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Tag: war on drugs

  • It ain’t easy…

    “Freeway Rick” talks about the trials and tribulations of being a big-time crack dealer.

    Specifically, this podcast from NPR: Planet Money tests various economic theories about crack dealing. But it’s a shame the economists have to “discover” this when better sociological and ethnographic work said this a long time ago. The drug stuff starts a minute into the podcast.

    And lest how we forget, “Freeway Rick” Ross–along with being a violent drug dealer destroying lives and communities–also contributed to a patriotic cause. He was buying drugs from the CIA, and what could be more patriotic than that? And his money was then used to buy guns for the Contras. And the Contras, as Ronald Reagan told us, were great freedom fighters!

    Also, to my surprise, I didn’t realize that crack might have been invented as early as 1974, and in San Francisco. See page 33 of this book and the research of Ronald Siegel.

    [Though I’m still curious about an obscure 1908 reference to cocaine with a “small crystal ‘rock-candy’ form” (Cop in the Hood, p. 270, note 71)]

    [thanks to Alan I.]

  • My head hurts

    Talk about culture wars cognitive dissonance. No matter your political leanings, there’s something in this story to make your head explode.

    A man born a woman was fired for not being man from his $10/hour job at a drug treatment center watching people pee into cups for drug tests. He’s suing his former employer on the grounds of “gender-identity discrimination,” which is illegal in New Jersey.

  • Slash and Burn

    Aggressive crackdowns on criminal organizations in Mexico and Colombia have increasingly brought the powerful drug syndicates into Central America.

    We winning yet?

  • Civil Forfeiture for a Quarter-Ounce of Weed

    So, if you have a quarter-ounce of weed in your home, should police be able to take all your possessions. That’s what can happen and has happened in Michigan. And the problem is getting worse in tight economic times.

    If you do think it is OK, why shouldn’t police be able to take your car when you speed, or better yet, a parking violation? Just what is it about drugs that makes the normal rules not apply?

    Radley Balko writes about it in Reason:

    Legal niceties are often the only distinction between civil asset forfeiture and a shakedown. [Moskos here: I’m against civil forfeiture. But every time I hear the term “legal niceties” I reach for my gun. Those “niceties” are the law. And that’s a pretty important distinction to make, at least for law enforcement.]
    …
    Informants are often drug dealers, who benefit from ratting on the competition, or addicts who tip off police in exchange for money, which they then use to purchase drugs. It is not at all uncommon for police to overlook an informant’s own drug activity.
    …
    Police likewise manufacture crimes when they set up drug deals. The routine deception and betrayal involved in befriending someone, asking him for a favor, and then punishing him for helping you out would be recognized as outrageous in almost any other context.
    …
    Even within the context of an unjust prohibition system, there are cops who do their jobs by the letter of the law. But we should not be surprised when some of the police officers we ask to enforce morally suspect laws day after day, year after year, eventually cross the line from actions that are unethical but legal to acts that are both unethical and illegal.

    [thanks to D.K.]

  • The cost for weed arrests just went up

    Last week I reported that marijuana arrests in New York City cost the city $75 million per year. In truth, that’s a pretty conservative estimate. One thing left out is the cost of actually testing the drugs people are arrested for. Now if somebody takes a quick plea, the drugs may never be tested. But with 50,000 marijuana arrests, there must be a lot of testing going on.

    But how much does it cost to test drugs? Good question. I’ve always wondered. Well in Nassau County (Eastern Long Island), it’s going to cost them up to $167 per test to clean up their crime lab mess. That’s through a private company. I would hope and assume that the NYPD does it in-house for cheaper.

    Still… 50,000 drug tests could cost most than $8,000,000. Just add that to the bill.

  • The DEA and the Death Penalty

    Good ol’ Radley has the most interesting take I’ve read. The subject is the DEA seizing death-penalty drugs in Georgia because they were… bought illegally from a foreign country.

  • OMG

    I just read in the New York Times that kids are using Facebook! But Facebook says you’re supposed to be, like, 13. So, some kids are even [gulp] lying about their age!

    Says one concerned person: “It’s lying — and about age,” Ms. Kaune said. “What happens when they want to drink beer?”

    Uh, last time I checked, when you want you’re underage, you lie about your age and drink beer. Actually, you don’t lie about your age until you want to buybeer. Kids still do that, right? I hope so.

    Is that really this parent’s fear? That her son will drink a beer before his 21st birthday?

    The only think I celebrated on my 21st birthday was no having to use my excellent fake ID.

    You know, it’s one thing to have an absurdly high 21-year-old drinking age for beer. It’s another to think that these prohibition laws somehow make sense.

    Beer, weed, crack, shooting up heroin: the slippery slope starts with 11-year-olds on facebook! Stop them before it’s too late!!

  • “I am therefore ill-equipped to be her judge in this matter.”

    David Simon on Snoop’s Arrest from the Baltimore Sun:

    What follows is a personal statement from David Simon, Creator and Executive Producer of “The Wire” (and currently in production on “Treme”).

    First of all, Felicia’s entitled to the presumption of innocence. And I would note that a previous, but recent drug arrest that targeted her was later found to be unwarranted and the charges were dropped. Nonetheless, I’m certainly sad at the news today. This young lady has, from her earliest moments, had one of the hardest lives imaginable. And whatever good fortune came from her role in ‘The Wire’ seems, in retrospect, limited to that project. She worked hard as an actor and was entirely professional, but the entertainment industry as a whole does not offer a great many roles for those who can portray people from the other America. There are, in fact, relatively few stories told about the other America.

    Beyond that, I am waiting to see whether the charges against Felicia relate to heroin or marijuana. Obviously, the former would be, to my mind, a far more serious matter. And further, I am waiting to see if the charges or statement of facts offered by the government reflect any involvement with acts of violence, which would of course be of much greater concern.

    In an essay published two years ago in Time Magazine, the writers of ‘The Wire’ made the argument that we believe the war on drugs has devolved into a war on the underclass, that in places like West and East Baltimore, where the drug economy is now the only factory still hiring and where the educational system is so crippled that the vast majority of children are trained only for the corners, a legal campaign to imprison our most vulnerable and damaged citizens is little more than amoral. And we said then that if asked to serve on any jury considering a non-violent drug offense, we would move to nullify that jury’s verdict and vote to acquit. Regardless of the defendant, I still believe such a course of action would be just in any case in which drug offenses — absent proof of violent acts — are alleged.

    Both our Constitution and our common law guaranty that we will be judged by our peers. But in truth, there are now two Americas, politically and economically distinct. I, for one, do not qualify as a peer to Felicia Pearson. The opportunities and experiences of her life do not correspond in any way with my own, and her America is different from my own. I am therefore ill-equipped to be her judge in this matter.

  • Mexico Frustrated at US Inability to Control Border

    At least when it comes to our guns and demand for drugs. Calderon and Obama met, and seemed to accomplish nothing.

    Of course the border can’t be sealed, not if we want free trade. So we’ll keep getting their drugs, because we want them and have money. And they’ll keep getting our guns, because they want them and have money. That’s the way the free market works.

    In a show of confidence in Calderon’s efforts, the Obama administration said it would continue to send aid to support Mexico in the drug war. A senior administration official said the U.S. plans to speed up implementation of the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative, with $900 million to be doled out by the end of the year.

    I didn’t realize that we haven’t actually honored our word to give them the money we promised to give, back in 2006. That was when we told then President Fox that we would give him billions if only he backed down from his rational idea to end the drug war. He did. We didn’t. “Here’s your money… Psych!” What a sucker. He believed us!

    I imagine it went something like this. Let’s pretend Fox’s first name were Bob, and that he’s a fan of country andwestern music. The US “Good Ole Boys” of A are like The Blues Brothers. The location, naturally, is the Bunker Country de Bob:

    Mexico: You know you boys owe me a lot over money for that war on drugs you want me to fight goddamnit.

    US: We loved playing here. My brother’s writing out an American Express travellers cheque to cover the extensive tab.

    Mexico: Well, I sure would appreciate it.

    US: I’d better check up, see how he’s doing, see I have to sign it too. I usually sit in the car and write it out on the glove compartment lid. Okay?

    [US walks towards the car and feels jacket pockets.]

    US: Need a Pencil!

    [US get in the car, quickly starts it and zooms off toward the border.]

    Mexico: Them boys owe me 1.4 billion dollars!

    US: Our lady of blessed acceleration don’t fail me now.

    The drug war got ramped up and turned Northern Mexico into a killing zone.

    Today’s article also says that current President Calderon has been worried that “politicians could be tempted to return to a tacit policy of tolerating the gangs.” Short of legalizing and ending the drug war, isn’t that we want? Then at least we might be able to turn back the clock to 2006 before all this deadly nonsense, when there were just a few hundred prohibition deaths each year.

  • DEA Runs Out of Money

    Don’t I wish! Actually, the DEA is just out of money to help localities clean up meth labs after they’re raided.

    Cleaning up a meth lab costs $2,500. Last year the DEA allocated just $10 million to the cause. Obama’s new budget cuts this funding. I guess when you’re as lean and trim as the DEA with their annual budget of $2,602,000,000 (enough to clean more than one-million meth labs), there really is no other choice.