Drugs & Prohibitions

John Whitehead: Turning public schools into forts

"As surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero-tolerance policies, lockdowns, drug-sniffing dogs and strip searches become the norm in elementary, middle and high schools across the nation, America is on a fast track to raising up an Orwellian generation — one populated by compliant citizens accustomed to living in a police state and who march in lockstep to the dictates of the government. With every school police raid and overzealous punishment that is carried out in the name of school safety, the lesson being imparted is that Americans — especially young people — have no rights at all against the state or the police." Continue reading →

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DEA agrees to pay $4.1 milllion to student they locked in a cell for days

"A San Diego, California college student was awarded $4.1 million in a settlement with the federal government on Tuesday, ending his lawsuit against the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for leaving him in a holding cell for five days with no food or water in April 2012. KNSD-TV reported that no criminal charges will be brought against the officers involved in the incident, which began when the victim, 24-year-old Daniel Chong, was taken to a DEA office following a raid by a task force made up of DEA, state and local officers on a '420' party Chong attended." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDEA agrees to pay $4.1 milllion to student they locked in a cell for days

Reevaluating Drug Courts: No Mother Should Have to Go Through What I Did

"July, 4 2013 was the first anniversary of my son's death. My son was a vibrant, well-educated, working professional in New York City. We know that he was in a crisis situation. We know that he could not present himself to the emergency room without breaking his probation. We know that the state's 911 Good Samaritan Law wouldn't have protected him because he was already involved with the criminal justice system. On the day he died, he didn't go to the hospital for a relapse as we practiced time and time again; he did not call 911 as he had before. He passed away in his home in Manhattan, even though he lived one block from Lenox Hill Hospital." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingReevaluating Drug Courts: No Mother Should Have to Go Through What I Did

Massachusetts smokers try to get ahead of new cigarette tax

"The state's newest transportation bill will raise taxes on gas, services on computer software upgrades and cigarettes. Gas will go up three cents a gallon. And you'll be paying a dollar more if you buy a pack of cigarettes and $10 more if you buy a carton. State legislators estimate the new taxes will raise $800 million in the next five years. The added revenue will be used for transportation projects and to help sustain public transit." Continue reading →

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Appeals court upholds decision to block New York City soda ban

"New York City’s plan to ban large sugary drinks from restaurants and other eateries was an illegal overreach of executive power, a state appeals court ruled on Tuesday, upholding a lower court decision in March that struck down the law. The law, which would have prohibited those businesses from selling sodas and other sugary beverages larger than 16 ounces, 'violated the state principle of separation of powers,' the First Department of the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division said in a unanimous decision. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had advanced the regulation as a way to combat obesity among city residents." Continue reading →

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Preliminary Hearing: D.C. vs Kokesh

"Adam’s lawyer pressed the witness to describe the shotgun that was found in Herndon, and the witness could not name the model, but stated that it was the same shape and color as the one portrayed in the video. When asked if he knew what a green screen was, Detective Freeman noted that he 'knew they existed” but that he 'was not a video forensics analyst'. Judge Sullivan stated that it was ‘ridiculous to question’ the authenticity of the video, because Adam had ‘racked a shotgun for all the world to see’. It remains to be seen whether the facts will overcome the overwhelming bias that Judge Sullivan showed in the opening act of this high-profile case." Continue reading →

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The Heartbreaking Story Of A Harmless Deadhead Sentenced To Die In Prison

"Timothy Tyler was 25 when he was sentenced to die in prison. Tyler, a Grateful Dead fan with no history of violence, got life without the possibility of parole for selling LSD to a police informant. He'd never gone to prison before. But a judge was forced to give him life because of two prior drug convictions — even though both those convictions resulted in probation. At 45, Tyler has been in prison for more than 20 years and will likely spend the rest of his life there. He got the same life sentence as rapist and kidnapper Ariel Castro because of federal mandatory minimum sententence guidelines." Continue reading →

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Undercover Police Informant Plants Crack Cocaine in Smoke Shop; Business Owner Saved by Tape

"Who exactly is the victim when crack cocaine is found on someone’s person or property? Maybe the owner of that property? In Scotia, New York, local and county police decided they were suspicious of Donald Andrew’s smoke shop, one of many in Schenectady County but, according to Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing, apparently the only one owned by a black person. They sent an informant, someone facing jail time of their own, to, er, 'investigate.' Here’s what happened, via the local NBC affiliate,WNYT." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUndercover Police Informant Plants Crack Cocaine in Smoke Shop; Business Owner Saved by Tape

Is Nicotine Really Any Different Than Caffeine?

"E-cigarette users are developing their own 'café culture,' encouraged by e-cigarette manufacturers. The Lorillard label blu offers e-cigarette cases that emit a signal and notify users when other blu cases are nearby—a kind of Tinder for the vaping set. The odds of finding a match are growing: Roughly one-fifth of adults who smoke conventional cigarettes have tried their electronic counterparts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in February. Six percent of all adults have tried them, almost double the percentage in 2010. Looming regulations could dampen some of these developments." Continue reading →

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Cannabis Kills MRSA, Disrupts Prion Diseases

"Marijuana is a potent antibiotic that can kill methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and disrupt the progression of prion diseases such as Mad Cow disease and Creutzfeld-Jakob disease — just don't expect the federal government to tell you any of this. The factoids come from TheAnswerPage.com - a medical information resource for doctors sponsored by The Massachusetts Medical Society, publisher of the New England Journal of Medicine. The federal government, as directed by Congress, still maintains that cannabis is a dangerous 'schedule 1' drug with no medical use and high potential for abuse." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCannabis Kills MRSA, Disrupts Prion Diseases