"Two Sets of Rules: The New Jim Crow and Our Disturbing “Prison Problem” (with video)

MSNBC-Dylan Ratigan, with video (08:03):

Here at the Dylan Ratigan Show, we’ve been thinking a lot about the wide-ranging issue of “two sets of rules” in America — rules that are inherently beneficial to one part of the populace over another, picking “winners” and “losers” before the rest of us even get a chance to get on the field.

You already know how preferential treatment works in our tax system, our banking system, and our healthcare system. But perhaps the most troubling example of “two sets of rules” exists in the U.S. prison system with our systemic incarceration of young, black males — not to mention the devastating effects these statistics have on real lives and families in black communities around the country. MORE...

Howie P.S.: Also at the link above, scroll down: "Toure discussed “The New Jim Crow” in his Daily Rant," video,(03:50).

"ACLU & Elon James White: Just Say NO to the War On Drugs" (video)

acluvideos, with video (05:09):

Comedian Elon James White takes on America's failed forty-year war on drugs.
If you want to help stop the stupid war on drugs go to:

http://www.aclu.org/justsayno

Become a member of the ACLU and join the fight for a reasonable drug policy in America.

"Lawrence O’Donnell Explores Obama’s ‘Hypocrisy’ On The War On Drugs" (with video)

Mediaite with video (07:14) from MSNBC:

This week marked the 40-year anniversary of the “War on Drugs” launched by President Richard Nixon, and Lawrence O’Donnell “celebrated” by highlighting the alarming statistics on inmates in the past four decades and the racial disparity in legal arrests.

Opening his segment with a “Just Say No” 1987 PSA, O’Donnell noted the history of the War on Drugs before highlighting its impact: an increase from 500,000 to 2.3 million inmates between 1980 and 2009. Guest Michelle Alexander expanded more on those numbers, calling the war on drugs an “engine of mass incarceration” but noting that drug arrests affect minorities disproportionately despite the fact that “people of color are no more likely to use or sell drugs.” MORE...

"On 40th Anniversary Of War On Drugs, Cops Decry Obama's Drug Policy"

Lucia Graves (HuffPo):

Forty years after President Richard Nixon first declared a war on drugs, the officers who fought in it are calling for a truce.

Former law enforcement officials gathered in the District of Columbia on Tuesday to announce their new report. It details the failures of the government's long battle against illegal drugs and denounces the Obama administration's current drug policies.

"Since President Nixon declared 'war on drugs' four decades ago, this failed policy has led to millions of arrests, a trillion dollars spent and countless lives lost, yet drugs today are more available than ever," said Norm Stamper, former chief of police in Seattle and a speaker for legalization-advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. MORE...

Howie P.S.: You probably recognize Stamper in pinstripes in the photo above.

Ezra Klein: "What alignment of political forces and events would be needed for America to seriously rethink its drug laws?"

Ezra Klein (WaPo):

The Global Commission on Drug Policy recently reported back . What it said was what most everyone who's looked into this issue already knew: "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world." A new approach, one based more on realistic interventions than martial metaphors, is needed.

The news, however, was who was saying this: Former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. Former secretary of state George P. Schultz. Former president of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardozo. Former secretary-general of the United Nations Kofi Annan. Former president of Switzerland Ruth Dreifuss. And many more important "formers."

So here's my question: What alignment of political forces and events would be needed for America to seriously rethink its drug laws? Would it have to begin in the states? Is it something a law-and-order Republican needs to do?

Howie P.S.: Like the Global Commission, the news here is who is asking the question.

"Which causes more cancer, cannabis or its prohibition?"

Vivian McPeak (seattlepi.com-op/ed):

In 2009, there were roughly 858,400 arrests for cannabis in the United States. 758,000 of those arrests were for simple possession of the herb. Interestingly, in that same year only 581,000 Americans were arrested for violent crimes.
(Source: "Crime in the United States 2009," FBI Uniform Crime Report)

(SNIP)

The largest study looking for a link between cannabis and cancer concluded that even regular, chronic smokers of pot do not develop cancer. The study was done by University of California pulmonologist, Dr. Donald Tashkin, who said:

We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use. What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.

MORE...

"Raid of medical marijuana patient raises questions about law, search"

Casey McNerthney (seattlepi.com):

Earlier this month, Seattle police raided a Leschi residence for a suspected illegal marijuana grow.

They didn't find one.

The case has raised questions of why police took such action when officers' evidence that there might be a grow operation there was a window fan and an odor they thought came from marijuana plants. The case also underscores the difficulties police have telling the difference between an illegal pot grow and a medical marijuana grow.

"There's no way for police to know if someone's a medical marijuana patient or not; there's no registry that exists," Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said.

But Alison Holcolmb, drug policy director of the Washington ACLU chapter, said police didn't follow their own guidelines to address whether the person was a medical marijuana user and failed to do basic investigative steps. MORE...

2009 US Drug War Arrest Update: "758,593 were for pot possession"

StoptheDrugWar.org:

Despite more than a decade of reformist pressures, the drug war juggernaut continues to roll along, as the FBI's most recent arrest numbers show. US law enforcement agencies arrested 1,663,582 on drug charges last year, according to the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Report [5]. That represents a slight decrease from the previous year. Of those 1.6 million arrests, 858,408 were for marijuana offenses. Marijuana arrests thus accounted for 51.6% of all drug arrests, making 2009 the first year pot busts accounted for more than half of all drug arrests.

Of the marijuana arrests, 758,593 were for pot possession, while 99,815 were for sales or manufacturing. Thus, more than 88% of all marijuana arrests were for possession and more than 45% of all drug arrests were for pot possession.

Overall, drug possession arrests accounted for more than 81% of all drug arrests. Fewer than one in five drug arrests were for drug trafficking or manufacture.

While marijuana possession accounted for 45% of all drug arrests, possession of heroin or cocaine accounted for only 17.7% of all drug arrests, "other dangerous non-narcotic drugs" 14.6%, and "synthetic or manufactured drugs" 3.7%.

The more than 1.6 million people arrested on drug charges last year was nearly three times the number arrested for violent offenses (581,765). More people were arrested on drug charges than any other single offense, including drunk driving (1.44 million), larceny (1.33 million), or non-aggravated assaults (1.31 million).

Emery's prosecutor: "Our marijuana policy is dangerous and wrong and should be changed"

John McKay (Seattle Times op-ed):

As Emery's prosecutor and a former federal law-enforcement official, however, I'm not afraid to say out loud what most of my former colleagues know is true: Our marijuana policy is dangerous and wrong and should be changed through the legislative process to better protect the public safety. MORE...

"What Britain could learn from Portugal's drugs policy"

A cannabis smoker in Porto, Portugal, during a march in favour of legalising drugs. Photograph: Estela Silva/EPA

GuardianUK:

A decade ago Portugal took a radical new approach to illegal drugs by treating users as people with social problems rather than as criminals. Could it work in the UK?---In the midst of the recently resurgent debate in Britain about whether our drug laws are working – or require a major overhaul – the experience of Portugal has become a crucial piece of evidence in favour of a radical approach that has confounded the expectations of even its conservative critics, so much so that in the last month British officials have asked their Portuguese counterparts for advice, with the only caveat being that they avoid mentioning the word "decriminalise".

It is, perhaps, an unnecessary sensitivity. For the reality is that, despite liberalising how it regards drug possession – now largely an administrative problem rather than a criminal offence – Portugal has not become a magnet for drug tourists like Amsterdam, as some had predicted. MORE...

Howie P.S.: H/t to Glenn Greenwald.

"Is Obama Serious About Ending the War on Drugs?"

Coletta Youngers (AlterNet):

Obama has promised to do away with the war on drugs. So far, policy is lagging.---The rhetoric has changed. According to new U.S. "drug czar" Gil Kerlikowske, who heads the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the Obama administration doesn't use the term "drug war" because the government shouldn't be waging war against its own citizens. In March 2009, U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke described the opium poppy eradication effort in Afghanistan as "the most wasteful and ineffective program that I have seen in 40 years." He bluntly stated that the U.S. government had wasted millions of dollars on a counterproductive program that generates political support for the Taliban and undermines nation-building efforts. And in his trip to Peru this past April, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela noted that the fundamental problem is not coca cultivation itself, but poverty and inequality.MORE...

Kerlikowske: "New drug control strategy signals policy shift"

AP:

The new drug plan encourages health care professionals to ask patients questions about drug use even during routine treatment so that early intervention is possible. It also helps more states set up electronic databases to identify doctors who are over-prescribing addictive pain killers.

"Putting treatment into the primary health care discussion is critical," Kerlikowske said in an interview.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius pointed to research showing that kids who reach their 21st birthday without developing an addiction are less likely to develop an addiction when they're older.

"The goal here is to prevent and treat substance abuse before it becomes life threatening," she said.

The policy shift comes in the wake of several other drug policy reforms since Obama took office. Obama signed a measure repealing a two-decade old ban on the use of federal money for needle-exchange programs to reduce the spread of HIV. His administration also said it won't target medical marijuana patients or caregivers as long as they comply with state laws and aren't fronts for drug traffickers.

Earlier this year, Obama called on Congress to eliminate the disparity in sentencing that punishes crack crimes more heavily than those involving powder cocaine.

Some drug reform advocates like the direction Obama is heading, but question whether the administration's focus on treatment and prevention programs is more rhetoric than reality at this point. They point to the national drug control budget proposal released earlier this year, for example, which continues to spend about twice as much money on enforcement as it does on programs to reduce demand.

"The improved rhetoric is not matched by any fundamental shift in the budget or the broader thrust of the drug policy," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which favors drug policy reform.

Nadelmann praised some of Obama's changes, but said he is disappointed with the continued focus on arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating large numbers of people.
FULL STORY.

Sam Seder Talks to Ryan Grim: "Your Country on Drugs" (video)

golefttv, with video Pt. 1 (08:11) and Pt. 2 (09:39):

Since the first use of the term "war on drugs" by Richard Nixon, the campaign to rid America of illegal substances has been a failure. Drug use has remained constant in the 40 years since the start of the war on drugs, and the only thing that seems to change is which drugs people are using at any given time. But there's a reason that this campaign has failed, and it has less to do with people wanting to get high, and everything to do with our failure to understand why people choose to use drugs. Air America's Sam Seder talks about this with Ryan Grim, author of the new book, This is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America.

Al Giordano on drug policy: "Next time, ask a smarter question... and you might well get a smarter answer"

Al Giordano takes Obama to task

Adding insult to injury, the President’s response yesterday during his live online “Open for Questions” session to a query about marijuana policy in a mocking and mean-spirited tongue parted considerably with his “respect, empower, include” credo that has served him so well to date.

and makes a suggestion

That said, pot legalization activists and organizations that urged the “voting up” of many questions that were essentially the same as that which had already been answered back in December didn’t help the cause for a saner drug policy either. They played a role in this dance, too. In effect, they willingly stepped on the rake that today hit all drug policy reformers on the forehead.

A much smarter question to have rated up would have been something like the now fourth-place one at the Ask the President website:

I believe that one of the most ignored problems in this country is the massive cost, both social and economic, of the maintenance of our massive prison system. Especially during these difficult economic times, this is a cost that our country cannot continue to bear. What are your thoughts on the possibility of prison reform, especially in the area of drug crime?

Barack Obama

"Travel guru stands firm on war and weed"

Seattle P-I (Susan Paynter):

The main stage of Hempfest, broad daylight on Saturday and Sunday, in the middle of Myrtle Edwards Park, is no place for smokescreens and timid souls.

But, then, even if it costs him clients and endorsements, travel guru Rick Steves has never been a shrinking violet when it comes to speaking his mind.

He opposes the war in Iraq. And, as he has seen done across Europe, he flies a peace flag outside his Edmonds headquarters despite the fact that, when it went up, an angry man approached sneering, "Boy! I bet if you realized how much that cost your business, you'd think twice!"

He wouldn't.

It is Steves' deep, internationally informed opposition to this country's criminalizing of personal marijuana use that will send him to the Hempfest stage.

"I'm not going to sit at (Edmonds') Fifth and Main streets and smoke a joint," Steves told me. "But 800,000 people in the U.S. were arrested last year for marijuana while, in Berne (Switzerland) they're in public, smoking and playing backgammon and not bothering anyone. It (criminal prosecution) forces people into the street to deal with scary people. It's just so wrong."

I caught up with Steves -- he was on the Danube -- by phone this week. He was taking a flight home on Friday. Among other things, I wanted to ask if such public stances cost him.

We live, after all, in a world of maximized profits and secret agendas where we must excavate before finding out that a billionaire Sonics owner gave money to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on John Kerry and to a group dedicated to banning marriage rights for gays.

Steves supports apple pie issues as well as sticky ones. Weeks ago he gave $80,000 to American Forests for 80,000 trees as a hedge against the CO2 generated by the flights of his "Europe Through the Back Door" tour members. He renovated and donated the use of 24 Lynnwood apartments to the Trinity Project's transitional housing for single mothers and their kids. "I can't imagine the weight of having no money, no roof over my head, no job and small children to care for," he says.

He gives $30,000 a year to Bread for the World and challenges 300 of his travelers to give $300 each. And he supports Mercy Corps. "If you know what's good for you, you don't want to be 'filthy rich' in a desperately poor world," Steves says.

Being anti-war and pro-weed aren't as easy. "But I won't be quiet because it's better for business," Steves told me. "Why would I compromise my ideals just to make more? I marvel at those who are 10 times as wealthy as me who don't speak out because they want to make even more. I'm having too much fun with my work to worry if a few people wonder, 'Can I trust this pot head?' "

While visiting Germany, Steves has talked with those who recall shops there replacing the usual morning greeting with "sieg heil" because it was better for business. "I don't want to live in a 'sieg heil' world," he said. "It's better to speak out earlier than later."

Steves' frustration over both punitive drug policies and people's unwillingness to even speak against them drove him to regularly shout "MARIJUANA!" out the open windows of his Edmonds offices a while back. He'd remembered his human sexuality professor at UPS years ago saying, "Penis!" over and over simply to get students over the shock of it.

"The whole marijuana thing is awareness just like (educating the public that) gay people are not going to infect your children or give you AIDS. Someone who smokes marijuana is not a bad person. In fact, they're probably gentle, creative people."

He first tried it in Afghanistan at age 22 and, yes, he still smokes, but not when he's working. Then, he laughs, he can't afford to be that "relaxed."

Off camera and off mike, so many people who interview Steves on radio and TV whisper "Right on!" to him but only a few celebrities and high-profilers risk saying it out loud. "We're embracing a lie in a country based on truth and freedom," Steves said. "And it hurts the credibility of parents and teachers and the police. If I were a kid, I wouldn't listen to any of them."

Actually, if he gets time to explain and contrast the medical "harm-reduction" policies of Europe with the moral and legal approach of the U.S., feedback shows that at least half of the people who hear him agree.

He gets more static about his stance on the war. A woman traveler booking with one of Steves' many B&B contacts in Europe recently signed her reservation letter with, "God bless our troops!" And, when the host wrote back that she was welcome but that he probably wouldn't be blessing her troops, she objected angrily that Steves would list such a man in one of his travel books.

He says you have to take a tough-love approach with people who are that ethnocentric in their outlook. Being open and non-judgmental is the very essence of travel. And, whether it's war or weed, Steves is in a position to speak up and let the chips -- and the ashes -- fall where they may.

IF YOU GO

Rick Steves will speak at Seattle Hempfest at 4 p.m. Saturday and 3:45 p.m. Sunday on the Main Stage at Myrtle Edwards Park.

"One Democrat's different stand"

DeWayne Wickham (Gannett News):

Of the eight Democrats vying for their party's presidential nomination, I think it's fair to say former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel is the longest of the long shots.

In presidential preference polls, support for him hovers around 1 percent. When it comes to fundraising, his campaign coffers are nearly bare. So it's not surprising journalists tend to treat Gravel as a gadfly.

And that's what I thought of him late last month when I sat across from the Democratic presidential candidates on the stage of Howard University's Crampton Auditorium.

I was one of the three journalists who got to question the full field of Democratic contenders during a PBS presidential forum hosted by Tavis Smiley.

The 90-minute, nationally televised program was billed as a chance for the candidates to "address issues of concern to black America." And a Who's Who of black America showed up to hear what they had to say.

Actors Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee were there. So were novelist Terry McMillan and poet Sonya Sanchez. Political activist Al Sharpton and intellectual Cornell West showed up. So did several members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

When the eight Democrats came on stage, they were introduced by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, the only sitting black governor and only the second black governor ever.

Virtually everyone was there to see and hear the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination — New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. In both their polling numbers and money raised, they are light years ahead of Gravel.

But when the forum ended, it was what Gravel said that I found most intriguing.

When journalist Michel Martin of NPR asked the candidates what they would do about the "scourge" of HIV/AIDS infection among black teenagers, Gravel's answer, though not on point, hit an important mark.

"The scourge of our present society, particularly in the African-American community, is the war on drugs," Gravel said in response to a question about the high rate of HIV/AIDS infections among black teenagers.

Then he said this about the other Democrats on the stage: "If they really want to do something about the inner cities, if they really want to do something about what's happening to the health of the African-American community, it's time to end this war. There's no reason to continue it in the slightest. All it does is create criminals out of people who are not criminals."

His words drew applause from the mostly black audience, but not even a nod of agreement from the other Democrats on stage with him.

Maybe it's the certainty of his "also-ran" status that emboldened Gravel to call for an end to the drug war. Maybe he just wanted to make a splash among the sea of reporters that turned out to cover this gathering. Maybe what is said was really heartfelt. I don't know.

What I do know is that America's drug war has taken a heavy toll in black communities across this country.

Disproportionately, blacks are arrested and imprisoned for nonviolent drug crimes. In 2005, blacks — who are 12 percent of the nation's population — made up 34 percent of the people arrested for drug abuse violations, according to the FBI's 2005 Crime in the United States report.

While physicians understand that drug abuse is a medical problem, far too many black drug users end up with criminal records that reduce their chances of finding a job and escaping the gravitational pull of the drug culture.

That's not the fate that befalls people like Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears, who go in and out of drug treatment centers without fear of being jailed for using illegal substances.

A law enforcement sting caught former Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, who is black, using crack cocaine, and he was sent to prison.

But many high-profile white drug abusers are allowed to go to the Betty Ford Clinic to kick their habit instead of being sent to jail.

Gravel appears to understand the unfairness of this nation's drug war. And in calling for its end, he shows more courage than the Democratic Party's other presidential wannabes.