy distintos a los que se aprecian en otros países.
Suelen patrullar zonas desérticas en solitario, algo que resulta distinto a las situaciones de protestas, donde las autoridades están agrupadas y protegidas con equipamiento antimotines.
Los expertos consideran que muy poco puede hacerse para detener esta violencia, ante la índole delicada de estos asuntos para la relación diplomática entre los dos países, y debido a que ninguna ley internacional contempla específicamente estos casos.
"A final de cuentas, la política en la relación entre Estados Unidos y México desempeñará un papel mucho más importante que la ley", dijo Kal Raustiala, profesor de derecho y director del Centro Burkle de Relaciones Internacionales en la Universidad de California en Los Angeles. "Hay demasiados intereses de ambas partes para permitir que la indignación totalmente comprensible en México sea la que determine el resultado aquí".
___
El periodista de la AP, Josef Federman, contribuyó a este reporte desde Israel.
OK to grow medical pot ending in Phoenix area
Posted: Friday, November 16, 2012 10:47 am
Associated Press
A clock is now ticking to end the legal right of medical marijuana cardholders in the Phoenix area to grow their own.
State Health Services Director Will Humble says the approval Thursday of a license for the first dispensary in the state means current cardholders with growing authorizations will lose the right to grow marijuana once their cards expire.
Humble says the earliest that current cards expire is next April. A lawyer for the Glendale dispensary says it will open within a week or two.
Humble says the Glendale facility is within the 25-mile radius set by the medical marijuana law's provision allowing people without nearby dispensaries to grow their own.
A Tucson dispensary is to be inspected Tuesday, and approval of a license would restrict growing rights in Tucson.
I guess coffee drinkers and cola addicts like me should be happy that failed.
Of course the government control freaks, along with the religious nut jobs seem to want to make anything that makes you feel good illegal!!!
Caffeine coming to Cracker Jacks, critics howl
By Jayne O'Donnell USA TODAY Fri Nov 16, 2012 4:15 PM
Frito-Lay confirmed Friday that it plans to introduce a line of Cracker Jacks by the end of this year that contains coffee, a move the Center for Science in the Public Interest is fighting.
The new line of snacks, called Cracker Jack'd, will contain coffee, be labeled as containing coffee and caffeine and marketed only to adults, Frito-Lay said in a statement. It will contain snack mixes, popcorn clusters and "Power Bites" wafers. Two of the Power Bites products will have flavors that will contain coffee. Frito-Lay said it expects Power Bites will contain approximately 70 milligrams of caffeine from coffee in each 2-ounce package.
CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson asked FDA to look into Cracker Jack'd because he believed it violated the agency rules. But when he learned the snacks contain coffee -- not pure caffeine -- he was preparing to send a new letter Friday. According to a draft he gave USA TODAY, Jacobson warns that there's "a new craze in which food manufacturers add caffeine (as a pure chemical or as a component of coffee) to a wide range of products." He says some "appear to violate" FDA's determination that caffeine is "generally recognized as safe only in cola-type beverages at concentrations of 0.02(PERCENT) or less (about 48 milligrams per 8 fluid ounces)."
Along with Cracker Jack'd, Jacobson cited:
- Kraft Foods' caffeinated versions of its MiO "water enhancer."
- Kraft's Crystal Light Energy, which contains 60 mg of added caffeine.
- Jelly Belly's "Extreme Sport Beans," which have 50 mg in each 1-ounce packet.
- Arma Energy Snx's line of snack foods such as granola and potato chips that contain caffeine.
- ThinkGeek.com's Energy products, including Gummi Bears, brownies, mints and maple syrup, that contain caffeine.
FDA spokeswoman Carla Daniels says caffeine must be declared as an ingredient if it's added to foods. For conventional foods, the addition of caffeine up to 200 parts per million in colas is generally recognized as safe (GRAS) under FDA's regulations, she says. Although this regulation specifies the level of caffeine considered safe in colas, Daniels says it doesn't preclude the use of caffeine in other foods or automatically consider it safe.
The news comes as highly caffeinated energy drinks and shots have come under increasing fire after reports this week that 5-Hour Energy shots have been linked to 13 deaths in FDA "adverse event" reports. Last month, Monster Energy drinks, which don't list the caffeine content on the label, were linked to five deaths and one heart attack in reports to the FDA.
"Besides energy drinks, I have heard of caffeine being added to candy, sprays, lip gloss, gum, bars, just to name a few, and now Cracker Jack?" says Jim Shepherd, whose 15-year-old son, Brian, died in 2008 after drinking a Red Bull energy drink free sample after a paintball tournament. "There may be a surprise in the box that no one would want to see for their child."
Barbara Crouch executive director of the Utah Poison Control Center, says the increase of caffeine in foods such as Cracker Jack'd "given the other news about reports of adverse consequences of several different energy drinks ... is a recipe for more problems."
"The big problem, in addition to the potential for consuming many, many products with caffeine -- which most people consider safe -- is the risk is enhanced in individuals with underlying cardiovascular disease or seizures or who are on other stimulants," says Crouch, also a clinical professor at the University of Utah's college of pharmacy.
But Richard Berman -- who heads the policy firm Berman & Co., which represents food and restaurant companies he won't name -- says the focus on caffeine goes too far.
"If we start banning small amounts of caffeine in consumer products, how can we allow coffee, tea and chocolate to go unregulated?" asks Berman. "This is simply the latest hype from the CSPI that is always looking for some new food alert to trigger a hysterical press release."
Shepherd says more government action is needed -- both in Canada, where he lives, and the U.S.
"It is time regulators stand up, and stop industry from marketing potentially dangerous products such as this for profit, at the cost of our children's health," Shepherd says. "Our children are just too valuable for us to continue to allow this to happen."
Remember if you are doing something illegal you certainly should not be talking
about it in an email or posting it on the internet where federal, state, county,
and local city cops watch our every move.
You can encrypt your emails with something like PGP,
but I suspect if you piss the Feds off enough they are willing
to spend big bucks to get the folks at the NSA to decrypt your messages.
And last but not least your telephone isn't that safe either.
The police routinely illegally listen to our phone calls without the required "search warrants".
Remember any time you use a cell phone you are also using a radio transmitter and EVERYTHING you say is broadcast onto the airwaves for anybody to listen to.
FBI investigation of Broadwell reveals bureau’s comprehensive access to electronic communications
By Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima, Published: November 17
The FBI started its case in June with a collection of five e-mails, a few hundred kilobytes of data at most.
By the time the probe exploded into public view earlier this month, the FBI was sitting on a mountain of data containing the private communications — and intimate secrets — of a CIA director and a U.S. war commander. What the bureau didn’t have — and apparently still doesn’t — is evidence of a crime.
How that happened and what it means for privacy and national security are questions that have induced shudders in Washington and a queasy new understanding of the FBI’s comprehensive access to the digital trails left by even top officials.
FBI and Justice Department officials have vigorously defended their handling of the case. “What we did was conduct the investigation the way we normally conduct a criminal investigation,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Thursday. “We follow the facts.”
But in this case, the trail cut across a seemingly vast territory with no clear indication of the boundaries, if any, that the FBI imposed on itself. The thrust of the investigation changed direction repeatedly and expanded dramatically in scope.
A criminal inquiry into e-mail harassment morphed into a national security probe of whether CIA Director David H. Petraeus and the secrets he guarded were at risk. After uncovering an extramarital affair, investigators shifted to the question of whether Petraeus was guilty of a security breach.
When none of those paths bore results, investigators settled on the single target they are scrutinizing now: Paula Broadwell, the retired general’s biographer and mistress, and what she was doing with a cache of classified but apparently inconsequential files.
On Capitol Hill, the case has drawn references to the era of J. Edgar Hoover, the founding director of the FBI, who was notorious for digging up dirt on Washington’s elite long before the invention of e-mail and the Internet.
“The expansive data that is available electronically now means that when you’re looking for one thing, the chances of finding a whole host of other things is exponentially greater,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House intelligence committee and a former federal prosecutor.
In this case, Schiff said, the probe may have caused more harm than it uncovered. “It’s very possible that the most significant damage done to national security was the loss of General Petraeus himself,” Schiff said.
Not the usual boundaries
The investigation’s profile has called attention to what legal and privacy experts say are the difficulties of applying constraints meant for gathering physical evidence to online detective work.
Law enforcement officers conducting a legal search have always been able to pursue evidence of other crimes sitting in “plain view.” Investigators with a warrant to search a house for drugs can seize evidence of another crime, such as bombmaking. But the warrant does not allow them to barge into the house next door.
But what are the comparable boundaries online? Does a warrant to search an e-mail account expose the communications of anyone who exchanged messages with the target?
[Warrants, who needs stinking warrants. We will just do an illegal search and laugh when the illegal search causes you to spend thousands of dollars on lawyers to get it throw out. Remember the police are criminals who routinely break the law in an effort to put other criminals in jail. If cops didn't routinely commit perjury they wouldn't have a slang word for it which is testilying!!!]
Similarly, FBI agents monitoring wiretaps have always been obligated to put down their headphones when the conversation is clearly not about a criminal enterprise.
[Do you really think an FBI agent is going to put down the headphones and miss out on all that potentially incriminating dirt???]
It’s known as minimization, a process followed by intelligence and law enforcement agencies to protect the privacy of innocent people.
“It’s harder to do with e-mails, because unlike a phone, you can’t just turn it off once you figure out the conversation didn’t relate to what you’re investigating,” said Michael DuBose, a former chief of the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section who now handles cyber-investigations for Kroll Advisory Solutions.
Some federal prosecutors have sought to establish a “wall” whereby one set of agents conducts a first review of material, disclosing to the investigating agents only what is relevant. But Michael Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor who consults on electronic surveillance issues, said he thinks “that’s the exception rather than the rule.”
[I suspect this is more about convincing juries that the FBI didn't do something illegal, and I doubt if it stops the cops from doing anything illegal.]
It’s unclear whether the FBI made any attempt to minimize its intrusion into the e-mails exchanged by Broadwell and Petraeus, both of whom are married, that provided a gaping view into their adulterous relationship.
Many details surrounding the case remain unclear. The FBI declined to respond to a list of questions submitted by The Washington Post on its handling of personal information in the course of the Petraeus investigation. The bureau also declined to discuss even the broad guidelines for safeguarding the privacy of ordinary citizens whose e-mails might surface in similarly inadvertent fashion.
The scope of the issue is considerable, because the exploding use of e-mail has created a new and potent investigative resource for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement demands for e-mail and other electronic communications from providers such as Google, Comcast and Yahoo are so routine that the companies employ teams of analysts to sort through thousands of requests a month. Very few are turned down.
[Remember what I said about NEVER using email to talk about anything you do that illegal. The article just said the FBI routinely gets Google and Yahoo to help them spy on you!!!!]
Wide access to accounts
Although the Petraeus-Broadwell investigation ensnared high-ranking officials and had potential national security implications, the way the FBI assembled evidence in the case was not extraordinary, according to several experts.
The probe was triggered when a Florida socialite with ties to Petraeus and Gen. John R. Allen, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, went to the FBI in June with menacing e-mails from an anonymous sender.
[Even if you use an anonymous email the cops will almost certainly get the IP address that the email was sent from which probably will point to you!!!!]
Schiff and others have questioned why the FBI even initiated the case. Law enforcement officials have explained that they were concerned because the earliest e-mails indicated that the sender had access to details of the personal schedules of Petraeus and Allen.
The FBI’s first pile of data came from Jill Kelley, who got to know Petraeus and Allen when she worked as an unofficial social liaison at the military base in Tampa where both men were assigned.
In early summer, Kelley received several anonymous e-mails warning her to stay away from Allen and Petraeus. Kelley was alarmed and turned over her computer to the FBI; she may also have allowed access to her e-mail accounts.
The e-mails were eventually traced to Broadwell, who thought that Kelley was a threat to her relationship with Petraeus, law enforcement officials said. But the trail to Broadwell was convoluted.
Broadwell reportedly tried to cover her tracks by using as many as four anonymous e-mail accounts and sending the messages from computers in business centers at hotels where she was staying while on a nationwide tour promoting her biography of Petraeus. According to some accounts, the FBI traced the e-mails to those hotels, then examined registries for names of guests who were checked in at the time.
[See they can hunt down anonymous emails based on the IP address that sent them]
The recent sex scandal that's rocked the armed forces and the CIA has highlighted an often-unseen problem in military families: Marital infidelity. Anthony Mason and Rebecca Jarvis speak with two Army wives to understand if infidelity is the military's dirty little secret.
Once Broadwell was identified, FBI agents would have gone to Internet service providers with warrants for access to her accounts. Experts said companies typically comply by sending discs that contain a sender’s entire collection of accounts, enabling the FBI to search the inbox, draft messages and even deleted correspondence not yet fully erased.
“You’re asking them for e-mails relevant to the investigation, but as a practical matter, they let you look at everything,” said a former federal prosecutor who, like many interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition on anonymity because the FBI inquiry is continuing.
FBI agents can then roam through every corner of the account as if it were their own.
[Which is why you should NEVER post illegal stuff on the internet!!!!!!]
The capability to scour e-mail accounts has expanded the bureau’s investigative power dramatically, even in crimes previously seen as difficult to prosecute. For example, officials said, the ability to reconstruct communications between reporters and their sources helps explain why the Obama administration has been able to bring more leak prosecutions than all of its predecessors combined.
E-mail searches vary in scope and technique, from scanning contents for key words “to literally going through and opening every file and looking at what it says,” a former Justice Department official said.
Law enforcement officials said the FBI never sought access to Allen’s computer or accounts. It’s unclear whether it did so with Petraeus. But through Kelley and Broadwell, the bureau had amassed an enormous amount of data on the two men — including sexually explicit e-mails between Petraeus and Broadwell and questionable communications between Allen and Kelley.
Petraeus and Broadwell had tried to conceal their communications by typing drafts of messages, hitting “save” but not “send,” and then sharing passwords that provided access to the drafts. But experts said that ruse would have posed no obstacle for the FBI, because agents had full access to the e-mail accounts.
As they pore over data, FBI agents are not supposed to search for key words unrelated to the warrant under which the data were obtained. But if they are simply reading through document after document, they can pursue new leads that surface.
“Most times, if you found evidence of a second crime, you would stop and go back and get a second warrant” to avoid a courtroom fight over admissibility of evidence, a former prosecutor said. But in practical terms, there is no limit on the number of investigations that access to an e-mail account may spawn.
‘Because of who it was’
There is nothing illegal about the Petraeus-Broadwell affair under federal law. Were it not for Petraeus’s prominent position, the probe might have ended with no consequence. But because of his job — and the concern that intelligence officers caught in compromising positions could be susceptible to blackmail — the probe wasn’t shut down.
“If this had all started involving someone who was not the director of the CIA . . . they would have ignored it,” said David Sobel, senior counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy group. “A bell went off because of who it was.”
That consideration triggered a cascade of additional quandaries for the Justice Department, including whether and when to notify Congress and the White House. The FBI finally did so on election night, Nov. 6, when Deputy Director Sean Joyce called Petraeus’s boss, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr.
After being confronted by Clapper, Petraeus agreed to resign.
President Obama said last week that there was “no evidence at this point, from what I’ve seen, that classified information was disclosed that in any way would have had a negative impact on our national security.”
But the data assembled on Allen and Petraeus continue to reverberate. The FBI turned over its stockpile of material on Allen — said to contain as many as 30,000 pages of e-mail transcripts — to the Defense Department, prompting the Pentagon inspector general to start an investigation.
The CIA has also launched an inspector general investigation into Petraeus and his 14-month tenure at the agency, seeking to determine, among other things, whether he used the perks of the position to enable his affair with Broadwell.
If it follows its own protocols, the FBI will hold on to the data for decades. Former officials said the bureau retains records for 20 years for closed criminal investigations, and 30 years for closed national security probes.
Sari Horwitz and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Counting the Days Till Marijuana’s Legal
By KIRK JOHNSON
Published: November 17, 2012
SEATTLE — Stoner humor just got a lot more complicated.
Back in the days when Cheech and Chong were more risqué than wrinkled, it wafted along as one of those cultural subgenres, with its own nudge-and-wink punch lines. If you got it and laughed, you implicated yourself — and laughed again. The police mostly kept their faces straight.
But now the prospect of legalized marijuana in small amounts for personal use — approved by voters in Washington State and Colorado on Election Day — is creating a buzz of improvisation, from local law enforcement agencies up through state government.
Devising from scratch a system for legal sales and informing the public about the law are both tasks, state and local officials say, that require the turning over of a new leaf.
And the Seattle Police Department — through blog posts written by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, 29, a former crime reporter for a Seattle alternative weekly called The Stranger — is leading the charge. Bilbo Baggins from “The Lord of the Rings” lends a hand too, shown in a film clip on the police blog relishing a smokable product of uncertain provenance called Old Toby, which Bilbo says, with a blissful sigh, is “the finest weed in the South Farthing.”
The goal: official communications in language that the hip, young, urban and quite possibly stoned audience that Mr. Spangenthal-Lee wrote for at The Stranger might actually want to read.
Worried about what happens if the police pull you over after Dec. 6, when the law, I-502, takes effect, and you are sober but they smell that bag of Super Skunk in your trunk? Mr. Spangenthal-Lee’s “Marijwhatnow” post has the answer. “The smell of pot alone will not be reason to search,” he writes.
Another question: “December 6th seems like a really long ways away. What happens if I get caught with marijuana before then?”
Answer: “Hold your breath.”
Question: “SPD seized a bunch of my marijuana before I-502 passed. Can I have it back?”
Answer: “No.”
“There’s no handbook for any of this,” Mr. Spangenthal-Lee said in an interview. Meanwhile, the “Marijwhatnow” post has gone closer to viral than perhaps any official police communication in history, with 26,000 Facebook “likes” and more than 218,000 page views as of Friday.
Whether full legalization will actually occur as envisioned by the law — up to an ounce is allowed for use by an adult — is hazy. Possession remains a federal crime, but Gov. Christine Gregoire, after meeting with Justice Department officials last week, said federal prosecutors gave her no clear indication of what they would do either before or after Dec. 6.
“We are following the will of the voters and moving ahead with implementation,” Ms. Gregoire said in a statement.
“Implementation” presents some high hurdles. The law allows only one year for the state to create a system of licenses for growers, processors and sellers, and to resolve equally confusing issues like the potency levels of the various products and the prices. Teams began meeting right after the election at the Washington State Liquor Control Board, which has been assigned to create and administer a marketplace.
Mr. Spangenthal-Lee, who has been writing for the Seattle Police Department’s crime blog, SPD Blotter, since March, said he tried to imagine all the questions people would ask about the new law and then follow his own nose as a newsman in getting the answers.
Will, for example, police officers be allowed to smoke marijuana?
“As of right now, no,” he wrote.
“Marijuana legalization creates some challenges for the Seattle Police Department,” the post said, “but SPD is already working to respond to these issues head on.”
Data Doctors: Are my emails private from government agencies?
Posted: Monday, November 19, 2012 8:00 am
By Ken Colburn, Data Doctors
Q: What is Metadata? And after the scandal of General Petraeus, are our emails private from government agencies? - Jeremy
A: E-mail has always been one of the least secure methods of transmitting data electronically and this recent scandal shows that even being tech-savvy isn’t much help.
When an e-mail message is created and sent, the message passes through a number of mail servers (think of them as post offices for snail mail) and a record of where the message came from and where it went (via IP addresses) is also created by virtually every device that handles the message.
Since most messages are sent in plain text, it’s technically possible for anyone or any system to read your message anywhere along the way (which is why e-mail encryption is important for sensitive messages). The reality is that most companies have very strict systems in place to keep just anyone from accessing those messages, but the opportunity still exists. [That is BS - Any person with computer administrative powers can read your emails.
This is typically a "root" user in the UNIX or Linux worlds.
But email administrators without "root" powers can also read your emails]
The information about the message, a.k.a. the ‘metadata’ is how the scandal was exposed. If we continue the snail mail analogy, the post office stamps mail to help route it and DNA or fingerprints on the outside of an envelope can be used to help track down the sender of the mail without ever opening the mail.
[Again he is oversimplifying things. This so called 'metadata' is part of the email. It's at the very beginning of each email, and if you can read it, you can also read the email.]
Petraeus, the Director of the CIA, knew that sending and receiving e-mail from an anonymous account wouldn’t be safe, so he used a method commonly used by terrorists and teenagers: create draft messages, but never send them.
If two people have the username and password for the same account, they can create messages for each other that don’t leave the usual trails described above. They save them as draft copies so the other can log in and read the draft, then respond in-kind without ever sending a traceable message.
[Well that is almost right. When the message is created, edited or read it does travel over the internet and someone that is monitoring your internet traffic could read it]
Had this been the only communication from the involved parties, they would likely never have been discovered but as usual, human error exposed the affair.
The jealous mistress sent harassing e-mails from an anonymous account to another woman she thought was being flirtatious, which is a criminal violation and began the unravelling of the affair.
The government can’t read your private messages without some level of due process, except in rare situations, but the process is what so many privacy advocates are concerned about.
[That is in theory. In reality the FBI and Homeland security police are just as crooked as the criminals they hunt and they routinely illegally read people email, and after they discover a crime they will commit perjury and make up a lame excuse to get the search warrant they were supposed to have before they read your emails]
The current laws were created when electronic storage was expensive and we all tended to use one device and delete things to save space. Today, storage is cheap and we use a plethora of devices that in turn create more records that we tend to keep for much longer periods.
Under current laws, any e-mail that is 6 months old or older can be requested if a criminal prosecutor signs the request. If the message is less than 6 months old, a court order from a judge is required.
[But that won't stop a crooked cop from illegally reading your data]
In either case, something that the courts recognize as probable cause has to trigger the request when it comes to the averages citizen. If someone suspected that Petraeus was having an affair, that wouldn’t have been enough to allow the FBI to start requesting access to his personal e-mail accounts.
His mistress’ harassing emails which violated part of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is what opened to door and eventually lead to the exposure of the affair to the world.
The lessons to be learned from this scandal are that e-mail has never been or will never be a secure way to communicate with others, if you want to make it more difficult for the government to access your messages, make sure you delete them before they are 6 months old and no matter how secure you think you are, all it takes is one simple human error (or jealous mistress) to render your ‘security system’ useless.
[While that might be "technically" right, it is wrong in reality. Just because YOU logically delete one of your emails doesn't mean it is physically deleted from the server that keeps your message. And even if you logically delete a message, but it still physically exists on a server the police can read it. The same is true with files on your personal computer. While you may logically delete a file, it frequently continues to exist on your computer and if it does exist the police can still read it.]
[The bottom line is if you have something that you want to remain private DON'T put it on the internet where 2 billion people might be able to read it.]
Letter: War on drugs has adverse effects
Posted: Sunday, November 18, 2012 4:08 pm
Letter to the editor
Recently, you ran a front page story about: “Police agencies don’t test thousands of rape kits” (Nov. 11, 2012).
This is not just a local issue. Throughout the United States rape kits are going unused and murders are going unsolved for one major reason: the War on Drugs. I urge the readers to view this short video featuring the former LAPD Deputy Chief of Police Stephen Downing:
http://tinyurl.com/b3juxa4.
There is no financial incentive for police agencies to solve murders or rapes, however, there is major incentives to confiscate drug money. Before the drug war, police were credited with solving 91 percent of the murders in the U.S. Today, they solve 61 percent.
In drug transactions, there are willing buyers and willing sellers. In rapes or murders there are unwilling victims. I want our police to protect me against people who want to harm me against my will. Not myself.
Kirk Muse
Mesa
Here is a transcript from the above video t hat Kirk Muse mentioned in his letter to the editor.
As I have said a number of times the "drug war" is a jobs program for cops, and a government welfare program for the corporations involved in it.
Here is a snip of what Terry Nelson a former drug war police managers says on it:
The military-industrial complex does not want it to end, because if you sell a Sikorsky helicopter to Colombia for $16 million, that's nothing. It's going to cost $100 million a year to put the maintenance contract in place to keep them flying.
So it's all about the money. In law enforcement, it's all about the Benjamins. You follow the money trail, you find the problem."
November 13, 2012
Is The War on Drugs "All About the Money"?
Stephen Downing,a retired deputy chief of police for the Los Angeles Police Department and Terry Nelson, retired from Department of Homeland Security on why they support treating addiction as a health problem and are for the total legalization of drugs
Stephen Downing is a retired deputy chief of police for the Los Angeles Police Department. As Commander of the Bureau of Special Investigations at one point, the Administrative Narcotics Division was one of the divisions within his scope of authority.
Terry Nelson's law-enforcement career spanned three decades. It included service in the US Border Patrol, the US Customs Service, and the Department of Homeland Security, taking him beyond the US borders into Mexico, Central America, and South America. In various capacities, he acquired first-hand knowledge of the war on drugs through his direct involvement with counter-narcotics missions. He labored with distinction, even receiving special Congressional recognition for his work. Terry retired in 2005 as a GS-14 air/marine group supervisor. He is a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, having served as a communications specialist in Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines. He served nine years in the U.S. Border Patrol including a stint as instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, three years in marine operations in the Florida Keys, one year as a customs inspector at DFW Airport, seven years as an air interdiction officer/criminal investigator, two years as staff officer to the director of foreign operations, and five years on the staff for the Field Director, Surveillance Support Branch East. During this period the SSBE team participated in the seizure of over 230,000 pounds of cocaine and received the United States Interdiction Committee award for interdictions.
Transcript
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. And we're continuing our discussions with members of LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. These are police officers who believe that the prohibition against drugs is failing and the war on drugs should be stopped and drugs should be legalized.
Now joining us to talk about this, first of all, is Stephen Downing. Stephen's a retired deputy chief of police for the Los Angeles Police Department. He was commander of the Bureau of Special Investigations. One of those divisions was the Administrative Narcotics Division. Thanks for joining us.
Also joining us is Terry Nelson. Terry's law enforcement career spanned three decades. It included service in the U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Customs Service, and the Department of Homeland Security, taking him beyond the U.S. borders into Mexico, Central America, and South America. In various capacities he acquired a first-hand knowledge of the war on drugs through his direct involvement with counternarcotics missions. Thanks very much for joining us.
TERRY NELSON, CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION SUPERVISOR, DEPT. HOMELAND SECURITY (RET.): Thank you for having me.
JAY: So start with your own story. You're a Texan. You told me off-camera you're a Republican. You grew up with these values (I would have thought) that the war on drugs is a necessity, and you were involved in fighting it. What is your thinking in the beginning of your career? And how does that—your experience change that thinking?
NELSON: Well, as a young officer, you think you can make a difference, of course, and you spend years trying, and then all of a sudden you realize the futility of what you're doing 'cause you're not making any progress.
I never really turned against the war on drugs until I got into command structure and was working in Central and South America and saw the total futility of—like, Plan Colombia was $5.2 billion we spent trying to train the Colombian police and spraying herbicides on the coca crop. At the end of five years of that program, the coca production went up 25 percent in Colombia. So either we were spraying fertilizer on it instead of herbicide or the farmers became much better. And that's what happened. The more successful we were in destroying the crops, the more successful the farmers were, and they tripled the yield of the coca plant in about three years. So they made up all the difference and actually produced 25 percent more cocaine than they had at the beginning of the drug war. You see this and you know you're not going to arrest your way out of the drug war. Arrest and incarceration will never work. But education, we believe, will work.
JAY: Okay. So that coin dropped for you, but you're working with other officers. And in the command structure, do you talk about these things? And what kind of pushback do you get?
NELSON: Well, you talk about it somewhat, but you have to be careful, because everyone wants to get promoted. That's the whole purpose of going in, to work your way up the chain, where you can have more influence on what's going on.
I spoke out at an interdiction committee meeting one time with—I called in a triple-PhD from Washington, D.C., that came down just to tell us how to do the—he was laying out economic models and said, if we can just destroy this much property, this much coke, we can win this drug war. And I stood up and said, am I the only SOB in this room that thinks we're doing this wrong and we should change our strategy? And everybody applauded until I was called up in front of the room and he stuck his finger in my chest and said, Agent Nelson, you don't make policy, you carry it out, so you salute smartly and you go back and sit down [incompr.] Okay. So when I got out of the service, I decided I was going to help change that policy, because I could do it then.
JAY: Stephen, how about you? You're in tough territory, downtown L.A. Drugs must be one of the overwhelming things you have to deal with. You must have bought into this idea that it was necessary.
STEPHEN DOWNING, DEPUTY CHIEF, LAPD (RET.): Well, as a young 22-year-old coming in from a rural community, going into the academy, you listen to what they tell you and you believe it. And so you buy into—at that time you were still buying into the residual of Harry Anslinger, who said that blacks and browns use marijuana and it makes them rape white women. And so a lot of the myth-making was still alive. And you believe it. You go out on the street.
And in those days, just possession of a tiny amount of marijuana was a felony. Well, a felony arrest was a big deal for a young police officer. And so you did your job. And in those days, especially in those days, quota systems were rampant. The measurement of good police work was not an absence of crime; it was what did your recap look like at the end of the day. But as you grow and you go through the ranks and you study and you become a manager, you realize that there are more effective methods for supervising police operations.
And so by the time I was a commander, it was about the same time that President Nixon announced the war on drugs, and it was also the same time that I had just uncovered at the divisional level the growth of two small gangs. They were called the Bloods and the Crips. And they had a membership of less than 100. So our charge—when Nixon announced the war on drugs, I took over the narcotic effort, narcotic enforcement effort. Our strategy, which was the national strategy—cut the head off the snake, reduce the flow of drugs into the country, and reduce drug abuse and drug addiction. Well, as we started, a big deal when we call the press for our dog-and-pony shows: one or two kilos, a few thousand dollars, a few handguns. Next month, it's a little more than that. A little more. A little more.
So today you look at it—and there is really no metric—none—that measures success—all of the metrics say this is a failure. Those two small gangs in the 40 years of this drug war have grown to 33,000 gangs across the nation with a membership of 1.5 million. When we started, the cartels were barely heard of. They were somewhere in South America, Latin America. Two years ago, the DOJ said the cartels control drug trafficking with the help of the gangs in 250 American cities. This year the DOJ said the drug cartels control drug trafficking in 1,000 American cities.
So we haven't made a dent in these three strategy approaches. Addiction, drug abuse, it goes up and down. The flow of drugs is now warehouses full. The guns are tens of thousands of war-level weapons. And the money, even being laundered by domestic banks, they get a slap on the hand, there's millions of dollars on pallets.
And cutting the head off the snake, I came to discover as a police executive who likes to do a good job and likes to meet his goals and effectively execute the strategy, that was a big thing to me, because I finally decided there's no snake, it's starfish. And when you cut a starfish in half, you get two starfish. When you cut it four ways, you get four. And the only way to kill a starfish is to remove its nutrient. And in the case of the cartels and the gangs, the nutrient is money.
They can't function without money. They can't buy guns, money can't be laundered, and they'll be out of business. And so prohibition creates their opportunity for money. And if we take that black market away, we're going to dry 'em up. And that's what I discovered as a police executive. And that's why I believe that the only way to get out from under this—.
And since I've left the department in the '80s, they just poured more money in, unprecedented money. They militarized our police. The federal government bought off our police, in effect, by providing military equipment, by providing grants.
This asset-seizure program, it's evil. It's totally evil. They say they created it to get the kingpins, but the average seizure's $15,000, and if a guy wants to get his $15,000 car back, he can't hire a lawyer for that kind of money. So all of these things that go into the harm of people, the discussions about prisons—California in 1980 had a total prison population of 23,000. Between 1980 and now, we've built 23 prisons, we've hired thousands of prison guards, we've fired thousands of teachers. Today our prison population is 163,000. Twenty-five thousand of those are nonviolent drug offenders, at $65,000 a piece a year to keep them in jail. That's $1.52 million.
And this year, we told our 23-campus university system: no more new students. Our community college student—three weeks ago, demonstrations, 500,000 kids can't get classes. So we're trading the education of America for a drug war that's just stacking our prisons with cordwood, destroying families, destroying neighborhoods, unraveling our whole social structure.
JAY: So when colleagues of yours, people you know in law enforcement hear arguments like this and arguments that you give, I don't understand how they cannot be persuaded. What is this sort of moral imperative that seems to be deep in American political culture that you got to fight this war on drugs 'cause somehow it represents the struggle between good and evil or something?
NELSON: Well, our drug czar recently came out and said that drug abuse is not a moral failure. So he actually came out and said that. And he also said, we're not going to arrest our way out of the drug war. The issue is—.
JAY: Who said that?
NELSON: Kerlikowski, the drug czar.
The issue is it's institutionalized. Prison unions fight us all the time. Police unions fight us because they don't want it legalized, because then they're going to lose membership. As he mentioned earlier, the police make a tremendous amount of money from the federal government, not counting—if the police arrest someone at night, a couple of kids for a few joints, they take them in and arrest them, put them in jail, they go back the next day for a hearing, they get three hours overtime a piece. It's a money-making machine for them. They don't want to quit it.
The military-industrial complex does not want it to end, because if you sell a Sikorsky helicopter to Colombia for $16 million, that's nothing. It's going to cost $100 million a year to put the maintenance contract in place to keep them flying.
So it's all about the money. In law enforcement, it's all about the Benjamins. You follow the money trail, you find the problem. And everybody's making money off of the current drug war at the expense of our children's futures, because when you get arrested for a drug offense, I don't care if they don't put you in jail; you've got an arrest record. And when you go to get a job, you check the box, they see you've had an arrest, they look and you had a drug arrest, you're not going to get hired. You're going to be marginalized the rest of your life. And that's going to mean you're not going to pay your fair share of the taxes that you would have earned if you'd have been able to get a decent job. And instead of being—contributing to your society, you actually are a drain on our society.
And I don't blame the people, other than the fact that they broke the law. They're in a position they can't get out of. I mean, once you've got the arrest record, that monkey's on your back the rest of your life. Our saying in LEAP is you can get over an addiction; you will never get over a conviction, 'cause it follows you throughout your life.
So it's not just a short-term thing. It ruins the people for the next 30, 40 years, breaks up families. One-point-nine million kids go to bed every night 'cause one of their parents are in prison. Forty-some-odd percent of the people that go to prison this year will have had a family member in prison in front of them. And 25 percent of the children or the kids that will go to prison this year come out of a foster home or an institution.
Well, that tells you right there this is a hamster wheel. We're destroying the very people that drug policy claims to want to protect, which is our children. We're breaking up families. They're raised in foster home. They've become—one parent goes to jail, the other parent has to get a second job. There's no one to monitor the kids. The evil wheel keeps turning. They're on the street. They're going to get in trouble. We all know that. Kids are going to be kids. We've got to keep our kids safe until they reach adulthood.
JAY: So some people think that if you legalize, it leads virtually to anarchy. If it's legal, everyone's going to go out and do drugs or way more people are going to run off and do drugs, and the place is going to go crazy, and we've got to clamp down on it. I mean, how do you argue against that?
DOWNING: We legalized alcohol after a horrible 13-year experience where we discovered we really made some very bad decisions, and that didn't happen. We retune it and we returned at that time. We passed a constitutional amendment to put it into effect, and we passed a constitutional amendment to get rid of alcohol prohibition, and we returned the responsibility to the states, which is provided by our constitution, demanded by our constitution. And all of the states, gee, they worked things out, they controlled and regulated and set up their systems, and they served as models for each other, and they would adopt things. So over time we had regulated and controlled alcohol.
And during the same time, the organized crime syndicates that were born as a result of alcohol prohibition, they died. We took their nutrients away, like I say, and they died out. Now, we're always going to have some criminal organizations, but when we announce a war on drugs, zoom—right back they came. But this time, the bribery is institutionalized. In Capone's day, they took the brown bag full of money and handed it to the politicians or the policemen. These days, the money comes through our system and bribes our institutions and our police, especially because they've militarized our police and they've diverted them away from what I call the social contract our police officers have with their communities, and that's to protect them from crimes against person and crimes against property.
A perfect example in Los Angeles two years ago—you might have read about it. The paper uncovered the fact that the police laboratory was backlogged 3,000 rape kids, a three-year backlog, meaning that women who have been raped were waiting for their cases to be resolved because detectives handling their cases did not have laboratory results. So it was a big [haz@rA], and they scrambled around and they found $10 million and said, we're going to catch this up.
Well, what nobody really said is: how come they're backlogged? And the reason they're backlogged is because when a person is arrested with narcotics, that's a body in custody that's going to show up in court, and they can't show up in court until that narcotic has been analyzed. And so all this dope arrests, 43 million arrests since 1971 in this country, those are analyzed in our laboratories. And every time somebody's arrested, the others are pushed back.
So they cleaned that one up. And this year, now they've got—they're behind by 4,000 fingerprint examinations. Fingerprint examinations are coming off of burglaries, they're coming off of assaults, they're coming off of robberies, stores. These are the crimes the police are supposed to be working with their communities to solve. But at the same time they're making all these narcotic arrests, they're angering people in the communities because they're jacking the kids up against the walls or sitting them on the sidewalks, they're draping them across the hoods of their cars. And 90 percent of those frisks that are going on are all about drugs. They're not about the criminal problems. And so pretty soon you don't have a community communicating with you, you don't have a community cooperating with you, because this drug war has destroyed that cooperation and it's destroyed respect for the professional law enforcement.
JAY: Just quickly, what would you like to see?
NELSON: I would like to see total legalization of all drugs, which will cure about 80 percent of our crime and violence issues. Won't do anything for our drug problem, because that's a separate issue, and I believe that's a medical and a social issue that's best handled through education and treatment instead of arrest and incarceration.
JAY: Thanks very much.
NELSON: Thank you for having us.
JAY: Thank you very much.
And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
End
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"Prison unions fight us all the time. Police unions fight us because they don't want it legalized, because then they're going to lose membership. As he mentioned earlier, the police make a tremendous amount of money from the federal government, not counting—if the police arrest someone at night, a couple of kids for a few joints, they take them in and arrest them, put them in jail, they go back the next day for a hearing, they get three hours overtime a piece. It's a money-making machine for them. They don't want to quit it.
Source