Drugs & Prohibition

The DEA Wants to Use a $37 Pot Sale to Seize a $1.5 Million Anaheim Building

"As it happens, the building owners are the kind of clients whom defense attorneys love to represent: law-abiding citizens. Specifically, they are married, in their late middle age and from Irvine. The wife is a dentist; the husband a computer engineer who holds a government security clearance, which is why the latter asked to remain anonymous. Although he feels he has done nothing wrong, he explains, even being accused of allowing his property to be used to break the law is embarrassing to him." Continue reading →

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Why Police Lie Under Oath

"Are police officers necessarily more trustworthy than alleged criminals? I think not. Not just because the police have a special inclination toward confabulation, but because, disturbingly, they have an incentive to lie. In this era of mass incarceration, the police shouldn’t be trusted any more than any other witness, perhaps less so. Agencies receive cash rewards for arresting high numbers of people for drug offenses, no matter how minor the offenses or how weak the evidence. Law enforcement has increasingly become a numbers game. And as it has, police officers’ tendency to regard procedural rules as optional and to lie and distort the facts has grown as well." Continue reading →

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Marijuana Fights Cancer and Helps Manage Side Effects, Researchers Find

"Cristina Sanchez, a young biologist at Complutense University in Madrid, was studying cell metabolism when she noticed something peculiar. She had been screening brain cancer cells because they grow faster than normal cell lines and thus are useful for research purposes. But the cancer cells died each time they were exposed to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive ingredient of marijuana. Instead of gaining insight into how cells function, Sanchez had stumbled upon the anti-cancer properties of THC." Continue reading →

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Absent Chavez devalues Venezuelan currency to aid gov’t finances

"Venezuela devalued its bolivar currency on Friday by 32 percent in a widely expected move that will shore up government finances after ailing President Hugo Chavez's blowout election-year spending in 2012 but will also spur galloping inflation. The move slashes the official bolivar exchange rate to 6.3 per dollar from 4.3 under currency controls Chavez created in 2003 that require importers and travelers to apply for hard currency through a state agency. Dollars on the illegal black market had for weeks been fetching nearly four times the official exchange, which economists cited as a sign an exchange rate adjustment was imminent." Continue reading →

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Epileptic man mistaken for drug abuser beaten by Indianapolis police, lawsuit claims

"The man's sister, who works nearby, tried to advise officers that he was suffering from epilepsy and not under the influence of drugs, but the lawsuit says officers ignored her. Lynn was booked into jail on charges of resisting arrest, public intoxication and a felony count of disarming a police officer. Lynn's lawyer wrote that he never knowingly tried to grab the officer's Taser during the struggle, and the charges against Lynn were dismissed on Nov. 28, 2012. His lawsuit alleges false arrest, assault, false imprisonment and excessive force by the IMPD officers." Continue reading →

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U.S. Prison Population Seeing “Unprecedented Increase”

"The research wing of the U.S. Congress is warning that three decades of 'historically unprecedented' build-up in the number of prisoners incarcerated in the United States have led to a level of overcrowding that is now 'taking a toll on the infrastructure' of the federal prison system. Over the past 30 years, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the federal prison population has jumped from 25,000 to 219,000 inmates, an increase of nearly 790 percent. Swollen by such figures, for years the United States has incarcerated far more people than any other country, today imprisoning some 716 people out of every 100,000." Continue reading →

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U.S. Stepped In To Halt Mexican General’s Rise

"That back-channel communication provides a rare glimpse into the United States government’s deep involvement in Mexican security affairs. The American role in a Mexican cabinet pick also highlights the tensions and mistrust between the governments despite proclamations of cooperation and friendship. In the end, General García Ochoa did not get the job. Instead, it went to Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, who Mexican officials said had become close with Mr. Peña Nieto when he served as governor of the state of Mexico and General Cienfuegos commanded the area’s military base." Continue reading →

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Mexican Militias Fight Back Against Drug Lords, Accomplish What Authorities Could Not

"Outraged at relentless extortion, kidnapping and theft as a wave of drug-related violence washes over Mexico, farmers, shopkeepers and other residents in the mountainous southern state of Guerrero are taking the law into their own hands as 'community police.' 'We have to fight for everyone’s good so we decided to try to clear away all the bad people. We have to get rid of these animals because they are committing extortion in the community, the whole town and the people are fed up.'" Continue reading →

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“Gun Violence”: The “National Conversation” We Won’t Have

"According to Clarence Dupnik – the craven, dim-witted functionary who presides over the Pima County Sheriff’s Office – about fifty SWAT raids of the kind that led to the murder of Jose Guerena occur within his jurisdiction every year, which is shocking. In Baltimore County, Chief Johnson’s Einsatzgruppen conduct more than 120 attacks of that kind annually, which are among the 1,600 military assaults carried out in Maryland each year, a figure that is genuinely horrifying. Gun-related violence by government-licensed killers is ubiquitous – and it is also a forbidden subject in the 'national conversation' our rulers have orchestrated for their benefit." Continue reading →

Continue Reading“Gun Violence”: The “National Conversation” We Won’t Have

“Gun Violence”: The “National Conversation” We Won’t Have

"According to Clarence Dupnik – the craven, dim-witted functionary who presides over the Pima County Sheriff’s Office – about fifty SWAT raids of the kind that led to the murder of Jose Guerena occur within his jurisdiction every year, which is shocking. In Baltimore County, Chief Johnson’s Einsatzgruppen conduct more than 120 attacks of that kind annually, which are among the 1,600 military assaults carried out in Maryland each year, a figure that is genuinely horrifying. Gun-related violence by government-licensed killers is ubiquitous – and it is also a forbidden subject in the 'national conversation' our rulers have orchestrated for their benefit." Continue reading →

Continue Reading“Gun Violence”: The “National Conversation” We Won’t Have